Writing Successful Grants KnowledgeBase

This KnowledgeBase archive includes content and external links that were accurate and relevant as of September 30, 2019.

The Writing Successful Grants KnowledgeBase is an online resource aiding education professionals in their pursuit of public and private grants to support local programs. Its five elements contain information and resources that assist the grant seeker with developing their project, writing the grant proposal and managing the grant upon its award.

Task 5: Define Role for Collaborators

Guideline: Collaborators may be other entities within the grant seeker's organization, community groups, units of government or local businesses. The project plan should define each collaborators role and contribution to the project. A table listing collaborators with their agreed upon role and responsibility is a useful summary in the proposal's appendix. Asking each collaborator to write a letter of support for the grant proposal gives credence to their involvement. When requesting support letters, it is helpful to include a sample support letter with the request. The request letter should indicate whom the letter should be addressed to, the purpose of the letter and give guidance on its content. Collaborator support letters should be included in the proposal's appendix.

Resources

References

Factors Facilitating Inter-Organizational Collaboration

This chart looks at the four levels of collaboration in terms of relationship, mission/goals, risk, resource sharing, investment and process. As organizations interact with each other, their leadership needs to understand the level of relationship they are aiming to achieve. This chart may be useful for grant seekers as they reach out to other organizations to participate in their project.

Practical Tips

Building Inter-Organizational Collaboration

This document offers a summary of lessons learned from a grant project bringing together seven social agencies to create, implement and institutionalize a community-based service network of informal and formal family support programs to help prevent child abuse and neglect. Though the source article specifically addresses the experiences from the child abuse and neglect project, the lessons learned are applicable to any situation where several organizations are attempting to work together to accomplish a set of project goals.