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2015 Colorado Collaboration Award
- 1. Applying for the 2015 Colorado Collaboration Award
- 2. In this webinar… • About the Award • Can you apply? Eligibility requirements • How to apply What you’ll need for the application • What happens next? Timeline, selection process
- 3. Goals: 1. To recognize an outstanding collaboration each year 2. To build awareness about successful collaborative models 3. To highlight and share proven best practices About the Award
- 4. About the Award • Steering committee • Screening and Review committees • Final Selection Panel Colorado Nonprofit Association serves as the administrative and fiscal home of the Colorado Collaboration Award Structure of the Award
- 5. Past Winners You can learn more about these and other collaborations using the database at www.ColoradoCollaboration.org About the Award
- 6. Outstanding Collaborations & Successful Applications 2014 winner: Delores River Restoration Partnership The Dolores River Restoration Partnership (DRRP) is a coalition of federal land management agencies, county and state governments, landowners, nonprofits, students, conservation corps, volunteers, and other stakeholders. Their goal: a Dolores River system that is ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable. Strengths: Well-documented framework and action plan that is updated every year Structure that allows each partner the ability to engage at a level that fits their own organization’s capacity and interest Set goals far beyond the obvious environmental impact to include shared learning and teaching, recreation, economic development, youth stewardship, and community engagement
- 7. Outstanding Collaborations & Successful Applications 2013 winner: Western Colorado Landscape Collaborative The Western Colorado Landscape Collaborative is a partnership of federal and state agencies, including environmental agencies and local utilities, which works to strengthen ecosystems, improve wildlife habitats, and reduce fire danger in Western Colorado’s natural spaces. Strengths: Ability to collaborate across various sectors which typically can be wrought with political strife and grid lock. Established political credibility in its communities, allowing projects and problems to be addressed in a manner that does not undermine each stakeholder’s needs. Ensures each partner is clear about its roles and responsibilities, which is greatly facilitated by a clear MOUs and well-documented handbooks. Many processes and procedures are routine and mutually agreed upon, so when change does arise, the group is already committed, experienced, and nimble in how to respond and adapt. Allows for leadership at the working group level. Have created a “table of trust” which has been built over the years and serves as the foundation for their successful endeavors.
- 10. 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. Can you apply?
- 11. Basic Requirements 1. Be based in and serving Colorado. 2. Involve two or more entities (i.e. nonprofit organizations, businesses, and/or government agencies). 3. Include a lead organization (for the purposes of this application) that is a 501(c)(3). Can you apply?
- 12. 4. Have begun operations during or before September 2013. 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. Can you apply?
- 13. 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. Can you apply? Why? Check out www.ColoradoCollaboration.org for the quiz on The Three C’s: Cooperation, Coordination and Collaboration? Shared leadership is considered one of the defining characteristics of a true collaboration.
- 14. 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 2013 or earlier. Can you apply? 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 2013 or earlier is required as documentation that the collaboration began operations at least 18 months prior to the Award deadline.
- 15. 5. Submit the lead organization’s nondiscrimination policy; this policy must expressly include “sexual orientation” and “gender expression.” Can you apply? Why? This requirement was proposed and adopted by the award’s founding 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.
- 16. Can you apply? More FAQs Q. Our collaboration includes partners that are government agencies, businesses, etc. Are we eligible to apply? 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. 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.
- 18. How to apply
- 19. 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 13. How to apply
- 20. At any point, click Save and Quit to save your work and get an email with your username and login. Application: Section 1
- 21. How to apply The Application Section 1 Contact Information We’ll use 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.
- 22. At any point, click Save and Quit to save your work and get an email with your username and login. Application: Section 2
- 23. How to apply The Application Section 2 See the full list of application questions at Colorado Collaboration.org Overview Questions 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. Be accurate! (While this section isn’t specifically scored, the reviewers don’t like discrepancies between your responses here and in other sections.)
- 24. At any point, click Save and Quit to save your work and get an email with your username and login. Application: Section 3
- 25. How to apply The Application Section 3 See the full list of application questions at Colorado Collaboration.org Narrative Questions Formation (5 points) Structure (15 points) Purpose and Goals (25 points) Results to date (40 points) Planning (5 points) Anticipated Challenges and Opportunities (5 points) Budget (5 points)
- 26. How to apply The Application Section 4 See the full list of application questions at Colorado Collaboration.org Attachments 501(c)(3) letter, dated 2010 or later, for the lead organization Written agreement (e.g., MOU or contract) dated September 2013 or earlier Current written agreement (e.g., MOU or contract) Nondiscrimination policy from the lead organization (including “sexual orientation” and “gender expression”) Collaboration’s 2015 budget (if applicable) Executive summary Additional attachments (if needed; please don’t upload any materials not requested above)
- 28. How to apply Application Attachments 501(c)(3) letter, dated 2010 or later, for the lead organization Need an updated IRS letter? Instructions are available at ColoradoCollaboration.org under Apply for the Award > Application > IRS Determination vs. Affirmation Letters.
