Being ‘community first’ means engaging and involving community partners at all stages of the partnership, even the application process. When the CFICE team was putting together its SSHRC application several years ago, the application process presented one of the first opportunities to put the ‘community first’ ethos into action.

With so many partners involved in CFICE, (at least a dozen universities and 60+ community-based organizations), finding a project design, structure, and common goals across the project posed a challenge, but over the course of the six years of this project, CFICE leaders have learned to put community first through practice.

CFICE spoke to its current Principal Investigator, Peter Andrée, and one of the community partners from the Poverty Reduction Hub, Liz Weaver of Tamarack Institute in Waterloo, to gain their insight into how best to formulate a SSHRC partnership grant application while respectfully involving your community-based organization (CBO) partners.

Sharing ideas at the Ottawa CCE Regional Roundtable.

Start with existing relationships

Before you can think about submitting a SSHRC partnership grant application, you need to know who your partners will be. In CFICE’s case, most community partnerships arose out of pre-existing relationships and networks. CFICE’s original Principal Investigator (PI) Ted Jackson approached the Tamarack Institute, for instance, because he already had a relationship with them from his work in the community development sector.

CFICE Principal Investigator, Peter Andree.

Peter AndrĂ©e, the current PI for CFICE, was originally involved in the project as the academic co-lead for the Community Food Security hub. Through his academic research on food security, AndrĂ©e had an established network of contacts in that field, and it was through this network that he recruited to be a part of CFICE. AndrĂ©e said in an interview that connecting with partners in the early stages of the project “was a bit of an organic process” involving the lead academics and the Canadian Alliance for Community Service Learning (CACSL) drawing on their networks.

While you might begin with relationships you’ve already built, that does not mean that those you first approach will necessarily be the right fit. “The question then becomes how much you can ask of [the community partner],” AndrĂ©e says. “It’s often about your networks, but then don’t take that relationship for granted…really try and figure out if this is going to be of value [for them] or not.”

Community partners are often asked to write letters of support in the context of a partnership grant application, but AndrĂ©e says this isn’t something you want to ask them for right away. “Rather, you first have to have a conversation about what would be in this for you, and what would be in this for me, and how can we make sure that your time is valued and how can this be reciprocal?” he says.

Those initial conversations, of which there might be several, are the key to hashing out things like the responsibilities involved in the project and the potential benefits for each partner. If it’s a SSHRC partnership grant you’re applying for, don’t forget that the project is a research project at the end of the day.

“While it can serve other ends for community organizations, it ultimately needs to be this knowledge generation, synthesis project, so if that is not of interest to them, then you have to have those conversations early on” in order to determine if the partnership will be a good fit, says AndrĂ©e.

Consult partners from the get-go

Liz Weaver, the Co-CEO of the community-based organization the , was a community co-lead in CFICE’s Poverty Reduction hub in Phase I of the project. She says CFICE helped the folks at the Tamarack Institute feel respected and included in the application process by involving them in the initial design of the project.

“I think what was really important was the whole notion of community-first,” Weaver told CFICE in a recent interview. For CFICE, “community-first” means fostering equitable partnerships to co-create knowledge that can then be applied to benefit the community context.

“I felt I was informed at every stage of how the process was moving forward
there were lots of emails back and forth with community partners about where the proposal was at,” Weaver said. Then, when the CFICE project got to the interview stage of the SSHRC proposal, community partners were invited to be a part of that process as well.

As a community partner outside of the academic sphere, Weaver said the SSHRC application itself can be a bit “daunting,” but that “the people at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­ŽŽ [University] were quite helpful in terms of navigating [that].”

Exchanging as much information as possible and providing assistance with the application process when needed can make your CBO feel included and involved without feeling overwhelmed.

Align shared goals

As part of those early conversations, ensuring that partners are on the same page as to the broader goals of the project, and what they hope to get out of the project for their individual organization or research, is an important step in ensuring that expectations are aligned.

“Some of what’s implicit in how we work needs to be made explicit, so that everybody understands the parameters that everybody’s working with,” says AndrĂ©e. For instance, if an academic partner is looking to get tenure in the next five years, “that’s got to be on the table,” AndrĂ©e says. “What do you need to get tenure? If that’s a certain number of publications, how does that fit in with what you’re planning to do with your community partners?” Expectations that might seem like they are outside of the partnership, but that could influence one’s involvement in the project, need to be acknowledged.

Weaver said “the group has to buy into the shared agenda” of the research project, and thought maybe that was something that was lacking within CFICE’s Phase I. “I think we circled around the shared agenda a lot, and then each of the hubs did their own thing,” she said.

