by Katie McGrath Novak, Coordinator of the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network
April 1, 2025
On March 20th, 2025, the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network (CFCN) hosted an All-Partners Gathering
The goals of this meeting were to:
- Learn about current and expected changes happening in collaboratives and communities in the wake of ongoing changes at the federal level
- Understand how the CFCN can adapt our programming in real-time to support collaboratives in 2025
- Make space for community building
In this 2-part blog series, we summarize key takeaways and discussion points from the meeting. You’re currently reading Part 2: How collaboratives are looking toward the future, and how to support them
Did you miss part 1? Read it here: Impacts of federal funding changes on Colorado’s Forest Collaboratives and communities.
Contents
- In case you missed it | Part 1: Impacts of federal funding changes on Colorado’s forest collaboratives and communities
- How collaboratives are looking to the future
- How to support forest collaboratives
Note to meeting attendees
This summary is our best effort at summarizing complex conversations from a long meeting. If you notice something missing or incorrect, please let us know!
In part one of our summary, we shared the impacts that federal funding changes are having on forest collaboratives. We learned that many collaboratives are facing challenges and uncertainty (including paused projects, trouble keeping up with basic organizational functions and administration, and cutting staff time), while a few saw opportunities in the uncertainty (like communities and collaboratives supporting one another, non-federally-funded projects going strong, and a reminder to diversify funding).
In part two, we look toward next steps. We asked attendees the following questions:
- What is your strategy for navigating turbulence?
- What structures does your collaborative have in place to deal with times of uncertainty/change, or, what structures would you like to see?
- What opportunities do you see during this time of uncertainty/change? How are you getting creative right now?
- How might we need to think about partnerships differently?
- What support do you need in 2025?
We identified a few common threads in the answers to these questions, and have summarized them below.
Where do we go from here? How collaboratives are looking to the future
Now more than ever, collaboratives are leaning on built trust and relationships with existing partners.
Many partnerships originally grew out of necessity – organizations with limited resources leveraged their individual strengths to create a partnership where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In times of uncertainty, sometimes we need to channel these ‘scrappy’ origins and learn to lean into partnerships in practical ways.
We heard that it’s particularly important for partners within a collaborative to be vulnerable in communicating/understanding each other’s situations, in order to truly support one another. This requires strong existing relationships and trust. Through partnerships, organizations can share resources and expertise, amplify each other’s messages, stretch funding, and boost morale as folks feel like they are a part of a community.
We also heard that partners’ roles are adapting to changing funding situations and organizational mandates; for examples, as federal agencies face layoffs and changing direction from the top, federal partnerships may need to look a bit different than they have in the past. One attendee noted that, while non-profits are usually requesting support from federal partners, now federal partners are looking to non-profits for support.
One breakout group recalled when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and partnerships were forced to quickly adapt with things that were novel at that time – flexibility in meeting settings, hybrid/virtual options, vulnerability, and an emphasis on community – can some of these tools be re-used now?
Collaboratives are also referring back to existing organizational documents/protocols for clarity and direction in uncertain times.
Collaborative governing documents can offer a refresher on decision-making protocols, strategies, priorities, and the roles of partners, leadership, and committees. Additionally, if partner organizations lay off or let go employees, organizational documents like onboarding presentations, visioning documents, strategic plans, etc. can be useful for familiarizing new folks with the partnership.
One attendee shared that their organization had recently referred back to an existing strengths and needs assessment to understand and articulate opportunities for partners to support each other. The assessment asked questions like: What do you bring to the table? What are your needs? Though vulnerable questions to answer, we heard that this type of assessment can build on established trust and make a partnership more effective at leveraging resources. One attendee said that, through a needs assessment, their organization is looking to identify areas of overlap with other entities, reduce redundancies, and expand their impact.
Groups see an opportunity to focus on best practices for funding stability, especially by building up reserves and diversifying funding sources.
Attendees on the call seemed to be focusing on two key things related to funding:
- Building an emergency / reserve fund. A few attendees on the call said that their organizations were working toward a 3-6 month emergency fund, which, in unexpected situations like losing a large percentage of federal funding at once, can keep the organization afloat long enough to make a backup plan.
- Diversifying funding to be less dependent on any individual source.
- Many attendees were interested in county-level funding opportunities (for example, this Boulder County wildfire mitigation sales tax that passed in 2022), and sought clarity on how to get one of those passed, especially in counties with fewer economic resources.
- Others shared that they are turning to private foundations for grants, although they noted that foundations could likely not keep up with the scale of large federal grants.
- In the immediate term, some attendees said they were looking to piece together small grants (for example, asking for a few thousand dollars from each jurisdiction in the partnership).
- Additionally, attendees emphasized a need to ‘get creative’, looking for funding in new places like through corporate sponsorship, leveraging amongst partners, or writing joint applications with multiple collaboratives.
Storytelling is crucial to securing funding.
We heard that, now more than ever before, it’s important to communicate the impact of collaborative work in a clear and compelling way, so that communities, policymakers, and funders want to support it.
Some partners on the call have changed the work they are doing.
Some attendees shared that, with so much uncertainty coming from the federal level, they have chosen to shift their work away from projects that rely on federal funding/partnership. This is a short-term solution, because eventually all the work needs to get done and partnerships need to stick to their agreed-upon priorities, but a temporary shift can buy time during times of extreme turbulence. Others shared that, to extend the lifetime of limited funds, they are cutting hours for all staff, and/or cutting back programming to the most basic needs until funding returns to allow more expansive work.
For others, the work is staying the same, with some reframing.
Other attendees on the call shared that their existing work fits within changing federal priorities, so they are continuing the same work while reframing communications to better parallel the language of new federal priorities.
On a personal note, attendees shared that focusing on things within their control (like their own ability to adapt their work to uncertainty), focusing on personal relationships, and having dedicated offline time away from Google have all been helpful ways to get through turbulence.
How policy-makers, agency leadership, funders, and support organizations can support collaboratives
Attendees called out a few areas where they can really use support right now:
Funding (Policy-makers, agency leadership, & funders)
As many organizations face the loss (or potential looming loss) of large chunks of federal funding, they are looking for diverse new sources. In particular, they are in need of general operating funds, capacity funds, stopgap funds, and project implementation funds. Additionally, collaboratives are looking to support organizations like the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network to find ways to reduce competition for funding amongst collaboratives.
Support for federal agency partners. (Policy-makers, agency leadership)
As federal employees do their best to maintain strong partnerships, they are facing layoffs, staff shortages, and uncertainty in directives from the top. These individuals are often met with frustration from partners because they are unable to make commitments or predict the future of funding agreements, even though those decisions are outside of their control. To best support partnerships and communities, federal employees need to see less turnover of leadership, support from the top to continue participating in partnerships, and clarity around policies and funding changes that will impact the partnerships they are in.
Help with storytelling to legislators and agency leadership. (Support organizations)
We need to amplify stories of impact from local collaboratives so that state and federal decision-makers know their value and can prioritize their needs. Gatherings like this all-partners meeting are an example of ways to gather information and share it out quickly.
