Building Grantee Networks

MIGUEL TELLO, APRIL 2024

Agenda

• The Strachan Foundation
• Ingredients for developing grantee networks
• Relationship with grantees
• Conclusion

The Strachan Foundation

• Philosophy: grantees are the protagonists, we are the support team.
• Coverage and type of programs supported
• The Strachan Seminar
• Capacity building
• Monitoring and field visits

Keys to Developing Grantee Networks

• Provide a space where grantees don’t feel that they are competing for funding.
• Provide an annual event where grantees can learn together and share successes and challenges.
• Provide smaller spaces for grantees focussed on specific topics. Examples: special education, Legos and education, leadership in the mountains seminar.
• Provide informal spaces for interaction. Example: annual Strachan Seminar BBQ.
• Build relationships through program monitoring, field visits and capacity building.
• Ensure grantees know that we want them to succeed. Consider mistakes opportunities for learning.

Testimonies from Grantees

• The Strachan Foundation seminars provide a unique space where organizations can share amongst themselves without feeling threatened. Since we are not competing for funding we are open to sharing with one another. Lillian Solt, Founder and Director of CEDCAS, Costa Rica
• The level of trust and closeness is unique. I don’t know of any other donor that shows this warmth of a friend and partner. The appreciation and recognition of our organization is also unique. Dr. Sadith Cáceres, Founder and Director of PRODIM, Honduras
• The Strachan Foundation not only offers donations, they offer training, technical assistance and accompaniment. We really appreciate this support. It’s exceptional and something that is not easily found. We have a learned a lot through this relationship. Natalie Medina, Director of Fundación Amaneceres, Panama
• The Strachan Foundation is not just a foundation but part of the AMOS family, and we know that this loving, kind, and impactful approach is what makes the Strachan Foundation so effective in helping us (and other organizations in Central America) to leverage what we have to continue to grow and serve the most vulnerable people in Nicaragua. Dr. Laura Parajón, Cofounder and Medical Director of AMOS, Nicaragua

Cultivating Relationships with Grantees

• Cultivate warm, friendly, honest relationships with grantees
• Bring the personal and the professional together
• Always seek to understand rather than to judge
• Respect grantees at all times
• Grantees are the protagonists and we are the support team. This manifests itself in timely communications, simple reporting, multi-year funding.

Conclusions

• Grantee networks require a common goal. Otherwise, the energy needed to maintain a network becomes too burdensome and is easily set aside.
• Relationships are key. Developing and maintaining trusting relationships takes time. Grantees need to experience coming together. The Strachan Seminar was the event that brought grantees together both at professional and personal levels.
• Address miscommunication or conflict when it occurs. Restorative practices is an excellent way of addressing conflict and strengthening bonds between people and groups.

Maya Angelou

“I´ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”