Both Weaver and Andrée identified the need to be in partnership with an organization as a whole, rather than just one person within that organization.

“Chances are people who are still doing the work five years later are not the people who started, and so there needs to be an institutional commitment to the value of the work for that organization,” AndrĂ©e says.

And, if you do have organizational or institutional support, and you have aligned goals and expectations, Weaver adds that something else to consider is your partners’ state of readiness. “If you want [the project] to get off the ground quickly, then you want to have groups that have good relationships and people who make decisions relatively quickly,” she said.

Negotiate power and governance

Over the course of CFICE, face-to-face meetings have been found to be integral to the success of partnership projects. These meetings allow honest and frank discussions to take place and can be helpful to address more difficult topics such as power imbalances. Weaver says the first face-to-face meeting for all CFICE partners did not happen until after the funding was secured and the logistics and structure of the project was already in place. She suggests that in hindsight, this might have been done differently, so that the main ‘hub’ structure of the CFICE project could have been better communicated to community partners.

While Weaver said community partners might have been more involved in deciding the overall project structure, when it came to the individual hubs, “we were able—both community and academic—to make decisions fairly quickly with the design of that project.” Weaver said the independence that was afforded to the hubs, in her case the Poverty Reduction hub, was helpful to the community partners and allowed them to have a driving voice behind the work.

Identifying areas where community partners will take the lead in terms of decision making and governance, and outlining areas that fall into the academic purview is important to ensure power dynamics are addressed and relationships are as equitable as possible.

For instance, within the SSHRC partnership grant, the PI, an academic, is ultimately responsible for budgeting and management of funds. That means that they will hold a certain degree of power and governance in the project. It is important to acknowledge this role and how it may impact the partnership in the context of these early conversations.

You’ve approached the partners, discussed governance and responsibilities, and now your team is ready to develop a realistic project budget and work plan. For funders like SSHRC, the key word is feasibility. This means they are looking for work plans and associated budgets that can actually be accomplished on time, and within the award amount available.

You’ll need to think through the scope of your project in significant detail in order to produce the most viable budget and work plan possible. Here are some steps to follow that will help.

List your current personnel resources

Start your work and budget planning process by preparing a list of the personnel you know will be working on your project. This list will be based on the discussions you’ve already had with project partners, and will entail thinking in more detail about how many hours each partner will realistically be able to contribute to the project (on average). If you win a SSHRC grant, these details will likely change as your project progresses, however, starting with this list will help give you a sense of the person-power you have available for completing tasks.

Here’s a sample breakdown from a CFICE working group:

Research Assistant (RA; Master’s level): 10 hours per week (consistent)

Community Co-lead: 5 hours per week (variable)

Academic Co-lead: 7 hours per week (variable)

Total: 22 hours per week

When you estimate the number of hours per week that your team will be able to spend on project work, you will get a much more accurate sense of how long it will take to complete the tasks associated with your project. For example, a literature review might take an undergraduate RA 30 hours to accomplish, whereas a Master’s RA might only take 20. Also, keep in mind the way that these hours play out in terms of weeks and months. For the literature review, it will take three full weeks for an RA to complete, even though it only takes 30 hours in total to complete.

Note: It’s always better to estimate that project partners will be able to spend less time on the project than more. It’s easier to put extra capacity to work than to find capacity where it doesn’t exist!

Clearly outline your project’s major tasks or activities

The next step is to lay out your major project deliverables. The best way to do this is to think about your end goal and list the most important tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach that goal.

For CFICE, the end goal of the project was to answer the research question: How can community-campus partnerships be designed and implemented to maximize the value created for non-profit, community-based organizations?

From this end goal, the CFICE team identified the major activities they would need to accomplish in order to answer this question. These included:

• Working IN community-campus partnerships in different sectors, such as violence against women or poverty reduction, on actual projects.
• Studying/evaluating how each CCE project functioned (looking at project governance; decision-making processes; whether the projects accomplished their goals; how partners communicated; what worked and what didn’t; etc.).
• Analyzing the data across all the projects to determine if CCE projects function the same across sectors or not.
• Answering the research question by coming up with recommended actions for working in CCE projects based on the research data.
• Sharing results with CCE practitioners and professionals!

Figuring out expectations and timelines are part of any good project.

In a project plan, your major tasks are known as milestones. Milestones allow you to plan the minutia of your project tasks and deliverables within a feasible timeline. They also act as markers to signal whether your project is staying on track once it’s actually in progress!

