1. Applying for the
2013 Colorado
Collaboration Award
Presented by Sara Raab, Manager of Special Projects,
Colorado Nonprofit Association
2. In this webinar…
About the Award Overview, goals,
additional resources
Can you apply? Eligibility requirements
How to apply What you’ll need for the
application
What happens next? Timeline, selection
process
3. About the Award
Goals:
To recognize an outstanding collaboration each
1.
year
To build awareness about successful collaborative
2.
models
To highlight and share proven best practices
3.
4. About the Award
History of the Award
Initiated in 2009 by a group of Colorado funders
Inspired by The Lodestar Foundation’s national Collaboration
Prize
2011: First Collaboration Award cycle
176 applications
Winner: Northwest Colorado Community Health Partnership
2012:
99 applications
Eligibility criteria added and clarified
Winner: Boulder County IMPACT
5. About the Award
Structure of the Award
Steering committee
Screening and Review committees
Final Selection Panel
Education committee
Colorado Nonprofit Association serves as the administrative and fiscal home of
the Colorado Collaboration Award
7. Find a Collaboration ColoradoCollaboration.org
• Colorado Collaboration Award’s searchable database
• Listings are gathered from Collaboration Award applications
(with applicants’ permission)
8. Find a Colorado Collaboration ColoradoCollaboration.org
• Read background information about collaborations, including details on
formation, goals, results, planning, and more!
• To be included: apply for the Award. When asked in the application, agree to
allow us to share your submission with the public, funders, and other nonprofits.
9. The Collaboration Prize thecollaborationprize.org
A national prize created by The Lodestar Foundation and first
awarded in 2009, The Collaboration Prize inspired a group of
Colorado funders to create the Colorado Collaboration Award
10. The Foundation Center’s Collaboration Database
collaboration.foundationcenter.org
Searchable database of collaborations nationwide, combined with
lots of collaboration-related features & resources
11. Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory
Access the Inventory from the Resources page at ColoradoCollaboration.org
Assess your collaboration based on 20 research-
tested success factors.
The Inventory is a helpful resource, but these factors are not specifically
part of the Colorado Collaboration Award’s requirements or criteria.
13. About the Award
2012 Winner & Finalists
Don’t forget! You can learn more about these
and other collaborations using the database
at www.ColoradoCollaboration.org
14. Outstanding Collaborations &
Successful Applications
2012 winner: Boulder County IMPACT
Boulder County IMPACT works to reduce detention, commitment, placement
and hospitalization of juveniles ages 10-17.
Highlights:
The infrastructure team has 1 full time staff person who ensures that all partner agencies are
receiving the same information and training.
There is a youth advisory board that plays a key role in the development and improvement
of all IMPACT programs.
The partnership is committed to an ethical communication model where conflict is resolved
directly between the involved parties. If conflict cannot be resolved in this way then the
next level supervisor can be involved.
IMPACT is committed to rigorous evaluation of program effectiveness….All programs submit
annual operational plans, complete quarterly reports and enter data into a common
database.
Results: Boulder IMPACT has maintained the lowest number of committed youth per capita
in the state and has saved the State of Colorado an estimated $30 million dollars over the
12 years of the contract. The commitment rate (per 10,000 youth) for Boulder County in
2010-2011 was 6.3, compared to a 19.1 statewide rate.
15. Outstanding Collaborations &
Successful Applications
2012 finalist: Colorado Conservation Partnership
CCP envisions a Colorado in which our finest farming and ranching lands, unique
wildlife habitats, world-renown recreational landscapes, scenic vistas and open
spaces are permanently protected for current and future generations.
Highlights:
Each partner financially supports the collaboration equally.
To measure results, the collaborative produces an annual report.
The five independent nonprofit partners agreed to share resources to create a joint
marketing and development plan.
In response to the economic decline of 2008, each organization agreed to commit to the
CCP work, even if it meant postponing or eliminating another initiative.
Through research, CCP established 25 Priority Areas which have the highest conservation
values, and are also the most threatened. The creation of the Priority Areas allows the
partners to focus their work and help direct donor support....The Priority Areas designations
are being used to a great extent by Great Outdoors Colorado and the Colorado Division of
Wildlife, two critical state funding sources. If CCP had not undertaken this work, these
agencies would have been compelled to create their own priority areas. In view of the
state’s budget challenges, it is unclear if that work would have been authorized.
