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Service Delivery


Forming, Funding, and Maintaining Partnerships and Collaborations


Where is funding available for community partnerships or collaborations?


Funding agencies are placing an increasing importance on partnerships and collaborations in making decisions on how to allocate their resources. In fact, a growing number of funding opportunities from both private and government sources now require some sort of partnership or collaboration. Or if a partnership or collaboration is not a requirement, funders may look upon applications more favorably if they involve cooperation between two or more groups or organizations.

On occasion, funding may be offered only to those who can demonstrate a functioning partnership or collaboration, along with some history of cooperative activities. In this case, funds may be intended to help expand or refine the current work of existing partnerships or collaborations. In addition, the work of partnerships or collaborations tends to evolve—that is, it may start by focusing on a narrow range of issues and expand its focus over time. This can be advantageous because as the scope of the work broadens more funding sources are likely to become available.

This does not mean that only well-established partnerships have a chance of receiving public or private dollars to support their work. Some funders are interested in helping to establish such relationships in local communities, either in general or related to particular issues. For example, funds may be made available to support activities such as planning meetings between potential partners, establishment of new modes of communication (such as a new database, joint staff meetings, or cross- training), and hiring staff to help coordinate or facilitate the new partnership.

Thus, one important issue to consider when reviewing funding announcements from either public or private agencies is the match between the local partnership or collaboration development and the focus of the funders. Because there is no broadly established definition of the terms "community partnership" and "collaboration", there may also be some differences in how funders use the terms. As a result, it may require exploring a number of sources over a period of time to find the right match between the level of development of partnerships and collaborations envisioned by funders and the level of development that exists locally.


More Information

What follows are some links to Web-based information about potential funding sources both specifically for partnerships and collaborations as well as other types of applicants. There may be some links to duplicate information in the Web sites but each site also contains unique information about funding sources, and procedures and advice on applying for funding. The information posted to the sites may change frequently as new funding opportunities become available so checking sites regularly for new funding announcements is a good idea. It may require some time before an opportunity is available that fits local needs (such as development of a new collaboration or partnership).

  • The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention provides a number of links of different types of funding organizations, both public and private, that provide funds for efforts focused on substance abuse as well as other social issues impacting children and families www.samhsa.gov/centers.

  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Web site provides information about several categories of available funding as well as links to other related sites www.hhs.gov/agencies. In addition, GrantsNet provides information on how to write grants, provides the required forms, and funding information from a selected group of other agencies www.hhs.gov/grantsnet.

  • The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provides a list of funding opportunities available through its Centers. These funding opportunities can support a range of issues and funding is offered periodically for forming partnerships and collaborations, generally through the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment Practice/Research Collaboratives Program www.samhsa.gov/funding.

  • The Office of Justice Programs, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, provides information about funding through its offices and bureaus, including application forms available for downloading www.ojp.usdoj.gov.

  • The Finance Project provides general information on strategies for seeking funding and funds that are currently available, with a focus on welfare funds and use of federal dollars by state and local governments. Publications related to funding are found at www.financeproject.org.

  • New!  For a valuable resource to help identify funding sources for early childhood mental health services, read the report Making Dollars Follow Sense: Financing Early Childhood Mental Health Services to Promote Healthy Social and Emotional Development in Young Children. Using six case studies, the report provides lessons on maximizing funding from federal, state, and local sources that are transferable to all types of social services. The four main strategies for obtaining adequate funding include blending funds (i.e., combining funds from several sources into a single pool of funding), braiding funds, maximizing Medicaid, and using state funds strategically to match federal dollars and to pay for support services. Financial challenges to providing preventive and early education services are also addressed. Read the full report at www.nccp.org/media/pew02d-text.pdf.

  • Foundations On-Line provides directories of foundations with both a local community focus and a national or international focus. The directories lead to each foundation's homepage within which users can search for descriptions of available funding from that foundation www.foundations.org.

  • The Grant Writing Tutorial, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, provides a link to funding within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) but also a how-to tutorial for writing grants to both NIH and federal government agencies in general. The grant writing tutorial is free of charge but users are required to register and log in at the site www.theresearchassistant.com.

  • The Community Toolbox provides information on how to write grant proposals for community-oriented projects and provides an example of a completed proposal ctb.ku.edu.

  • Join Together Online focuses primarily on substance abuse and gun violence issues, but provides information on general funding sources for both single organizations and partnerships and collaborations. Funding information is divided into a section relating to substance abuse www.jointogether.org and to a section relating to gun violence issues www.jointogether.org/gv.