Using these milestones, you can then break down each section of the work into smaller, easier-to-plan tasks.

Here is a basic example from CFICE:

• Working IN community-campus partnerships in different sectors, such as violence against women or poverty reduction, on actual projects.
  • Identifying project partners and roles
  • Developing project proposals and parameters (including budget) with project partners
  • Applying for ethics clearance (if applicable)
  • Dispersing project funds (as needed)
  • Hiring student research assistants (as needed)
  • Running the project
  • Evaluating the project (submission of written report)
  • Sharing project results (knowledge mobilization)

Plan your activities from deadlines to start dates

With your completed list of milestones and associated tasks, you will be ready to start plotting everything onto a feasible timeline. As any good project manager knows, this process entails starting with final deadline(s) and working your way to the project’s beginning.

Using your project management software (which could be as simple as Microsoft Excel), insert the final date by which your project must be finished.

Next, add in your milestones from the previous step, and under these milestones, add in the associated tasks. Make sure each task falls in its own row (if using Excel). I recommend using project management software or Excel so you can easily sort, add, and remove tasks that pop up as you insert them into the timeline.

With your personnel resources in-mind, work backwards from the project end date to figure out your deadlines based on how much time it will take for your team to complete each task. Take into account time delays like vacations and statutory holidays too!

For example:

End of Project: March 31, 2019

• Sharing CFICE results
  • 1.5 years to complete (special issues with journals/attend spring/fall conferences to reach international audience, etc.)
  • Start date: November 1, 2017
  • End date: March 31, 2019
• Answering the research question/developing recommendations and key findings
  • This step must be completed before the next step can begin
  • 6 month consultative process; July-August resources are unavailable due to vacations
  • Start date: March 1, 2017
  • End date: October 31, 2017
• Analyzing the data across all the projects
  • This step must be completed before the next step can begin
  • 3 month consultative process (includes 1 in-person meeting)
  • Start date: November 15, 2016 (start in Nov. to take into account December holidays)
  • End date: February 28, 2017
• Studying/evaluating how each CCE project functioned
  • This step must be completed before the next step can begin
  • 6 month “official” data collection process (CAN be completed over the summer months, but July-Aug resources have less time towards project)
  • Start date: April 1, 2016
  • End date: November 16, 2016
• Working IN community-campus partnerships on actual projects
  • This step must be completed before the next step can begin
  • Goal: To work in as many CCE projects as possible before evaluation stage.
  • 6 month data collection process (CAN be completed over the summer months)
  • Start date: April 1, 2012
  • End date: March 31, 2016 – approximate midterm of project

As you work through this process of planning your project from the end date to the start date, you will notice two things:

• Whether or not your project milestones can actually be accomplished within SSHRC’s grant timeline; and
• Where you might need to increase your resource availability to ensure you can accomplish your project’s goals.

These are important factors to notice before tackling the budget. They will help you balance the scope of your project’s activities with the budget you have. Keeping everyone on the same page and realistic about what can be accomplished is important.

Brainstorm and research a list of associated activity costs as a team

Now that you have all your activities laid out in a work plan, you can start to brainstorm the costs that will be associated with each activity. Doing this activity with a team is the best way to go, since more minds can help with identifying all the different associated project costs you may incur.

For example, take the “Analyzing the data across all projects” task, which breaks down to:

• Compiling the data into a single platform (20 hours)
• Preliminary analysis of data using software (10 hours + software purchase)
• In-depth analysis of data based on software results (20 hours)
• In-person 2-day event for team analysis of data findings (20 hours planning; 14 hours in-person; 15 hours transcribing meeting notes; 5 hours processing travel claims/expenses)
• Final report on findings (20 hours)

From this example, we can brainstorm the following costs:

• Personnel:
  • Research Assistant support (for analyzing data)
  • Project administration support (for processing travel claims/expenses; helping with event planning/organization)
  • Honouraria for community partner participation
• Non-personnel costs:
  • Catering
  • Audio/visual support
  • Meeting supplies
  • Meeting space rental
  • Data analysis software

Research the price of as many activity costs as possible

Next, or while you are brainstorming as a team, research the actual costs for as many of the items in your expense list. For example, if you are planning to host two in-person meetings a year, and you know that two of your partners will be flying in from BC, research the costs of flights, accommodations, and meals so you get a much more accurate sense of what this activity will cost.

Two tips here: (1) Keep note of where you find your project costs so you can include this information in the budget justification of your SSHRC application, and (2) don’t forget to include the costs of employer fees when estimating staff pay!