16. Outstanding Collaborations &
Successful Applications
2012 finalist: Higher Education Access Alliance
HEAA’s goal is to ensure that all of Colorado’s high school graduates have
access to affordable tuition rates, including our undocumented students.
Highlights:
On its Steering Committee alone, HEAA houses a teacher's union, three unified Catholic
dioceses, a human rights organization, an immigrant rights group, a foundation that
provides scholarships for undocumented students, and a community organizing group.
The most important component of HEAA's work is the involvement of the students
themselves through the Student Engagement Committee (SEC) - an organized, student-led
statewide network - that has become the cornerstone of the HEAA initiative.
Conflict Resolution: HEAA has been offered the opportunity to have a bill passed, but in
exchange for an agreement not to oppose other legislation that could potentially harm
the interests of a Steering Committee member. Steering Committee members have had to
come together to clearly define the core principles of each member. Through thoughtful
and deliberate efforts by all members, the lines of communication have remained open
and the Steering Committee remains strong and intact.
19. Can you apply?
Eligibility FAQ #1:
Q. We don’t meet all the requirements. Can we still
apply?
A. No; it is necessary to meet all the eligibility
requirements. Applications are screened for
eligibility, and only applications that pass
the screening stage are advanced for
reading and review.
20. Can you apply?
Basic Requirements
Be based in and serving Colorado.
1.
Involve two or more entities (i.e. nonprofit
2.
organizations, businesses, and/or government
agencies).
Include a lead organization (for the purposes of this
3.
application) that is a 501(c)(3).
21. Can you apply?
4. Have begun operations during or before
September 2011.
Why?
The Colorado Collaboration Award places a strong emphasis on
evaluation and results. A newer collaboration won’t be able to
demonstrate the level of sustained impact the Award looks for.
22. Can you apply?
5. Have a collaborative structure, including:
• Shared leadership and decision-making among partners (i.e.,
not a contractor/contractee, fiscal agent, or parent/chapter
relationship).
• Shared goals and planning among partners.
• Shared contribution of resources from partners.
Why?
These guidelines, new in 2013, clarify characteristics of a competitive
application.
23. Can you apply?
6. Have a structure that is evidenced by a formal written
agreement (i.e., memorandum of understanding (MOU),
contract, or merger agreement).
• Have a written agreement (MOU, contract, or merger agreement) dated
September 2011 or earlier.
Why?
The award steering committee agrees that having a written agreement is an
important best practice; it helps ensure that a collaboration can survive changes
in its environment or key people, and is an important tool for building long-term
stability and success.
An MOU dated September 2011 or earlier is required as documentation that the
collaboration began operations at least 18 months prior to the Award deadline.
24. Can you apply?
7. Submit the lead organization’s nondiscrimination policy; this
policy must expressly include “sexual orientation” and
“gender expression.”
Why?
This requirement was proposed and adopted by the award’s steering committee,
a diverse group of Colorado funders and capacity-builders, who agreed that this
requirement is in keeping with the spirit of the Award itself.
Visit www.ColoradoNonprofits.org/gender-expression-policy/ to learn more about
this requirement.
What if you don’t have the required policy in place right now?
The lead organization must adopt this wording as part of its nondiscrimination
policy – and submit the new policy as part of the application – by the application
deadline.
25. Can you apply?
Q. Our collaboration includes partners that are government
agencies, businesses, etc. Are we eligible to apply?
More A. Yes, as long as at least one partner is a Colorado-based
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and that partner serves as the
lead organization for the application.
FAQs
Q. Our collaboration serves areas outside Colorado. Are we
eligible?
A. Yes, as long as the collaboration’s service area includes
Colorado, and the collaboration itself is based in Colorado.
28. How to apply
1. Go to ColoradoCollaboration.org and click
Apply for the Award.
2. Take the Eligibility Self-Assessment. At the end, it
will direct you to the application.
3. Start the online application. (More details on
this in a moment.)
4. Finish the online application by March 15.
29. How to apply
The Application
Contact Information
Section #1
We’lluse this information to
communicate with you about your
application (request additional information, send
status updates, etc.)
Your application username &
password will go to the email address
you provide here.
30. How to apply
At any point, click Save and Quit to save your work and get an
email with your username and login.
31. How to apply
The Application
Overview Questions
Section #2
Basic information about the collaboration
(lead organization, mission, list of partners, budgeted revenue &
expense, etc.)
None of your responses will be directly
considered during evaluation
Large-budget collaborations, larger geographic efforts, or
bigger lists of partners don’t make one collaboration
“better” than another.
