How to Collaborate With Other Nonprofits When You're Both Chasing the Same Grant
When you spot another organization applying for the same grant you're counting on. Or even building a relationship with the same major donor you've spent a year cultivating. The instinct is to treat them like the competition, keep your distance, and protect what little you have.
Sharmon Lebby, founder of Blessed Designs Consulting, walked through why that instinct usually costs more than it protects, on a recent episode of The Focused Fundraiser with host Rob Burke.
Key Takeaways
Real collaboration starts with both organizations being specific and honest about what they actually need, not just agreeing to vaguely "work together".
Putting a partnership in writing, even an informal one, clarifies roles and makes your grant application and legal position stronger.
Decide upfront who leads the application, how the work gets split, and what happens if you don't get the grant. Naming this early is what keeps a good partnership from unraveling quietly later.
Collaborations don't have to last forever to have been worth it. Some of the strongest ones run their course after a few years, and that's fine.
Funders want to see organizations amplify each other. Treating another org as competition for the same grant is usually the wrong read on what actually gets funded.
What Real Collaboration Actually Requires Before You Start
Collaboration can look a lot of different ways, and that's part of what makes it hard to get right. Sharmon's starting point is simple: be really, really clear about what each organization needs out of the partnership, and say it out loud.
If it's not mutually beneficial, it's not doing anybody any good. Two organizations circling the same grant without ever naming what each one actually needs from working together aren't collaborating. They're just hoping proximity counts.
The second piece is agreeing on the purpose behind the partnership, not just the fact that you both need something. It's common to know "this person needs this" and "that person needs that" without ever deciding what you're trying to do together and how it moves things forward. This is where a lot of partnerships fall apart before they start.
We've written before about why collaboration has to be the default mindset in nonprofit work, not just a nice-to-have. Once you've decided collaboration is the right call, here's what actually makes one work when money's involved.
Why You Should Put It in Writing, Even When It's Informal
Sharmon's advice here is crystal clear: write it down. Nonprofits building a partnership or collaboration often get wary of anything that looks like a legal step, but a contract, even a simple one, can be extremely helpful. It clarifies each organization's role and what everyone is bringing to the table, so there's no miscommunication about who's doing what.
That clarity pays off when you get to the grant application itself. Once you know exactly what your organization is doing and exactly what the other organization is bringing, you can get specific in the application in a way vague partnerships never manage. That specificity is often the difference between a proposal that reads as a real collaboration and one that reads as two logos slapped on the same page.
This is also just an extension of building a strong foundation for your organization. A partnership without a clear agreement behind it is a system with a gap in it, and gaps show up at the worst time, usually right when the funder asks a question neither side has a clean answer to.
What to Do When the Partnership Gets Complicated
Even a good collaboration runs into friction. The questions worth settling before you start are usually the ones nobody wants to bring up first.
If you're both applying to the same funder together, decide upfront who's the lead applicant and how the ask gets split between you. Working that out at the deadline instead of at the start is how you avoid scrambling at the last minute.
If one organization ends up doing more of the work, say so early instead of letting it build up quietly. An imbalance that never gets named is usually what ends a partnership, not one big blowup.
And agree, in writing, on what happens if the grant doesn't come through. Some partnerships only exist because of the funding on the table. If that's true for yours, it's better to know that going in than to find out when the rejection email lands.
What This Looked Like in Practice
Sharmon's first organization actually grew out of a collaboration like this. It started with 5 women, each running her own ethical or sustainable business, who came together to build a community organization.
Together they ran what they called Impact Hours, events where a business owner would talk through their journey and other founders could come in, ask questions, and build community around it. They also started a market called the Good Market, a holiday market where other organizations could come in and sell their own goods, building momentum together instead of everyone trying to do it alone.
That collaboration ran for about 3 years. It ended because it worked. Each founder had tapped into the others' communities and audiences and grown to the point where everyone got too busy to keep running it together.
Sharmon's read on that ending is worth sitting with: collaborations don't have to last forever to count as a success. They last as long as they're good for everyone involved and as long as they make sense. When they stop making sense, you can put it down, call it okay, and look back at all the good that came out of it in the meantime.
Why Funders Reward This Instead of Punishing It
When funders see organizations actually amplifying each other, helping tell each other's story because they're genuinely invested in what the other is doing, they respond to it. Funders love seeing you collaborate with other organizations in your area, build real networks, and make clear that you're not trying to be the lone wolf solving something by yourself. They want to know their dollars are going to make an impact, and when organizations work together, impact is amplified.
That's the opposite of what most organizations assume when they see a "competitor" circling the same grant. The nonprofits that get funded aren't usually the ones that out-competed everyone else in the room. They're the ones who made clear that whatever they said they wanted to happen actually could happen, in part because they weren't trying to do it alone.
Watch the Episode
If you and another organization are circling the same funding and trying to figure out whether to team up or stay in your own lanes, that's exactly the kind of question a Partnership & Collaboration Strategy engagement is built for: figuring out how to work with other organizations through resource-sharing, co-programming, or coalitions, without it turning into a merger neither of you wants.
Book a free 15-minute consultation to talk through whether that's the right next step for you.
Blessed Designs Consulting works with social and environmental justice organizations to build strong, sustainable foundations by clarifying their purpose, strengthening operations, and creating systems that attract funding and support long-term growth.
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