- 29. How to apply Application Attachments Original documentation of the collaboration structure (memorandum of understanding/MOU, contract, or merger agreement), dated September 2013 or earlier. This documentation demonstrates that the collaboration began formal operations at least 18 months before the 2015 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.
- 30. 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. For more details, visit www.ColoradoCollaboration.org and go to Apply for the Award > Eligibility Requirements > What is an MOU?
- 31. 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
- 32. 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.
- 33. Application Tips Find this list at www.ColoradoCollaboration.org > Application > Application Tips
- 36. What happens next? Eligible applications advanced to next round Collaborations asked to provide Participant Endorsement Forms (1 per partner) March 13: Application Deadline March 31: Screening complete April 17: Deadline for Participant Endorsement Forms June 15: Review round #1 complete Review committee finishes reading and scoring applications Semi-finalists selected Review committee schedules site visits with semi-finalists
- 37. 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 Application Review
- 38. What happens next? Site visits complete Finalists selected July 17: Review round #2 complete August: Winner selected Final Selection Panel meets in August to choose the winner October: Award presented 2015 Colorado Collaboration Award presented at Colorado Nonprofit Association’s Fall Conference & Exhibition Winner invited to present a session at the Fall Conference
Editor's Notes
- Welcome Introduction
- 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
- Let’s take a quick look at the collaboration that won the award last year and in 2013. 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.
- Last year’s winner was the Delores River Restoration Partnership. Other strengths to note that are not listed are: They shared responsibilities and a great level of trust between partners Strong community and youth focus that fosters learning and stewardship
- These are just a few excerpts from Western Colorado Landscape Collaborative’ 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.
- 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.
- Of course, in order to apply for the Collaboration Award you must have the key components of a collaboration including shared leadership, goals, planning and resources. Also, be sure to take the Three C’s Quiz on our website.
- Along with a collaborative structure you must have an MOU in order to demonstrate sustainability and success. One thing to note is the MOU must be dated September 2013 or earlier. As stated earlier, the reasoning for this is due to the fact that it is harder for newer collaborations to provide information on evaluation.
- The fifth requirement is the collaboration must have a nondiscrimination policy. The founding steering committee agreed that this requirement aligns with the Award itself. For those that don’t have this policy in place right now must adopt it and submit the new policy by the application deadline.
- 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 2014 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.
- Here’s what the first page of the application looks like.
- Please note that it is important you provide an email address as this will be the primary way of communicating with you. You will also need to provide an email address in order to get your login information if you ever need to return to your application.
- Here’s the overview questions page.
- This section just helps the reviewers understand the collaboration they’re reading about in the other sections.
- Here’s the narrative questions page. Reviewers use your responses in this section to evaluate the application. Some things to notice: The red warning at the top. Please, please do not write your answers in these text boxes. Write them in a Word document or something that you can save separately, then copy and paste into the application. If your session time runs out, the website will log you out. Use the Save button periodically to refresh your session time…and save your work!. The timer box on the right. You can keep an eye on it, but save your work separately anyway. The countdown timer could, in theory, freeze or be incorrect or something. If that happens, you lose your work and there is absolutely no way to get it back. The countdown timer is not the one who will have to rewrite all that text! Answering narrative questions: answer each sub-question completely. Each question shows the number of points used to score this question and the character limit for your response.
- 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 “Application” under “Apply for the Award” or just by starting the online application. One other point: 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.
- 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 Award in previous years, 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.
- This is a requirement shared with the Colorado Common Grant Application.
- If you have one single agreement that is BOTH your current agreement AND is dated September 2013 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.
- This is where you can make up for the lack of formatting in the narrative questions! Here, you can showcase things that are unique or innovative. Be creative and focus on information that wasn’t covered in the narrative questions.
- There are some more application tips. Here’s where you’ll also find the complete screening checklist used by the committee to determine whether your application is eligible.
- Any questions about these resources or about the award in general?
- From the website, you can see the full timeline under Apply for the Award > Timeline & Important Dates. First: the information in this webinar is going online. Those that are eligible will be asked to provide Participant Endorsement Forms. These 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.
- For the review round, scoring is based on the narrative responses, with your attachments serving as backup documentation for your narrative answers.
- Any questions about these resources or about the award in general?