Consortium Grant Stacking
Nonprofits, Educators, Companies, and Support Partners can each apply for grants the others cannot, so together they open more grant pools, and each new grant builds on the work already in place.
Schedule a meeting with DanielChoose your Partner Type on the next page, then pick a time to meet for thirty minutes.Why it works
Most grant pools accept only certain kinds of organizations as the applicant, such as an Educator, a Company, or a city. One organization reaches only the pools its own type opens, and its program can end when those pools run dry.
Each grant asks for its own list: these people, this sector, this region, these results. Each partner delivers its part, and together the partners can deliver the whole list.
How the consortium opens more grants
On each grant, one partner is the Lead Applicant, the organization that submits and signs the application. The other partners join the work.
The more partners and Partner Types in the consortium, the more grant pools it can open. A consortium can cover one region or many regions across states.
You gather Career Seekers and get them informed about the career. You can be the Lead Applicant on grants written for the people you serve, and you join the Educator, Company, and city grants where those people are the outcome.
You train the Career Seekers. You can be the Lead Applicant on funding only an Educator can apply for. Your training is part of the grants other partners lead, where Nonprofits send you Career Seekers and Companies interview your graduates.
You give facility tours, interview Career Seekers, speak in Educator classrooms, and decide who you hire. Some funding opens only to a Company, and the grants other partners lead are built around your open roles, with no grant administration on your side.
You bring the partners together, train them, and carry out parts of the grant's work. You can be the Lead Applicant on grants open to your kind of organization, and you are a named partner with a budget line in the others.
Grant Stacking
The grant decides which builds it needs, and some grants need a build already done before the partners can apply. What each grant builds stays standing for the next one.
Connects the partners into one path for Career Seekers: Get Informed. Get Trained. Get Hired.
Builds a hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math lab that gets Career Seekers excited about the career.
Registers an apprenticeship with the state, so Career Seekers hired by a Company earn while they learn.
Sets up training inside the Company, so it can grow its own people and later host apprentices.
Proof
The Regional Career Network model has won over $1.95 million in workforce development grants for our partners, and it is building or being explored in more regions.
Supported the STEM Lab, a training space for the region that stays open when a program ends.
A Registered Apprenticeship formed with a local Educator. The lab needed to lead to a career, so the training was tied to a job with a local Company.
The instructors were certified, so the region can teach the pathway on its own.
Builds on the lab, the apprenticeship, and the instructors already in place.
How partners join
Every partner signs an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, that lists the simple steps it already takes, such as giving tours, interviewing Career Seekers, or training them.
On each grant, the partners choose the Lead Applicant from the Partner Types that grant accepts. The lead changes from grant to grant, so no single partner leads the region, and every partner keeps its own part of the work.
Regional Career Networks connects every partner and keeps each step running smoothly: the CNC Career Guide, webinars for Career Seekers, and scheduling tours and interviews.
Go deeper
A grant pool is one source of workforce money, such as a state training fund, a federal program, or a foundation. Each pool names the kinds of organizations allowed to apply.
Educator money needs an Educator. Apprenticeship incentives need a registered apprenticeship sponsor. Some training funds run only through Companies. Community development money runs through a city.
Each pool opens and closes on its own calendar, so a consortium that reaches many pools has more grants opening across the year.
The grant money flows through the Lead Applicant, and it reports to the Funder on the whole grant.
The partners doing funded work answer for their own part, so the report to the Funder is not one partner's alone to explain.
An MOU lists only the simple steps a partner already takes. A Nonprofit gathers Career Seekers and gets them informed. An Educator gives program tours and trains. A Company gives facility tours, interviews Career Seekers, and speaks in Educator classrooms, and the Company decides who it hires. A Support Partner lists how it already brings the partners together.
Signed MOUs show the Funder that the whole group is committed before the application goes in.
Some grants pay to create a build. Others pay for work inside a build that already exists.
A grant that pays for each apprentice needs a Registered Apprenticeship in place first. A fund that pays a Company back for training needs the Company's training plan first. Some money pays for each person hired, with no build at all.
When the Funder leaves it open, the partners choose the builds that fit the region. One grant can pay for one build or several.
Every grant needs all four Partner Types. Each build also needs a few specific partners.
Career Pathway: the region's Nonprofits, Educators, Companies, and Support Partners, connected by Regional Career Networks.
STEM Lab: a host site at a Nonprofit or an Educator; a Support Partner who builds the lab, sets up the curriculum, and trains the teachers; an Educator ready to receive the graduates; and Companies who shape what the lab teaches. It comes after the Career Pathway or alongside it.
Apprenticeship: a sponsor (a Company, an Educator, or a group of partners), the state apprenticeship office, a Support Partner who writes and registers the apprenticeship, an Educator for the classroom training, and Companies who host apprentices, including people they already employ.
Company Readiness: the Company, a Support Partner who builds the training plan and the apprenticeship plan, an Educator, and the local workforce board.
Every region wants to win grant after grant. Stacking works when the partners stay committed and the work stays standing between grants.
In a consortium, the MOUs stay signed, what each grant built stays in place, and Regional Career Networks keeps the partners together and lines up the next grant.
Daniel brings the sector and the story of the partners around you into each grant, written with your grant writer or for you.
Daniel also joins your meetings with the Nonprofits, Educators, Companies, and Support Partners around you. He explains the sector and the plan for the region, and brings them into the consortium.
Daniel Wierman would be glad to meet with you for thirty minutes. You and Daniel will look at the grant pools your Partner Type opens, the pools the partners around you open, and which build your region could start with.
Schedule a meeting with DanielThirty minutes with Daniel Wierman.