See the full list of application
See the full list of application
questions at
questions at
ColoradoCollaboration.org.
ColoradoCollaboration.org.
Be accurate! (While this section isn’t specifically scored,
the reviewers don’t like discrepancies between your
responses here and in other sections.)
32.
33. How to apply
The Application
Narrative Questions
Section #3 Formation (5 points)
Structure (15 points)
Purpose and Goals (25 points)
Results to date (40 points)
Planning (5 points)
Anticipated Challenges and Opportunities (5
See the full list of application
See the full list of application points)
questions at
questions at
ColoradoCollaboration.org. Budget
ColoradoCollaboration.org.
(5 points)
34. How to apply
The Application
Narrative Questions
Section #3 Reviewers use your responses in this section
to evaluate the application!
Each question shows the number of points
used to score this question and the character
limit for your response.
Tip: To avoid losing your work, write your
See the full list of application
See the full list of application
answers separately and then copy and paste
questions at
questions at
ColoradoCollaboration.org.
ColoradoCollaboration.org.
them into the online application.
35.
36. How to apply
The Application
Attachments
Section #4 501(c)(3) letter, dated 2007 or later, for the lead
organization
Written
agreement (e.g., MOU or contract) dated
September 2011 or earlier
Current written agreement (e.g., MOU or contract)
Nondiscrimination policy from the lead organization
(including “sexual orientation” and “gender expression”)
Collaboration’s 2013 budget (if applicable)
Executive summary
See the full list of application
See the full list of application Additionalattachments (if needed; please don’t upload
questions at
questions at
ColoradoCollaboration.org.
ColoradoCollaboration.org. any materials not requested above)
37.
38. How to apply
Application Attachments
Original documentation of the collaboration structure (memorandum
of understanding/MOU, contract, or merger agreement), dated
September 2011 or earlier.
This documentation demonstrates that the collaboration began formal
operations at least 18 months before the 2013 Award deadline.
Current documentation of the collaboration structure (memorandum
of understanding (MOU), contract, or merger agreement).
This documentation shows the current structure of the collaboration, as
well as the roles and responsibilities of each partner.
39. How to apply
Application Attachments: What Is an MOU?
To qualify, all documentation/agreements submitted must:
Be signed and dated by all partners.
Reference all partners.
Outline the collaboration’s structure.
Describe the partners’ roles and responsibilities.
40. How to apply
Application Attachments: What Is an MOU?
Documentation that will not be accepted:
Grant applications or reports
Lease agreements
Contracts or agreements with third parties (organizations/entities
which are not partners in the collaboration)
Samples, templates, or blank forms of agreements
41. How to apply
Application Attachments
Executive Summary of the collaboration (ONE page only):
Highlight what makes your collaboration unique, innovative, and
a model for other collaborations to follow.
You can be more creative and focus on things the narrative
questions might not have asked about.
Don’t repeat a significant amount of information covered
elsewhere in the application.
The information above has been quoted and/or adapted from the Colorado Common
Grant Application User’s Guide.
44. What happens next?
March 15: Application Deadline
March 28: Screening complete
Eligible applications advanced to next round
Collaborations asked to provide Participant Endorsement Forms (1 per
partner)
April 18: Deadline for Participant Endorsement Forms
June 28: Review round #1 complete
Review committee finishes reading and scoring applications
Semi-finalists selected
Review committee schedules site visits with semi-finalists
45. Application Review
Collaborations are evaluated and scored
based on:
•Depth of collaboration
•Demonstration of significant impact
•Innovation in addressing a specific challenge or opportunity
•Relevance as a model other nonprofit collaborations can
replicate
•Effectiveness of community engagement
•Operation in accordance with nonprofit and collaborative best
practices
46. What happens next?
July 26: Review round #2 complete
Site visits complete
Finalists selected
August 23: Winner selected
Final Selection Panel meets in August to choose the winner
October: Award presented
2013 Colorado Collaboration Award presented at Colorado Nonprofit
Association’s Fall Conference & Exhibition
Winner invited to present a session at the Fall Conference
So far: screening & eligibility requirements being added and clarified each year.