Check your brainstormed costs against the grant’s rules

Once you’ve brainstormed and researched your project costs, check them against the grant’s rules of eligible and ineligible expenses (for SSHRC’s eligible/ineligible expenses, see the Financial Administration section on ). This step will help you identify any costs NOT covered by the funder, so you can either further narrow your project’s scope, or start to identify outside sources of funding.

Outside sources of funding can include in-kind contributions from your project partners, or external grants and bursaries. In CFICE’s case, our partners committed to a significant portion of in-kind contributions (both cash and otherwise), which allowed us to do things such as book free meeting space in the community and hire more students than usual for a project budget our size. Once this outside funding was identified, we were able to shift project funds to other budget lines as needed to ensure all our associated project tasks could reasonably be completed.

Build in an expense reserve

Finally, you will want to build into your budget a bit of cushioning to ensure you have the money to cover any unanticipated expenses as your project progresses. Make sure the amount you hold in reserve can actually be spent before the end of the project in case no unanticipated expenses come up. An idea could be to create a knowledge mobilization fund or a small project fund where you can hold a certain amount of money to which participants can apply for unanticipated knowledge mobilization/project activities such as conference attendance, publications, etc.

Decide how the team will manage the work plan and the budget

The last thing you and your team need to consider as part of your work and budget planning, is how you will manage these pieces once the project starts.

For CFICE, we created a budget committee designated to review the budgets on a yearly and as needed basis. This committee is responsible for ensuring we are on-track with our spending. They advise the principal investigator on what costs to approve that weren’t originally planned. And, having the committee itself allows for greater transparency around project management and budgeting decisions, which helps keep CFICE attuned to its community-first mandate.

CFICE Members planning together at the Oct. 25 Program Committee meeting. ©Jason Garlough

We also developed a reporting process that is completed by team leads each quarter to ensure we can accurately assess whether we are meeting project milestones, and if not, to allow us to adjust timelines and budgets so we can complete all project tasks to meet our final project deadline.

Overall, the more in-depth you get with your work plan and budget brainstorming and research, the more accurate your final work plan and budget will be, and the more confident you will sound when writing about the feasibility of your project for your SSHRC partnership grant application. And of course, the more feasible your project sounds, the more likely you are to actually receive money for your efforts!

Do you have any tips for creating work plans and budgets for your SSHRC partnership project? If so, share them in the comments below!

Grant applications can be long and arduous processes, and can swallow a lot of your capacity and time, which is why it’s important to make sure the grant will suit your needs. Before applying for a grant like the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Partnership Grant, first consider whether it’s the best fit for your organization, and for the goals of your partnership with Canadian academics. Having a funder that is aligned with your own mandate and priorities can make a world of difference to your project.

When the CFICE project started in 2012, it was one of the first multi-partner projects funded by SSHRC. Since then, some aspects of SSHRC’s structure and decision-making processes have evolved. Nonetheless, the CFICE project has valuable insight to offer others who might be considering engaging in a community-campus engagement (CCE) partnership and seeking funding through SSHRC. Here are some things to consider before applying for a SSHRC grant to help you determine whether it is the right grant for you.

What and who SSHRC funds

SSHRC’s primary mandate is “to promote and support post-secondary-based research and training in the humanities and social sciences.” Even when funding community-campus engagement (CCE) projects, supporting academic research, and training the next generation of researchers are SSHRC’s main functions. SSHRC does provide funding opportunities for partnerships via a suite of . These grants are not limited to community-campus partnerships, though such partnerships are certainly eligible. The majority of SSHRC funded partnerships involve not-for-profit organizations. SSHRC , “By fostering mutual co-operation and sharing of intellectual leadership, the grants allow partners to innovate, build institutional capacity and mobilize research knowledge in accessible ways.”

Funding challenges to consider

Governance structure

While SSHRC partnership funding can and does benefit both the academic and the community partner, given SSHRC’s primary mandate of advancing and supporting postsecondary-based research, the academic institution involved in the project is the one with over the use of the funds. This can create challenges for your partnership.

For SSHRC funded projects, the (academic) principal investigator on the project has the final say in any financial decisions, because they are the ones ultimately accountable for the funding. In the context of CFICE, this inability for community partners to have direct access to the funds highlighted explicit power dynamics between academic and community partners.

If you do apply for a SSHRC partnership grant, ensure that all partners are aware of the restrictions and constraints well in advance, as you do not want your community partner to end up feeling as though community needs and expertise are not valued, even though some aspects of the SSHRC grant may imply as much. (See here for more information on navigating power dynamics within CCE).

