In order to accomplish our mission and goals of increasing scale, service effectiveness, and enhanced performance, we build on the assets of our sub-grantees by providing the following services:
Re-granting of funds:
Grant awards to sub-grantees requires appropriate oversight of those funds on behalf of the funding agency. The LCCL accomplishes this by providing on the ground State Directors (SD). The SD is a hands on coach to answer questions, assist in connecting to community resources, fine tune budgets, as well as, hold sub-grantees accountable to agreed upon outcomes outlined in the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Training & Technical Assistance
We provide sub-grantee staff training on topics such as case management, data collection, program development, and grant-budget management. Targeted technical assistance may include long-term planning, Executive Director coaching, Board-leadership development, and use of software programs for data collection and record keeping.
Organizational assessment:
Sub-grantees are required to fill out an organizational assessment for analyzing and evaluating their assets and needs, and determining the kinds of support and services required to assist the organization.
Intermediary relational expertise:
The LCCL employs State Directors located in, or in close proximity to, the communities they serve and have knowledge and experience addressing the needs of their communities. This proximity and expertise is a vital component in the successful implementation of community projects. The ongoing relationship with nonprofit staff ensures accountability, growth, expertise and accomplishment of goals and objectives of the funded project.
Sharing best practices:
In the bigger picture of our role as an intermediary, we are able to gather relevant information, lessons learned, promising practices, replicable models, and innovative service delivery ideas from practitioners in the field. This information is useful for funders, academics, policymakers, and advocacy groups seeking to improve social program effectiveness.
Improving organizational sustainability and capacity:
Increasing capacity cannot take place without increased funding and increased funding cannot take place without increased capacity. Sustainability won’t happen without increased funding, which will not come without increased capacity. The LCCL is able to provide both the needed funding and needed training and technical assistance to organizations that normally would not qualify for a significant grant that allows for hiring more staff and support existing programs. Thus, we simultaneously build capacity and sustainability.
Featuring successes:
Many of our sub-grantees are not on the community radar screen of community stakeholders, policy makers and the general public—many of who are in the need of the services they provide. Part of our service entails publicizing the work of our sub-grantees; telling their story on a wider, larger platform to keep them from being the “best kept secret in town”, which may lead to new support by introducing them to other providers, funders and policy makers.
Focus on outcomes
As an intermediary we are held accountable for the progress and outcome performance of sub-grantees. As sub-grantees report back to us, so we report back to funders . Thus, sub-grantee success is our success. We understand that providing training, monitoring, and on the ground coaching is all for not if it doesn’t result in effective performance that reached or surpasses the “numbers” as projected in our grant proposal and scope of work. In order to accomplish this we employ the following to evaluate our training and technical assistance:
- Through the use of specialized software each organization collects, analyzes, and reports its outcome data, and uses the data to improve services.
- We employ software for each organization to track budget and financial records for accurate allocation of all expenses.
Negotiate and execute a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
The MOU includes the negotiated service outcomes that the sub-grantee will achieve, as well as the services and resources that they can expect from the LCCL. The MOU ensures clear expectations, sets limits, provides communicating requirements, and expectation for evaluating the success for both parties.
Benefits to Funders
Our role serves to support the funders desire to build the capacity of and distribute social service funds to small grassroots organizations that otherwise may never be in a position to receive grants large enough to accomplish growth and sustainability. The LCCL has developed extensive geographic connections with grassroots organizations. Our network serves to extend a funder’s reach to those small, grassroots community and faith-based nonprofits that may not be identified through traditional outreach methods.