The grant space is competitive, especially if you’re seeking government funding for nonprofits. There’s limited funding to go around, and with 30% of nonprofits receiving some of their funding from the government, you might have trouble getting the support your nonprofit needs.
Nonprofits can team up to maximize their funding chances and impact. Organizations can share resources and create more compelling proposals when they work together. With the right strategy, your nonprofit can successfully work with other groups to develop life-changing programs.
Standing out from the crowd is always challenging, but the grant space is especially small. Everyone working to secure funding has a mission in mind that will support their communities in some way. When nonprofits work together, it shows that they’re thinking beyond their organization and putting the community first. A well-structured partnership demonstrates your ability to plan, collaborate and manage projects long-term.
Funders want to see funds make a difference for more than one group. When you combine resources, your nonprofits:
Grantmakers are going to assess your nonprofit for risk and success. Standing alone means you have fewer resources and a more limited impact. However, a nonprofit partnership means you have more reach and less risk. If a project is slowed or there’s confusion, nonprofits can help each other, which limits risk. Working together demands a well-structured plan and processes. You’ll stand out and bring more to the table for grantmakers.
If you’ve decided to collaborate on your grant proposals, your nonprofit needs to seek out strong, reliable partnerships. Find organizations that support your mission and have resources that can benefit you, and ensure you have a solid vetting process to ensure you get a partnership that benefits everyone.
Use these steps to approach the process:
Your nonprofit can look for other nonprofits with similar priorities or government agencies. Both groups focus on supporting communities without profit expectations. Nonprofit government collaborations are common. Governments often have the funding and data, while your nonprofit brings community connections. Regardless of who you choose to partner with, you need to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Once you’ve found the right partner, it’s time to get to work. Even partnerships that share missions and values might run into challenges. The best way to tackle these obstacles is to be ready for them. That means investing in a strategy to avoid confusion later.
Use these best practices to cultivate a successful nonprofit partnership.
Clear expectations and planning will go a long way in your partnership. Nonprofits should define what each group does and what success looks like. Outline your shared goals, critical outcomes, milestones and how you’ll measure progress for your team. Who will handle reporting? How is service delivery divided? How are you mainly communicating? Set all of your expectations and goals up ahead of time to avoid confusion.
Next, establish roles and responsibilities. If you have a lead agency, who is that? Decide in advance who will manage the budget, submit the grant and track compliance. This approach eliminates duplicate work and keeps everyone accountable for their roles.
You also need a governance structure. Who has authority over budget or program changes? How will you resolve disagreements? A joint governance structure makes everyone feel involved and keeps projects moving.
Partnering with a nonprofit means collaborating. Your grant proposal should tell a story of your shared vision. Grant awarders must have a clear sense of how your nonprofits will contribute to the end goal and how you’ll achieve measurable results.
Collaboration doesn’t mean everyone is involved in everything — that’s too complicated. Instead, it’s about communication, delegation and cooperation. Here’s how you can work collaboratively:
Whether you’re writing a grant proposal or managing a grant, the right tools transform your process. Grant management software is critical for any grant-related project. Software offers shared dashboards, automated workflows and compliance checking. Nonprofits can see project progress, communicate quickly and use centralized storage to optimize grant handling.
Plus, management tools offer audit trails and automated reminders. You can use these features to improve team accountability. Nonprofit partners can see what’s pending, who is working on projects and when they’re due. You’ll reduce missed deadlines and have a digital trail that simplifies funding reviews or grant audits. With personalized software, nonprofit teams can adjust dashboards to their unique mission and streamline collaboration.
Ongoing communication is essential for nonprofit teams. Set up timelines for milestones and schedule regular check-ins. These allow teams to stay on the same page and help avoid miscommunication.
Give your projects room for errors — allow partners to flag potential risks so you can discuss them together. Invest in shared feedback so all parties feel involved. Nonprofit groups should use secure, digital platforms to share feedback and provide timeline updates so everyone understands where the project stands. Better communication leads to smooth, more successful grant projects.
