Collaborative Funding Action Team
Purpose
Increasing the role of community in identifying ways to make financial resources more accessible.
About the Strategy Area
Collaborative funding focuses on identifying ways to support communities to have access to funding. It also focuses on strategies for moving funds towards accessibility and responsiveness to collective effort that is valued by the community.
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Since 2020, the Collaborative Funding Action Team has been focusing on building networks and holding conversations to identify opportunities to adapt funding processes to ultimately make financial resources more available to the community. While some barriers pose challenges in communities taking the lead in implementing solutions, this Action Team recognizes the many assets of the community. These assets include existing networks, community leaders and the skills/knowledge of the people and neighborhoods who belong to Jefferson County’s communities. To learn more about how the team works together, please visit our Action Team page.
Our Journey
Towards Supporting Accessible and Responsive Funding for Community Initiatives
What We're Learning
Connections and relationships are important in understanding funding processes and encouraging further conversations on this topic. The following are conditions we are finding necessary to support accessible and responsive funding for community initiatives that center community in the process.
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Consider equity in each step of the funding process. To have the impact expected by communities, we need to strive for systems that distribute and sustain funding within communities, cross sectors and involve all impacted parties throughout the whole process.
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Relationships, relationships, relationships. Create partnerships between funding organizations and the community, clarify roles and limitations early in relationships and listen actively to assure funding is broadly distributed to address local challenges.
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Approach systems with creativity and a healthy amount of skepticism. It is important to collaborate, question and challenge systems we are a part of to encourage responsiveness to community needs and expertise.
Collaborative Funding in Action
Edgewater Collective: Partnerships for a Thriving Community
Edgewater Collective works towards decreasing education and economic gaps in our communities and strives to reimagine and redesign community systems so that everyone can thrive. The Collective includes a variety of programs and cooperatives that aim to explore systemic innovations to improve education and economic outcomes. One of the cooperatives, Incubadora Collectiva, aims to build community wealth by supporting worker cooperatives. Incubadora Colectiva supports these cooperatives in the areas of funding, web development, bookkeeping, advertising, ongoing training, and other office services.
The AJL Foundation
The AJL Foundation’s mission is to invest in people, programs and movements that benefit Colorado's youth and families. They believe people and communities know what they need and aim to support funding through grantmaking, direct investing and impact investing for community organizations that are doing important work in our communities. In their work, the Foundation recognizes that they are neither the experts nor the authority on the issues they work on, and they enter every partnership and conversation with compassion, humility and in the spirit of learning.