Ensure all partners are on the same page with respect to governance.

While CFICE was required to channel the SSHRC funding through ĐÓ°ÉÔ­ŽŽ University due to the parameters of the grant, SSHRC does not stipulate any restrictions when it comes to governance of the project itself. In CFICE’s experience, incorporating co-governance via the inclusion of both community and academic perspectives as much as possible into the project helped to create an environment of respect for all partners. Co-governance was exercised in many decision making processes, including the existence of a budget committee which was composed of academic and community partners. And, the leadership on all projects was regularly shared by at least one academic partner and one community partner. CFICE found that ensuring community voices were heard at all levels of the project was an essential aspect of creating a community-first environment.

Capacity of all partners

Under SSHRC partnership grants, community partners are expected to contribute in-kind resources and time to the project. If the community partner is already strapped for resources, this could be a significant impediment to your partnership. One way to navigate this challenge could be to find as many ways as possible to bring down the costs of involvement for the community partner—for instance, employing embedded RAs to work with the community partner can increase their capacity, allowing them to contribute more time to the partnership. Also, having partners contribute in-kind resources that they already use and know well, such as webinar platform space, can ensure community partners help meet the project’s in-kind contribution requirements.

Navigating the bureaucracy associated with a SSHRC grant can also be a barrier to the success of your CCE partnership. When a CCE partnership is already working with limited capacity, the excess time and effort it can take to chase after reimbursements, for instance, can weigh down a project. To balance this, consider hiring a project administrator to keep track of funding requests, reimbursement requests, and the flow of other funds.

It is also important to make sure that partners fully understand all “capacity-enhancing” opportunities within SSHRC funding. For example, CFICE found that helping partners take advantage of the “salary research allowance,” was regularly complicated and difficult to implement. SSHRC’s salary research allowance provides funds for community partners to hire replacements for themselves within their community organization, therefore allowing the partner (not the hiree) to dedicate their own time to the research project. CFICE’s community partners, particularly the smaller organizations, found the work it took to hire and train a replacement for themselves to be restrictive, particularly if there was only a limited amount of funding available for that partner (e.g. under $10,000/year). Considering the best way to effectively reimburse the community partner is an important aspect of deciding which fund is best suited for your needs.

Fully understand the opportunities and challenges with capacity enhancing components of your grant.

Project size

SSHRC funds partnerships of all sizes. Your partnership could consist of one academic and one community partner, or it could include many of each. The CFICE project, for instance, was one of the first of its size to receive SSHRC funding, with five different hubs and multiple partners within each hub. As long as the size of your project is justified in your application and feasible within the parameters of the grant, the size of the partnership is entirely up to the team.

In CFICE’s case, the sheer size and complexity of the project became a challenge. Spreading resources across multiple partners led to issues of resources being spread too thin. CFICE was able to maximize its funding across a wide array of projects and partners, but partners regularly commented that funding was not adequate for fostering long-term, in-depth partnerships. Limited funding for each community partner also led to the problems identified with the salary research allowance discussed above.

Ensuring that the size of your project is realistic with the funds available is important, particularly taking into account any variables that could arise over time, such as personnel changes, unexpected costs associated with travel or meeting space, etc.

Get to know the ins and outs of SSHRC before you apply

At their core, SSHRC partnership grants operate with the goal of supporting academic research, as this is what SSHRC is mandated to support through its government funding. While it is possible to function in a community-first way with SSHRC funding, it’s important to consider the potential challenges for community partners in advance of applying for the grant to decide if it’s the best source of funding for your partnership.

Reviewing the restrictions and constraints of any funds you might be considering, and involving all partners in those discussions, will give you a better idea of the challenges you might encounter should you receive that funding.

Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), CFICE is an action research project with an overall goal to strengthen the ability of Canadian nonprofits,
universities, colleges and funding agencies to build more successful, innovative, resilient and prosperous communities. CFICE’s primary research question is: How can community-campus engagement (CCE) be designed and implemented in ways that maximize the value created for non-profit community-based organizations (including Indigenous Communities)? After 3 years of research, we are preparing for of the project (2016-2019). This phase will focus on mobilizing the knowledge and findings, with the goal of changing CCE policies, practices, along with the existing systems of post-secondary institutions (PSIs), funders, and community organizations. As part of the preparation for this work, we are seeking a researcher to gather background information and to support planning.

For more information about this position, please read . All applications must be submitted to programs@foodsecurecanada.org by 5:00pm EST on January 27, 2016.