Toward decolonized fiscal relationships between universities and community organizations: lessons learned from the California community engagement alliance against COVID-19

In September 2020, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) allocated $12 million to support engagement with historically marginalized communities hardest hit by COVID-19. The award was designed to mobilize community-engagement in pandemic response, and to support partnerships as part of the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities. All aspects of the award were fast-tracked, and NIH utilized a ‘more flexible’ funding mechanism (OTA) to facilitate swift distribution of funds. In this paper, we draw upon an analysis of findings from a 2021 survey conducted with 11 California CEAL sites representing urban and rural settings, private and public universities, and established and new community partners and qualitative analysis of 2020–2022 site-wide meeting minutes. We describe the challenges posed at the federal (e.g. NIH funding), university, and community–university partnership levels as well as opportunities and creative workarounds. Challenges include delays in subcontracts and payments to community partners that undermined trust and reproduced unequal and hierarchical power relationships. We build upon our findings and collective experience to propose a framework for decolonized fiscal relationships between universities and community partners which contains key recommendations for funders, universities, and community partners.