Institutional Partnerships: Strategic Foundations and Public Funding
Multi-year partnerships with major foundations, federated and government funding at scale, and diversifying past any single institution. The executive's relationships with the funders that can change the organization, and the plan for the day they stop.
Through the Healthcare lens
A major foundation's multi-year commitment to a service line or research initiative, or a state health department's ongoing program partnership, genuinely fits this module's definition, and the CEO-to-funder-leadership relationship this module describes is standard practice at large health systems even when it isn't named this explicitly. A funder's priorities shaping which service lines get institutional investment is the mission-bending risk this module warns about, translated into a decision about patient care rather than programming, which belongs in a hospital board's strategic conversations, not only in development's.
Continuing education
1.00 points
Leadership and Management · Securing the Gift
Learning objectives
- Distinguish a grant from a partnership, and describe what a multi-year institutional partnership asks of the executive, the funder, and the organization.
- Structure multi-year foundation partnerships and manage government and federated funding at scale, including the relationships at the leadership level that grants staff cannot hold.
- Draft a partnership memorandum that states shared goals, mutual obligations, and the exit, and a diversification plan for the funding the institution most depends on.
- Analyze an organization's move away from a government funding majority and identify what made it possible.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 18 min
Video lesson
From grants to partnerships
II See · Leadership and Management
- 20 min
Field guide· PDF
Multi-year foundation partnerships and public funding at scale
IV Invite · Securing the Gift
- 18 min
Template· DOCX
The partnership memorandum and the diversification plan
VI Accompany · Leadership and Management
- 16 min
Case study· PDF
Case study: diversifying past a government majority
VI Accompany · Leadership and Management
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
Boards, Teams & Leadership
The CDO Operating System
Leading philanthropy at the institutional level: CEO partnership, cross-functional influence, and the systems that scale past you.
Capital Campaigns
Campaign Strategy: Feasibility to Celebration
The full arc of a modern campaign: feasibility, goal-setting, phases, communications, and the ending that sets up the next one.
Fundamentals & Ethics
Culture of Philanthropy: Leading Across the Organization
When program staff, finance, and the front desk understand their role in fundraising, the work gets easier. Building that culture is executive work.