First Steps in Planning a CO Grantmaking Program

The Community Organizing Toolbox

FIRST STEPS IN PLANNING A CO GRANTMAKING PROGRAM

Now that you are ready to begin CO grantmaking, here is a checklist of steps to follow in getting started.⁷⁶ You can also review the two following case studies, for a look at how each planned a CO grantmaking program.

Educate Yourself About CO

	Think about how CO might relate to your institution's mission, reviewing current grant priorities to determine how a CO strategy might fit. What might it replace or reduce, and how might it contribute to strengthening your current efforts? Review the Toolbox to answer any new questions you've raised. For more information, consult additional resources on NFG's Web site at www.nfg.org.
	Prioritize what you've learned and begin to discuss it with colleagues at your institution. Then, identify colleagues from other funding institutions who are supporting CO and spend time talking in depth with them about what they have learned. Ask about particular individuals and groups in the CO field they would recommend you contact.
	Follow-up and do some personal reconnoitering. When you have identified a CO group that you're interested in, schedule and hold an informational meeting with them. Explain beforehand that you are simply exploring ideas. Do not convey any false impressions about the availability of possible grant dollars to the groups you visit.
	After you've gained some comfort with a group or groups, plan a more complete site visit to one or more of them and make sure to include discussions with community leaders involved with the group.

Educate Your Institution About CO

	Develop an internal strategy for your institution to begin discussing CO. Seek advice about your strategy and plans for initiating a grants program from colleagues in other foundations, understanding that each institution is unique and must consider factors that you may or may not have to consider. Develop talking points from these discussions and prioritize them.
	Hold internal meetings that are carefully planned to assure that your objectives for them are met. Seek to make step-by-step progress, solidifying support for each step before moving on. If there is resistance to CO, be sure to develop a strategy that minimizes possible opposition. Identify your allies, and share with them what you have learned and any conclusions you've developed.
	Put in writing your institution's CO grantmaking initiative. Your plan for a CO grants program may be best presented to your institutional colleagues in draft, and/or in pieces, so that there can be careful study and dialogue without lengthy meetings. Consider everything from the size and type of grants to how you want to address or account for particularly difficult challenges.
	Give serious consideration to providing core support for CO groups, as contrasted with project support. If you conclude that this is the best funding approach, as most CO leaders will urge, be well prepared to counter challenges from your colleagues with evidence from the field and thoughts from CO funders. Be sure to anticipate the questions and concerns of institutional colleagues and prospective grantees.
	To build support and educate yourself and your colleagues, spot and take advantage of opportunities to bring in persuasive community leaders who are invested in CO. Ask them to share their experiences with your trustees and staff colleagues. Prepare the invited leaders ahead of time for what might be the most important thoughts and feelings to consider.
	Proceed carefully to gain agreements within your institution. Be certain about what is being agreed to and what is not. Try to build ownership and enthusiasm for the CO grantmaking program. Take and convey the attitude that it is not your program but the institution's, and that it needs to be seen by the institution as a long-term endeavor.

Launch Your Institution's CO Grantmaking Program

Don't go public with your plans until all of your ducks are in line and the new grantmaking program has been approved. For your launch, prepare clear and specific materials to distribute to CO groups - include goals and objectives of the program, guidelines for proposals, etc. Your materials should convey your chosen grantmaking approach and the rationale for it. Anticipate and plan for what will happen when your grants program goes public, and make sure that you have staffed the effort adequately.

Be ready to quickly and accurately answer a wide range of inquiries once you've gone public. You may be asked to meet with CO groups, other funders and persons within your institution. You will have to play a significant, ongoing role in ensuring the program gets off to a great start and fulfills your expectations for it. Count on spending much more time than you envisioned to make it a truly responsive and effective program. It will be worth it!

⁷⁶ Drawn from Spence Limbocker, Making the Case - Supporting Grassroots Leadership Development, Neighborhood Funders Group, prepared for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, February, 2000.

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