Best Practices for Productive Island Grantor/Grantee Relationships
November 05, 2025 | Island Areas Workgroup, Health Financing Subgroup
This resource encourages meaningful conversation and supports strong working relationships between federal grant officers and health agency staff from the territorial and freely associated states. The tips in this document can help health agencies improve grant spenddown, strengthen current funder relationships, and build new relationships. Amid current public health funding uncertainties, this resource provides helpful suggestions for fostering mutual understanding, strengthening engagement, and optimizing collaboration. It is focused on five specific areas:
- Shared vocabularies and understanding: Explore resources that support building foundational knowledge before the first grant meeting between grant management staff.
- Building a strong foundation: Clarify points of contact, past lessons learned, grant terms/logistics, and trust building during initial project meetings.
- Understanding the platforms and tools: Understand the local and federal grants management landscape through conversations about systems and level of access, financial processes, local system challenges, and troubleshooting.
- Understanding grant processes: Talk through the overarching grant process and timeline as well as opportunities for improvement in grants management.
- Building momentum and sustaining the relationship: Prioritize regular check-ins and take time to reflect on what worked well as well as how you might improve moving forward at the close of the grant period.
By maintaining open communication, grantors and grantees will set themselves up to successfully implement federal grants, contributing to healthier local communities.