Committee members represent funders and nonprofit capacity-builders. Steering committee: oversees the Award, sets strategy and long-term goals Screening and Review committees: read and review applications, conduct site visits, select finalists Final Selection Panel: reviews the finalists and selects a single Award winner. Final Selection Panel members are nonprofit, business, government, and community leaders who are identified by the Steering Committee and invited to serve on the Panel. Education committee: works with the other Award committees to identify themes and trends; develops resources
These resources won’t help you win the Collaboration Award this year, but they’re designed to support and strengthen collaborations. Use these all year round and long-term – whether you apply for the Award or not. Let us know what else you’d like to see! (But first, let’s take a look at what we already have.)
Feature: search for collaborations that are currently accepting new partners. If you want to be listed in the database, but you don’t – or can’t – apply in 2013: after the 2013 Award application deadline (March 15), we’ll invite collaborations to submit their information without applying for the 2013 Award.
Here’s what a listing in the Collaboration Database looks like.
The Colorado Collaboration Award was inspired by the Lodestar Foundation’s national Collaboration Prize. A lot of the Colorado Award’s guidelines and details were based on this national award. They seem to have discontinued the Collaboration Prize for 2012, but I don’t know what their long-term plans are.
This is the searchable database of applicants for the national Collaboration Prize.
This is a third-party resource, the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory. You can get to it from the Resources page at ColoradoCollaboration.org. There’s a printable version and an online questionnaire.
During the course of the 2011 and 2012 Collaboration Awards, we found that many collaborations are operating without a written agreement. The Award steering committee agrees that having an MOU is an important best practice for building strong, successful collaborations. Many partnerships may work extremely well without a contract or MOU, but to help ensure that the collaboration can survive major changes – like changes in key people – it’s important to get the agreement in writing. The process of creating and revising the agreement can also play a big role in strategic planning, defining expectations, preventing conflict, and just communicating more as a group. This toolkit is designed to help any collaboration, whether it applies for the Award or not, create or revise their MOU.
Let’s take a quick look at the collaboration that won the award last year, and a couple of others that were finalists in 2012. Again, this section probably won’t help anyone win this year’s award, but it can give you an idea of the type of collaborations the Award is looking for, and it can also give you some ideas for your group to think about. One thing *I* noticed about these finalists is that they APPROACH COLLABORATION differently from a lot of other groups…if you look at things like the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory, which I mentioned a few minutes ago, and then look at these collaborations, you definitely get a more real sense of how some of those factors can be put into action.
These are just a few excerpts from Boulder County IMPACT’s award application. I’m not going to read through all this, but remember that their full application is online, AND this presentation will be online later. Boulder County IMPACT is doing a lot of impressive things. They have plenty of resources dedicated to the collaboration. Here’s one example: the collaboration has a staff person who’s responsible for making sure that staff at the partner agencies all receive training specifically about the collaboration. IMPACT also actively engages the community it serves; they talk a lot about how the kids and their families are involved in the collaboration’s work. And they place a REALLY high priority on evaluation…this is only a small bit of their explanation on how they evaluate. It’s pretty extensive.
Colorado Conservation Partnership has actually been a finalist for BOTH years of the Award. One of the areas where their collaboration really stands out is in the level of commitment the partners have to the project, and the extent to which they work jointly and prioritize the collaborative work. They also have an extremely clear-cut and concrete set of goals, around conserving these priority areas they’ve identified. And it’s pretty impressive that their Priority Areas have been adopted and basically institutionalized by these state agencies. It really speaks to the level of recognition and respect CCP has in the conservation community.
The third finalist in 2012 was the Higher Education Access Alliance. As you read about their work – and remember, you can learn about these collaborations in the Collaboration Database – one thing that really stands out is the level of community engagement. They’re really committed to engaging lots of diverse groups of people, including business groups and conservative politicians…people you wouldn’t always associate with a cause like this one, which is ensuring affordable tuition for undocumented students. They also put a high priority on really meaningful engagement; they empower students to help both lead and implement their work. They shared a couple of great stories about tough choices they’ve been faced with, around how to respond to specific pieces of legislation. They don’t get into any details, but these stories really indicate how committed the partners are to the project, and how openly and respectfully this group is able to communicate and address problems.
Any questions about these resources or about the award in general?
OK…now that we’ve looked at some resources, let’s move on to the nitty-gritty details of the 2013 Collaboration Award itself. First, we’ll go over the eligibility requirements. In the past two years of the Collaboration Award, we’ve found we get more questions about these requirements than anything else. I’ll address a lot of those questions as I go along, and there are a few other FAQs at the end of this section.
