Please respond to the 1) video (attached) and 2) the information below. Describe additional ways that you or your colleagues can use to overcome the identified barriers and share ideas about how to strengthen partnerships.
Suggest reasons that a Memorandum of Understanding and Letters of Agreement would be necessary for your colleague’s project.
2)
What barrier(s) could impact the success of your funding partnership?
There are a few barriers that could impact the success of my funding partnership. The first one would be finding shelters to be willing to open up and allow my team to analyze their homeless shelter programs geared towards people with disabilities. The second barrier is getting these shelters to allow our team to analyze their programs and services (i.e., helping the disabled with finding employment, and housing assistance). The third barrier is finding shelters to be willing to open up and to analyze what Homeless shelters are doing to reintegrate the disabled to the workforce.
How will you work to overcome the barrier(s)?
It will not be easy to overcome the barriers but completely doable. To achieve the funding partnership and break down the barriers, my team will have to make many calls to various organizations, explain the purpose of the project, what we are trying to do, and so on. My team will need to make it clear that the point is to find the information and push for a better change. According to IBISWorld (n.d.), as of 2021, there are 11,241 Community Housing & Homeless Shelters businesses in the US, and a few are bound to allow my team to analyze, and once we have these results, we can show them to various shelters and show them that we are actively looking to improve and ensure that the needs of the disabled homeless population are being met. I am confident that will help open up opportunities to collaborate with more shelters nationwide.
Provide an explanation of the importance of building a relationship between
funder and grantee. Describe key elements of this relationship, providing a rationale for your thinking.
Before we continue, it is important for us to understand what the funder and grantee are. Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.) states that a funder is “a person or an organization that provides money to pay for an activity, event, or group. Gitlin et al. (2020) explains that a grantee is “the institution or individual who submits the grant application and receives a grant award.” The importance of building a relationship between the funder and grantee is high because they both must work together to achieve the goal established. The key elements of the relationship are mutual interest/goals, whether if it is a partnership or not, and finding the right balance in the funder and grantee relationship. My rationale behind this is rather simple. The partnership simply cannot work if there is no mutual interest/goal of the project that is being funded. Ensuring that it is a partnership will allow both parties to be actively involved as they would like to while ensuring the integrity of the project. Some funders may have an agenda that is different from the intention of the research, so it is important to know where both parties stand. As for the last thing, finding the balance will allow both parties to work together and oversee the project and reach its goal, or at least its completion date.
Describe why the grant funder/RFP’s criteria are important and how they can influence the outcomes of the funding process.
The grant funder/RFP’s criteria are important because it tells us what their goal is and what they are looking to fund. Without the criteria being set, we would have no way of knowing if the funder’s mission aligns with ours or if it differs. For example, someone that wants to research advocating American Sign Language (ASL) as a language would not want a funder that is looking to disapprove of ASL as a language. With mutual agenda/shared goals, the project will have a better chance of succeeding and reach the research conclusion. If a funder and grantee disagree on something, it can lead to having the funding pulled and put the project on a screeching halt. With my project, I would need a funder that is passionate about homelessness and disability. If I get a funder that has an agenda towards the opposite goal, my research would likely be compromised in a way – altered to align with the funder, never seeing the light if they do not like the result and pull the research before it could be done, and many more possibilities.
Address both a Memorandum of Understanding and Letters of Agreement that would be necessary.
According to G Vision Consulting (2014), a Memorandum of Understanding is a legal document but not a legally binding contract. G Vision Consulting (2014) further explained that it is a statement of intention between two parties of what they will do to accomplish the overall goal of the project. Letters of Agreement is different as it is a legal agreement between two parties (UpCounsel, n.d.). In other words, a Letter of Agreement is a legal document while a Memorandum of Understanding is not. I believe that both Memorandum of Understanding and the Letters of Agreement are important. With Memorandum of Understanding, it ensures that the funder and grantee are on the same page of what to do, what the project goal is, what is expected to be done to accomplish the goals set for the project, and so on. When both parties are on the same page, it is important to transition to Letters of Agreement to protect each other. It allows the funder to ensure that the money given is put towards the project and goals that both agreed to. In my perspective, it protects the grantee from having to change something that was not agreed upon, changing the goals set for the funded project, and prevents the funder from changing the course of action when doing research. With Memorandum of Understanding and Letters of Agreement, both parties are protected and the project goals, objectives, and so on are established and ready to be started.
