About the Fund

Tax-exempt organizations that are based in, or provide services within the state of Delaware. This includes cases where a national organization partners with a Delaware-based nonprofit, as long as the primary benefit of the partnership applies to Delawareans.

Grant support can only be used to cover the necessary one-time, out-of-pocket costs incurred in exploring or implementing a sustained collaboration. Although these costs may be modest compared with the potential benefits of the collaboration, they often become stumbling blocks, in part because most funding is tied to programs and is therefore unavailable for process/organizational costs. The Collaboration Fund will provide grants to support nonprofits to identify and engage experienced outside technical assistance (TA) providers. While the Collaboration Fund will not select a given TA provider, it does retain the right to turn down a proposal if the consultant is not deemed to be appropriate for the given request. 

No, each type of funding request will be considered independently. Organizations are eligible to receive an award at each stage of the collaboration process. Exploratory grants are meant to provide organizations with the due diligence support needed to decide whether or not to procede with a collaboration. 

Longwood Foundation remains agnostic about partnerships and collaborations and believes it is likely there will be more demand for services from nonprofits and less sources of funds in the future. Therefore, it’s logical that new forms of partnerships should be explored and/or executed in the years to come. 

Applications for Seed and Exploratory grants are anonymized when SeaChange shares information with the Longwood Foundation. 

Mergers/collaboration can have implications on other funding sources; organizations should feel free to discuss with their funders if concerned. 

The Fund for Delaware Collaboration aims to defray a meaningful portion of the costs associated with exploring or planning a collaboration. Seed Grants are capped at $5,000, while Exploratory and Implementation Grants are capped at $30,000 each. These amounts are designed to represent roughly 40-75% of total project costs in most cases, based on market benchmarks.

The Collaboration Fund cannot directly assist with partner organization identification or "matchmaking." However, an organization can apply for Seed funding to engage a consultant who may assist with a landscape or network analysis exercise with the end goal of identifying potential partners for the formal collaboration.

No - the grants are available to all tax-exempt organizations, regardless of organizational size or issue area.

Yes - the funding may be used to explore or plan cross-sectoral collaborations. However, if a cross-sectoral partnership opportunity is applying for implementation phase funding (i.e., the organizations' decision-makers have voted to move forward in formal partnership), the Collaboration Fund can only consider situations where a nonprofit will be the surviving entity.

In this scenario, it depends how mature the pilot is and what the necessary costs are to complete the pilot. We would recommend reaching out for an individual consultation to discuss.

The Collaboration Fund's grant eligibility is limited to the technical assistance and transactional costs associated with exploring or planning formal collaboration. In situations where there will be no third-party costs incurred, organizations are welcome to utilize the Fund's other resources (advice, educational materials), but no grant support is available.