Commenter Elizabeth from the Great Bay Foundation suggests an interesting twist on collaboration (scroll down to Comment #26) that I think deserves some additional exploration.
While non-profits are increasingly encouraged to form partnerships in responding to grant applications and delivering services, there is no corresponding coordination of resources on the funder side of the equation. I see this all the time in my work with Department of Labor-funded programs where it's more common than not to have several grants funding virtually the same thing, but only for the "start-up" phase, often leaving non-profits in the lurch when it comes to building up to a sustainable program.
To address this issue, Elizabeth suggests that funders should collaborate to fund various phases of a particular initiative so that non-profits are in a better position to build the capacity and infrastructure to support longer-term growth. For example, one funder might fund the "start-up" costs of a particular initiative, while another might come in a year or two later to provide resources that support expanding the idea.
What I think is interesting is that in the corporate world, for-profit companies are often able to access large sums of capital at various phases of their organizational growth through venture funding, etc. While there may be some strings attached to that funding, in general they are able to go to their "funders" and say "This is what we want to do and this is the money we're looking for to do it. Want to pony up?"
Non-profits generally don't have that option. Instead, some funder puts out a request for proposals, describing in sometimes excruciating detail exactly what they want. Non-profits are then forced to create a program that meets those requirements and tries to make it "fit" their mission. Then they get money for a year or two to do what the funder decided they should do. And if the non-profit isn't able to locate a new source of funding (which is often difficult, given that funders aren't talking to each other and they each want to put their own "stamp" on what the program should be), then the program is generally finished once the intitial dollars dry up.
I think it would be really interesting to see what would happen if funders coordinated their resources, just as they expect NPOs to do. The question is, what is the mechanism for making that happen?
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