How can you engage partners in grantmaking?

It involves building collaborative relationships with organizations, funders, and stakeholders to identify funding priorities. Establish a shared vision and common goals for developing a grantmaking process. Aligned with each partner's mission and objectives receive commitment and ownership.

Engaging partners in grantmaking involves building strong relationships with grantees, aligning visions and values, and creating open communication channels. According to a practical guide to collaboration in grantmaking by NonProfit PRO, foundations and nonprofits must come together to openly dialogue and exchange ideas on how to best approach their common goals. This approach requires grantmakers to see themselves as true partners with grantees, not as a one-and-done transaction.

To build trust-based funder-grantee partnerships, the Institute for Family recommends building trust, aligning vision and values, engaging communities, and setting them up for success. Additionally, grantmakers can involve community members in their decision-making process by creating safe spaces for open and honest dialogue, informing and consulting with non-grantmakers, and ultimately moving towards shared decision-making[3][5]. By engaging partners in grantmaking, grantmakers can ensure that their investments are making an impact, foster meaningful relationships with their grantees, and create a philanthropic grantmaking culture that is functional and effective.

Research organizations, institutions who share similar goals and values and have commentary strengths. Look for organizations with liked mines or overlapping areas but bring different expertise or resources to the table.

Define roles and responsibilities of each partner. Clarify expectations regarding participation in Grant reviews, decision-making, and ongoing management of funded projects. Establish a process for accountability to track process, and learn from successes and challenges.

There is a case to be made that any form of agreement or written understanding involving collaboration under different entities should not happen prior to actually deciding upon a grant to make application. The other critical reality to face that in the world of grants there is not such thing as equal partners. You will constantly find that in grants promoting collaboration there will be a requirement that there only be one prime applicant and grant recipient which will be held accountable for financial and project performance and compliance. Therefore, once an understanding is reached on pursuit of a specific grant, the written MOU or agreement needs to acknowledge that one entity is prime and controls the process.

Conduct regular evaluations of the grantmaking process to assess effectiveness, identify areas of improvement, and incorporate feedback from partners.

Engage in cross-sector collaborations with partners from diverse backgrounds, including non-profits, businesses, and government agencies. Collaborating across sectors can bring together different expertise, resources, and perspectives to drive innovation.

There is a significant uptick in the push for collaboration from funders. Yes, collaboration is great but you must define the terms. For example, I used to deliver youth programming in collaboration with other partners but what I learned is not all partners valued the partnership within the same metrics as I did. It was my responsibility to determine if partners were the right fit for me instead of forcing collaborations to serve more youth. On the other hand there are collaborations between partners that are seasonal/temporary in nature. Those partners are partners. For example, when I delivered youth programming ... If a child needed basic needs, I had a partner for that. If a child needed trauma referrals, I had a partner for that too.