Working with Government Guidance for Grantmakers
Foundation-government collaborations seem to be on the rise as each sector looks to pool resources with new partners. How can grantmakers take advantage of the benefits while managing the risks of working on terrain that can be unfamiliar to all parties? The guide includes case studies, suggestions for finding changemakers in government, and advice on navigating roles and power dynamics. Government partners chime in with ideas for keeping things running smoothly.
Highlights
- Ways to work with government
- Your reality/their reality
- Philanthropic liaisons and how they can help
What's in the Guide?
- Why Work with Government?For grantmakers interested in advancing systemic change or addressing root problems, working with government can be an important opportunity — even an essential one. But it can also mean venturing into territory where the rules are new and the power dynamics unfamiliar.
- Ways to Work with Government: From tight partnerships with firm timelines and objectives to loose alliances that evolve over time, foundation-government partnerships take many forms. What they have in common is a motivation to solve public problems by leveraging the distinctive capacities of philanthropy and the public sector.
- Scouting for Partners and Projects: Grantmakers who forge good partnerships are often skilled at scanning for innovators in government — officials who are willing to champion improvements and know how to get things done. These funders are also alert for opportunity moments, when help from a foundation makes all the difference.
- Entry Points: Four Cases: There are certain things that philanthropy can do more easily, rapidly, or flexibly than government can do itself. These four cases — one each from the local, state, national, and international sphere — show how four grantmakers used that insight to open up new opportunities.
- Managing Relationships with Government Partners: Building and sustaining good relationships takes planning, awareness, compromise, and candor. Here’s straightforward advice about what to do at specific points in the lifespan of a partnership with government.
- Do Your Homework: Learning about Government and How It Works: Any funder who wants to be an effective collaborator with government officials needs to take a refresher course in how government operates and what it’s like to work in the public sector. Their realities and yours are not the same.

Categories
Content type
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Do Your Homework: Learning about Government and How It Works
Before bringing ideas to government, experienced funders said, vet them thoroughly with colleagues in philanthropy, grantees who work with government, and others who can help think through the practical implications of a policy change.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
What Government Partners Wish Grantmakers Knew
Here’s a short list of things they (government leaders, nonprofits, other grantmakers, philanthropic advisors) encourage grantmakers to bear in mind to help collaborations succeed:
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Introduction: Working with Government
For grantmakers who work extensively with government, the rationale goes something like this: If we really want to address the biggest social problems or meet the most pressing community needs, we’ve got to think strategically about what government can do, how philanthropy can contribute, and how we can forge relationships that catalyze action, leverage resources, and ensure continuing support...
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
First Steps
First, they advised, learn about the government you’re working with as a subject in itself — how it operates, how decisions are made, and how policies get implemented on the ground. “You absolutely must know the rules of the game,” one grantmaker warned.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Power Relations
The issue of power relations can be particularly tricky. Like it or not, most nonprofit grantees treat funders with a certain deference. Government partners are less likely to do that — which can cause an unsettling feeling for grantmakers who are used to being the ones whose attention is sought.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Ways to Work with Government: Teaming Up
In this type of relationship, a foundation and government partner work directly together to develop and implement a project.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Co-Funding Resources in Government
The Public-Philanthropic Partnership Initiative, a project of the Council on Foundations, has assembled a helpful list of cofunding relationship types, along with definitions and relevant guidelines for how and when each may be used. See the initiative’s website for the most up-to-date information on each type and a growing library of online resources.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Ways to Work with Government: Working Through an Intermediary
In this type of collaboration, a foundation and government agency work together through an organization that brings special expertise — or the independence that comes from being a third party — to an issue, project, or plan.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Ways to Work with Government: Exchange and Learning
Another way to work with government is by supporting discussion or exchange that enables public officials to learn, plan, and make connections. When officials in one Western U.S. state expressed interest in redesigning its Medicaid delivery system, for example, a local foundation covered the cost of briefings and workshops at which key government stakeholders vetted promising ideas.
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Link to Blueprint 2017, Participatory Grantmaking, and More
Win-Win Projects
Successful partnership projects maximize the assets of both partners and produce benefits for both sides.
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Foundation-government collaborations seem to be on the rise as each sector looks to pool resources with new partners. How can grantmakers take advantage of the benefits while managing the risks of working on terrain that can be unfamiliar to all parties? The guide includes case studies, suggestions for finding changemakers in government, and advice on navigating roles and power dynamics. Government partners chime in with ideas for keeping things running smoothly.
Highlights
- Ways to work with government
- Your reality/their reality
- Philanthropic liaisons and how they can help
What's in the Guide?
- Why Work with Government?For grantmakers interested in advancing systemic change or addressing root problems, working with government can be an important opportunity — even an essential one. But it can also mean venturing into territory where the rules are new and the power dynamics unfamiliar.
- Ways to Work with Government: From tight partnerships with firm timelines and objectives to loose alliances that evolve over time, foundation-government partnerships take many forms. What they have in common is a motivation to solve public problems by leveraging the distinctive capacities of philanthropy and the public sector.
- Scouting for Partners and Projects: Grantmakers who forge good partnerships are often skilled at scanning for innovators in government — officials who are willing to champion improvements and know how to get things done. These funders are also alert for opportunity moments, when help from a foundation makes all the difference.
- Entry Points: Four Cases: There are certain things that philanthropy can do more easily, rapidly, or flexibly than government can do itself. These four cases — one each from the local, state, national, and international sphere — show how four grantmakers used that insight to open up new opportunities.
- Managing Relationships with Government Partners: Building and sustaining good relationships takes planning, awareness, compromise, and candor. Here’s straightforward advice about what to do at specific points in the lifespan of a partnership with government.
- Do Your Homework: Learning about Government and How It Works: Any funder who wants to be an effective collaborator with government officials needs to take a refresher course in how government operates and what it’s like to work in the public sector. Their realities and yours are not the same.