Learn how local funders:
Grantmakers Partner to Create New Project
Grantmakers appreciate a well-written proposal, but they are increasingly open about wanting to be included in the development of new programs. In fact, funders are banding together in formal and informal collaboratives to identify community-wide problems and launch their own initiatives to solve them.
“Grantmakers are often in the forefront of community change,” notes Pauline M. Seitz, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Funding Partnerships (LFP) program. “Many funders invest their time, expertise and social capital to create ambitious projects. Some of the best proposals for LFP matching grants reflect the active engagement of local grantmakers.”
Coordinate vs. Collaborate
In St. Louis, MO a group of six health funders met regularly to share ideas and coordinate funding. However, they found that coordinating grants was sometimes frustrating. “When one grantmaker funds an after-school program and another funds a six-week summer program, they may be great programs but we are still not addressing children’s comprehensive needs,” explains Bridget Flood, executive director of the
Incarnate Word Foundation. “We are putting our fingers in the dike when we need to build a new dike.”
So in 2004 they decided to pool their resources around a single project. “We always encourage the grantees and the nonprofits to collaborate,” says Sister Joan Kuester, executive director of the Daughters of Charity Healthcare Foundation of St. Louis. “How about us?”
Choosing a Problem
Family and corporate foundations joined the collaborative. Nine committed funders began meeting monthly. “It’s not only about the money,” notes Ann Vazquez, president and CEO of the Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis. “More partners at the table, focusing on the same issue, means better thinking.”
They focused on the problems of 18-year-olds who “age out” of the foster care system. The funders studied the needs of former foster youth and learned how these teens struggle to live on their own without housing, financial support or health care.
Over two years the funders considered ways to change social services and affect public policies. They identified nonprofit agencies to organize new programs and nominated Epworth Children and Family Services for a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). In 2007 RWJF awarded Epworth a $500,000 LFP grant to match the investment of the local funders and launch the “Aging Out of Foster Care Initiative.”
Organizing a Collaborative
Meanwhile, in Boca Raton, FL a grant application to a family foundation called attention to children who are burdened with the grown-up responsibility of caring for an ill or disabled family member. “This was a very serious issue and no one was really addressing it,” recalls Maria Levix, executive director of the Schmidt Family Foundation. She contacted her counterpart Betsi Kassebaum, executive director of the Toppel Family Foundation.
“A nonprofit agency may see the work as ‘their project,’” says Kassebaum, “but sometimes the issues are so great, it’s our problem--our community’s problem.” She and Levix networked with a core group of grantmakers with whom they had funded children’s programs in the past. “They don’t all need to give the same amount of money,” Kassebaum explains. “We ask what resources can they bring?” In this case funding partners brought the school district and hospital leadership to the table to explore new ways to support these children and their families.
Applying for LFP Matching Dollars
About three months into the pilot phase of the Caregiving Youth Project, Levix raised the possibility of applying for an LFP matching grant. The project’s strong commitment from local grantmakers and community groups, the identification of a vulnerable population and development of a promising new solution seemed to meet the LFP criteria. By the time of the site visit, the funders’ collaborative had been together almost a year. In 2007 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation joined the partnership with a $500,000 four-year matching grant to Volunteers for the Homebound and Family Caregivers, Inc.
To learn more about local funding partnerships, please click on the red links at the top of this page.
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