This is basically the most frequently asked question about eligibility, which is if you meet all the requirements except one or two, can you still apply. Unfortunately, you can’t...or more accurately, nothing will really stop you from filling out the application, but you can expect it to be screened out before anyone reviews it, which is probably not the result you’re looking for.
Because the $50,000 prize is provided by a group of Colorado funders, the winning collaboration must meet a set of basic funding requirements. It also has to technically be a collaboration, which requirement #2 addresses.
Although factors like formation, purpose, and planning are considered important for a successful collaboration, this award places a strong emphasis on evaluation and results to identify highly successful collaborations. At least 18 months of operational history are required to help ensure that award applicants are able to demonstrate sustained impact and benefits from collaborating.
Are there any questions about the eligibility requirements?
Now we’re going to talk about the application itself.
Here are the steps for applying. If you go to www.ColoradoCollaboration.org, you’ll see it basically walk you through these. If you haven’t yet started your application for the 2013 award, you’ll need to take the online Eligibility Self-Assessment first. If your collaboration meets all the requirements we just covered in the previous section, you’ll just be able to breeze through the Self-Assessment. It’s the exact same requirements, with the same wording, in the same order that we just went through. Once you go through the Self-Assessment, you’ll get a link to start the online application. That’s the part we’ll talk about now.
The first page of the application.
Here’s what this page looks like.
This section just helps the reviewers understand the collaboration they’re reading about in the other sections.
These are the TOPICS for the narrative questions. Under each topic, there are specific questions you’re asked to address. You can see the full list of application questions by going to www.ColoradoCollaboration.org and clicking the menu link that says “2013 Application Questions” or just by starting the online application. One other point (and thank you Jill for reminding me to include this!): the last question, about Budget, asks you to Describe how your collaboration would spend the award if received. The reviewers are interested in your answer here, but it’s not a major part of the scoring, and more importantly, I want to reiterate that this is an Award and not a grant. So you don’t need to provide a lot of detail here like you would in a grant application…it really is more just a point of interest, and something that gives the reviewers an idea about where your collaboration is looking to go in the future.
You’ll see the character count show up once you start filling in your responses to each question. (Yes, the character limit does include spaces.) Also notice that there’s a timer here. Please don’t rely on this, because you really never know what could happen. It keeps track of how long you have before the Award application logs you out, but it doesn’t know if your power might go out, or your computer is going to crash, or anything else that could result in you losing all your work. I strongly recommend you write all your answers in a Word doc and save them separately first. If you do end up doing any work on this page, there’s a Save button at the bottom of the page that you should use often.
These are the attachments you’ll be asked to upload as part of your application. Orange bullet items are the ones I’ll come back to in just a second. For anyone who applied for the 2011 or 2012 Award, you might remember the Participant Endorsement Forms we asked you to have completed by each partner in your collaboration. Those forms are still around! But we won’t request them until after the screening round, and then you’ll have 3 weeks to get them filled out. (For those of you who don’t know what forms I’m talking about, I’ll explain them in the next section, when I talk about what happens after you submit your application.) The attachments section has lots of its own requirements, so first I’ll show you what that page of the application looks like, and then I’ll go through the required attachments one by one.
If you have one single agreement that is BOTH your current agreement AND is dated September 2011 or earlier, then you can just upload that one agreement, if you choose. (Or you could show off and upload an older one, too.) If you have multiple agreements, like separate agreements between different partners, you can upload them separately but it would be really nice if you combined them first into a single PDF and just uploaded that.
*By all partners – means “by all partners at that time.” So if you’re uploading an older MOU from, say, 2010, and new partners have been added since then, we don’t expect you to be able to provide agreements with partners who weren’t involved at that time! The Collaboration Award definitely isn’t looking only for collaborations that never grow or adapt. But your current agreements should include all the partners you currently have.
Basically, the Award is looking for a written agreement that was created among the partners for the sake of the collaboration itself. Check out the MOU Toolkit on the Award website for more information about a really comprehensive MOU.
Any questions about these resources or about the award in general?
First: the information in this webinar is going online. The Participant Endorsement Forms ask for some basic information like each partner’s contact information, annual budget, etc. Each partner must also sign their form. The forms are very quick and easy to fill out. The hard part for most groups is getting the forms completed and returned from each partner, especially if your collaboration has a lot of different partners. So we have 3 weeks set aside for this step. REVIEW ROUND #1: The review committee shoots for about 5 semi-finalists.
Scoring is based on the narrative responses, obviously, with your attachments serving as backup documentation for your narrative answers.
Any questions about these resources or about the award in general?