Grantmakers are increasingly recognising that some of the most significant challenges facing communities cannot be addressed through the efforts of a single funder. Large-scale housing shortages, systemic health inequities, climate adaptation, and workforce development in specific sectors all involve problems that exceed the resources and leverage of individual foundations or government agencies.
Collaborative grantmaking — where two or more funders coordinate their grant activity — is one response to this challenge. It takes several forms, from informal information-sharing between funders to formal joint decision-making structures where participating funders co-design programmes, share assessment costs, and make funding decisions together.
Information sharing. The lightest form of collaboration. Funders in a sector or region share information about who they are funding, to avoid duplication and to identify gaps. This requires no shared process or joint decision-making — just the willingness to be transparent with peers.
Parallel funding. Multiple funders support the same initiative independently, without a shared application or assessment process. The grantee submits separate applications to each funder and manages separate accountability relationships. This reduces duplicated community need but does not reduce the administrative burden on applicants or grantees.
Coordinated funding. Funders align their programmes — agreeing on shared criteria, shared application processes, or shared reporting requirements — without pooling resources or making joint decisions. Applicants submit to a single process; funders assess separately and may reach different conclusions about the same application.
Joint funding vehicles. Funders contribute to a shared pool, which is administered by a lead organisation (one of the funders, or an independent intermediary). Applications are made to the joint vehicle; decisions are made jointly by participating funders; the lead organisation handles administration and accountability.
Funder consortia. Formal multi-funder organisations, often with independent governance, that receive contributions from multiple sources and make grants under agreed strategy. Community foundations that manage endowments contributed by multiple donors are a common example.
One of the strongest arguments for collaborative grantmaking is the burden reduction for applicants. An organisation applying to five funders for support for the same programme faces five separate application processes, five separate reporting obligations, and five separate accountability relationships. The administrative overhead of managing these relationships can consume a significant portion of the grant it produces.
The most direct way to reduce this burden is a single application process that multiple funders contribute to. The applicant submits once. Funders assess the same application against their own criteria (or shared criteria). The grantee reports once (to the lead funder, or through a shared portal) and funders access the report through the joint system.
This requires meaningful coordination — funders need to agree on a shared application form, shared timeline, and shared accountability requirements. The difficulty of this coordination is the reason it happens less often than it should.
When multiple funders are making decisions together, governance design matters. The arrangements need to specify:
Who decides? Does each funder have an equal vote, or does the decision reflect the relative size of each funder's contribution? A funder contributing 70% of a joint programme's budget will typically want more decision-making authority than one contributing 10%.
What happens when funders disagree? Unanimous agreement is easy to achieve for clear cases; it breaks down on borderline decisions. Having a clear mechanism for resolving disagreements — weighted voting, majority rule, convener decision as a tiebreaker — prevents joint funding relationships from stalling on difficult calls.
Who manages the relationship with grantees? When multiple funders are involved, applicants and grantees should have a single point of contact. The "one throat to choke" principle: one funder manages the applicant-facing relationship, even if multiple funders are making decisions behind the scenes.
How is accountability distributed? Each funder may have different reporting obligations to their own governance. The joint accountability framework needs to produce reports that serve each funder's governance requirements without requiring grantees to report multiple times.
In most joint funding arrangements, one funder takes on an administrative lead role — running the application process, managing the assessment, executing grant agreements, receiving reports, and managing payments. The other funders contribute resources and participate in decisions but do not directly manage the administrative process.
Choosing the administrative lead thoughtfully matters. The lead needs:
- Capacity to manage the administrative process without disproportionate burden
- Credibility with the applicant pool — organisations are applying to the lead funder's process
- Systems capable of handling the joint process (a grants management system that can record multiple co-funder contributions and manage shared accountability)
- Governance that can accommodate joint decision-making
For philanthropic joint funding, community foundations are often well positioned to act as administrative lead — they have grantmaking infrastructure, sector relationships, and independence from any single donor's priorities.
Collaborative grantmaking initiatives fail for predictable reasons:
Governance not designed upfront. The enthusiasm for collaboration leads funders to begin a joint programme before agreeing on decision-making processes, accountability structures, or exit arrangements. When the first contentious decision arrives, the absence of agreed process becomes a crisis.
Asymmetric burden. The administrative lead bears most of the work; contributing funders benefit without proportionate effort. This creates resentment and, over time, leads to the lead funder withdrawing.
Criteria misalignment. Funders who have different underlying priorities participate in a joint programme as if their priorities are aligned. The first round of decisions reveals that they fund different things for different reasons, and the joint process does not produce outcomes that satisfy any funder fully.
Reporting complexity. Multiple funders with different reporting requirements create a reporting burden that is worse for grantees than individual grants would have been. Agreeing on a single reporting framework requires compromise that not all funders are willing to make.
For funders exploring collaborative grantmaking options, the government grants management and community foundations pages cover how Tahua supports multi-funder programmes. To discuss how to structure a collaborative funding programme.
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