Nonprofit Partnership Workplan

The City is committed to strengthening its partnerships with nonprofit organizations to enhance community services and align with Council priorities. The development of a Nonprofit Partnership Workplan is underway. Informed by a 2022 Nonprofit Audit, the report identified opportunities to improve accountability, transparency, and resource allocation in nonprofit partnerships. The Nonprofit Partnership Workplan will provide a structured approach to nonprofit engagement, funding, and evaluation to ensure consistency, fairness, and impact across all agreements. This work will continue over discussions with the Policy and Services Committee and the City Council.

In FY 2026, the City Council launched the Phase I pilot, which provided a path to evaluate nonprofit funding requests currently outside of an established City process.  Through the pilot, the City awarded $506,646 to 16 nonprofit organizations serving the Palo Alto community. During the FY 2027 budget deliberations, the City Council evaluated the pilot's continuation and recommended suspending the process due to the confusion it caused among nonprofit partners and the City's fiscal constraints.  Instead, the City Council recommended evaluating the expansion of the Human Services Resource Allocation Process (HSRAP) to support additional nonprofit funding requests that may not be clearly accommodated under the current HSRAP framework.