Giving Compass' Take:

• Alice Cottingham, writing for PEAK Insight Journal, describes the experiences of grants managers within the foundation-intermediary relationship. 

• What are the challenges with the role of the grants manager? How can grants manager strengthen their relationships with intermediaries?

• Read about how intermediaries can help nonprofit organizations overcome obstacles. 

Grants management’s intersection with foundation-intermediary work has not been addressed in the literature, though grants managers have a lively interest in the subject. Rich information about benefits, risks, and ways of working with intermediaries is available from PEAK Grantmaking’s Issue Lab. This article explores and begins to define the grants manager’s role in the foundation-intermediary relationship, a role that one grants manager described as “being an advocate for the work.” PEAK Grantmaking hopes to test the experiences described here by three seasoned grants managers with their colleagues.

Re-granting and capacity building are two of the most common tasks that foundations fund through intermediaries.  Granting to an intermediary organization may reflect a foundation’s interest in a new, untested, and/or small but meaningful area of work.  Many foundations also support large strategic efforts via intermediaries.  The decision to work through an intermediary is typically influenced by questions of whether (or when) to add expertise in-house – versus relying on an external expert– and may represent a funder’s commitment to keep administrative costs low, or to experiment with indirect funding before adding a new program area or new staff expertise.  Other factors include the foundation’s workload, and technical requirements (legal and language, for instance) posed by international grantmaking. Intermediaries may be located in the U.S. or abroad.

The point of foundation-intermediary relationships is to benefit both organizations, along with the organizations in the field of shared interest. Grants managers, in tandem with program staff, help foundations realize their desired outcomes from granting to intermediary organizations. In their work with intermediary organizations, grants managers also help ensure a good fit in the structure of the relationship and clear expectations, while continuing to support the best work of the intermediary. In these ways, grants managers share a commitment to “advocate for the work.”

Read the source article about grants management by Alice Cottingham at PEAK Insight Journal