Building strong funder-grantee relationships should be at the heart of every funder’s work. But these relationships can be fraught due to the inherent power imbalance between those who have resources and those who need them.
This is a moment that calls out urgently for funders and nonprofits to listen well – particularly to historically marginalized communities – build trust, and work together to simultaneously advance the cause of justice and support a nonprofit sector battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. But what does it take for funders and nonprofits to get beyond that power differential, effectively build strong relationships, and strengthen nonprofits to address the most challenging issues of our time?
CEP’s research Relationships Matter: Program Officers, Grantees, and the Keys to Success and Strengthening Grantees shed light on why relationships matter, what it takes for funders to foster strong relationships, and what some challenges and solutions are in building nonprofit organizational strength.
The goal of this webinar is to highlight the core concepts of building excellent relationships between funders and strengthening nonprofits, and to learn from each other and a local funder and grantee partnership who are working on this day to day. We will ask each participant to reflect personally on how these concepts play out in their work and what specific opportunities they have to continually improve their efforts.
At this session, participants will:
- Discuss how strong relationships and effective communication relate to the intended outcomes desired by grantors and grantees.
- Reflect on how funders and grantees can work together effectively, and differently, in this moment of increased need, civic protest, and major challenges to organizations’ capacity.
- Understand how research suggests specific practices that strengthen funder-grantee relationships and consider how those practices play out at your organization and how as a nonprofit you can help encourage those practices for funders.
- Learn from the ways in which funders’ understanding socioeconomic context and nonprofits’ beneficiaries needs are fundamental to strong relationships.
Speakers:
Kevin Buldoc, Vice President, Assessment and Advisory Services, Center for Effective Philanthropy
Others to be announced!
Zoom information will be sent via email in advance of the program.