On Working with Other Foundation Staff
Funders who are part of existing initiatives face related challenges. “We each have specific agendas,” said a health grantmaker who has partnered with public and private funders on a disease eradication campaign. The collaborative is structured so that each funder can make its own contribution to the goal while also trying to coordinate messages so as not to become fractured. They meet regularly and recently got together for a half-day session to decide on messaging and draft a communications plan. “Everyone has a role,” she explained, based on their foundations’ strengths and preferences. Some work on health policy, others on grassroots prevention campaigns. Some take a strongly partisan stance on policy issues, others avoid controversy. Some have expertise in web design, while others are good with press relations. The point of having a collaborative, after all, is to pool resources to maximize impact.
Takeaways are critical, bite-sized resources either excerpted from our guides or written by Candid Learning for Funders using the guide's research data or themes post-publication. Attribution is given if the takeaway is a quotation.
This takeaway was derived from Communicating For Impact.
