Rules of Engagement: Local and National Funders Working Together to Expand Education Options for Youth

Nancy Martin

This post was written by Nancy Martin, facilitator of YTFG’s Multiple Pathways to Graduation Work Group and consultant to youth-serving organizations.

During the recent Multiple Pathways to Work Group (MPG) meeting, Caroline Maillard, Seattle Foundation, and Chris Sturgis led MPG Work Group members in a discussion of how local and national funders can and should work together. We began the conversation with funders talking about their wishes for work between locals and nationals.

National funders say, We wish that locals:

• knew we only have so much money and can only make three to four grants each year.
• understood that we are always having to make the case (e.g., for continued funding) to internal stakeholders. 
• knew that we go into a jurisdiction with the idea that we will be leaving the local behind to continue the work, so we would like to work closer with locals to do transition funding or otherwise plan ahead for our departure. We should talk about this in about year two of our involvement, and the conversation needs to be focused on whether such a transition is really feasible.

Local/regional funders say, We wish that nationals:

• would understand we know a lot about our local community, but we don't know everything.
• realized that locals can lose all autonomy to decide on a local/state/regional strategy when large, national (or federal) funding requires local match. Of course, we feel we should "go for it," so we have to redirect our funds to their strategies.
• told us from the start: We are only going to be here for three years. Can you/do you want to take this on?

At the national funder level, the pendulum is swinging back to place-based work. For example, Lumina will fund projects in 75 cities over the next five years. Are we learning the lessons of the past? Are we making new mistakes? How do we improve practice at the national level? How can locals be the best partners possible? The group talked about the things that must be discussed up front, the core non-negotiables. These included:

• Nationals need to beware of absolutes. A framework and strategy are important to have, but you can't be insistent on only one way to do the work at the local level. You must respect the local culture and context. Nationals can set parameters but not all the details of local work. There can be shared metrics, but there must be flexibility.
• When thinking about place, it helps if locals know and make suggestions about what would or would not work well in their communities. (For example, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a local funding initiative for which local funders nominated organizations ready for national work.) 
• Locals and regionals need to feel empowered to push back. 
• It's important to be open and always keep the conversation going because locals can help nationals solve their problems. 

There was quite a bit of discussion about time and timing. Everyone agreed that it would be great to have some local–national discussion about how long it takes to see results. We feel pressured to show results NOW, when doing the systemic work we are trying to do takes time. This has an impact on how locals and nationals time their funding. Perhaps locals should put the bulk of the investment up front and nationals contribute more and more over time? (Seattle has done this a bit.)

It’s clear this is a topic that calls for more conversation.