Nonprofits working together must pay close attention to compliance, as more people can make it easier to miss important compliance steps. Funders expect clear documentation on fund use, managers and reporting. You need proper planning and safeguards to prevent compliance problems.
Use agreements or contracts to lay out compliance and fiscal responsibilities. Who is handling reporting, documentation and evaluation? Nonprofits need performance tracking to prevent audit issues. Invest in a grant management tool and assign overlapping roles to double-check compliance without confusing teams about who is responsible.
Your collaboration isn’t over with the grant cycle. From multi-year programs to one-time projects, treat partnerships as long-term investments. If you stay transparent with decision-making, reporting and finances, you’ll build a lasting bond.
Make sure to share credit with the other nonprofit and keep communicating. If you invest in the relationship, you’ll keep the door open for future projects. Strong networking is key to making the biggest community impact.
Complacency makes it easy to miss critical milestones. Don’t wait for the final submission or report to assess the collaboration — use regular check-ins to evaluate your progress.
What’s going well? Do certain teams need more support? If there’s a roadblock, adjust. Continuous improvement pushes your teams to become stronger and more capable. Partnerships should learn and grow together to create the most effective proposals and initiatives.
Challenges are common for nonprofit teams. Even if you’re working toward the same goal, you might hit some snags. Preparation is nonnegotiable. Once you know the common challenges to expect, you can prepare your teams effectively. It’s common to see challenges in communication, workload and funding. The better partnerships respond to problems, the smoother your process.
With multiple groups and teams splitting the grant process, it’s easy to lose communication. If teams are having communication issues, you’ll see slow progress and strained partnerships. Staying in contact and establishing clear boundaries is critical to avoid this.
A grant memorandum of understanding or other detailed agreement prevents communication concerns. Make sure nonprofits outline their expectations to keep everyone clear on their goals. Feel free to revise these as you get further into the project.
When one partner takes on more work, it leads to tension. Nonprofits might also feel excluded from the process if one group handles more of the major decisions.
Divide work evenly ahead of time and revisit regularly. Meetings let everyone communicate their progress and workloads. Grant management tools also help distribute workloads more evenly. Transparency and open-mindedness keep everyone’s responsibilities balanced without hurt feelings.
Funding is a sensitive topic in any industry. But nonprofits managing grants are especially exposed to funding conflicts. Questions about budget control, fund distribution and permitted expenses can become tense discussions. If nonprofits have vague agreements, making assumptions about funding is easy.
Use clear outlines in the planning stage to establish how you’ll allocate funds, who will handle financial reporting and how teams will make budget decisions. If one organization is leading financials, write out its responsibilities and limitations. Shared budget tracking tools make tracking expenses and approvals easier while supporting compliance.
A lack of clarity is another challenge solved by clear planning and communication. Sometimes, nonprofits fail to define roles, authorities and expectations upfront.
Make sure you’re implementing shared timelines, check-ins and upfront agreements to define all roles and expectations. Even the kinds of tools you’ll be using need clarity. If teams are working with different tools or formats, they may not combine easily. Set plans and preferences upfront to avoid delays related to confusion.
Data tools streamline collaboration, but they can also lead to security challenges. Client information, performance data and financial information are all risks for your nonprofits. If there’s confusion around data management or you choose the wrong management tool, you risk compliance issues and data leaks. Plus, if teams lack the data they need, grant proposals and processes will stall.
Avoid data sharing issues with documentation on data ownership and access protocols — delegate data collection, anonymization and sharing before starting projects. Nonprofits should only work from platforms with strong data security. Look for grant management software that uses industry-standard security protocols and invests in regular updates. With secure protocols and audit trails, you can protect critical data while giving relevant users access.
Collaboration opens new doors in grant management, but it’s even more effective with the right tools. IntelliGrants® IGX empowers nonprofits to manage the grant life cycle with transparency and ease. Our personalized solution offers everything from workflow automation and shared dashboards to real-time reporting and collaboration tools. IntelliGrants IGX is built for agencies that need to coordinate and track critical data.
If you’re looking to cut down on administrative challenges and streamline grant management, IGX Solutions is here to help. Schedule your demo today!
