Moving from Good Intentions to Intentional Action and Collaboration: The Grantmaker’s Role in...
-
Upload
mitchel-garl -
Category
Documents
-
view
222 -
download
3
Transcript of Moving from Good Intentions to Intentional Action and Collaboration: The Grantmaker’s Role in...
Moving from Good Intentions to Intentional Action and Collaboration:The Grantmaker’s Role in Collective Impact
Who is Community Wealth Partners?
3
At Community Wealth Partners we help change agents solve social problems at the magnitude they exist.
We have worked with many national and regional partners to achieve dramatic progress on social problems through collaboration and collective impact.
Today’s Discussion
4
1. The funder’s role in collective impact
2. Funding collective impact
Collaboration can happen on a spectrum from learning together to collective impact
Learning
Ways to Collaborate
• Sharing lessons
Benefits
• Improved results through learning
Coordination
Ways to Collaborate
• Sharing lessons
• Collective planning and executing
Benefits
• Improved results through learning
• Better allocation of efforts across community and reduction of duplication
Collective Impact
Ways to Collaborate
• Sharing lessons• Collective planning and
executing • Aligning efforts
around common vision
• Combining assets to unlock new strategies
Benefits
• Improved results through learning
• Better allocation of efforts across community and reduction of duplication
• Collective accountability
• Accelerated results through collective innovation
5
Where do your initiatives fall in this spectrum from learning to collective impact?
Collective impact funders should keep three overarching principles in mind
6
Encourage group
ownership
Embrace working
differently
Ensure transparency
Funders and large organizations typically play one or more of the following roles
7
Role Description
Backbone Serve as project manager for the effort; maintain flow of information across stakeholders; coordinate meetings
Convener Bring key decision makers together
Funder Commit multi-year programmatic and operational funding
Governance Hold authority to make decisions and holding accountability to results
Implementation Coordinate implementation of programs; provide services that move the needle on results
How do you decide if you have a role?
8
+ + =
Degree of Strategic
Alignment
Foundation Assets
Initiative Needs
Level of Foundation support
(capacity and funding)
How aligned are your priorities with
the initiative?
What are you uniquely positioned
to bring to the initiative?
What are the initiative’s greatest
needs?
How much capacity are you willing to dedicate to
this initiative?
How much funding are you willing to provide to help meet the needs of
the initiative?
9
Support group in determining the what and how
Less decision-making power
Initiative strategy may not align with your strategy
Directly influence what strategies are chosen
Hard to be an equal partner
Higher capacity requirements
Directly influence how strategies are implemented
Hard to be an equal partner
Higher capacity requirements
May need implementation expertise
Level of InfluenceLower Higher
Pros
Cons
How do you determine the scope of your role?
Support Inform Direct
What level of influence do you currently have?
Roundtable discussion
10
What drove your decision-making about the role you are playing now and in the past?
What challenges have you faced surrounding your role and the role of others? How have you overcome them?
What initiatives are you currently involved in and what is your role?
Making the Transition:Funding Collective Impact
Four guiding principles to keep in mind as you consider funding decisions
12
A. Fund “relationship-building”
• Incentivize through funding
• Require proof of collaboration
B. Fund “flexibility” • Multi-year funding• Capacity building• Innovation funding• Providing discretionary
funds
C. Be transparent about funding and expectations
D. Look for multi-year and co-funding opportunities
1. Provide a pool of funds to the initiative
2. Fund individual organizations participating in the initiative
3. Hybrid:
• Provide “glue” money for initiative-wide work
• Work with organizations individually around their contribution to the initiative
Foundations generally have 3 options for distributing funds to collaborative initiatives
13
Guiding Principle:
The Foundation should not fund organizations outside of the
initiative for topics covered by the
initiative
What are the different needs you’ll hear about?
14
1. Backbone organization’s operations
2. Project management and work plan development
3. Research and measurement
4. Innovation and learning
5. Thought leadership (conferences, etc.)
6. Marketing and communications
Guiding Principle:
Consider the critical capacities at
different stages
1. General operating
2. Capacity building
3. Program support
4. Discretionary funding
5. Incentivizing specific initiatives
(e.g., relationship building, innovation)
Five types of funding are typically used to support collective impact
15
Guiding Principle:
The most effective collective impact
funding is multi-year with a long-term
commitment
Transitioning existing grantees is often a major question
16
Grantees you continue funding
Grantees you consider for future
funding
Grantees you phase out
Continue long-term funding to strengthen buy-in; focus
on new metrics & requirements and capacity
building
Provide a bridge grant; provide TA to improve
capacity, test new ways of working and ability to
change
Provide transition grant; provide help building
relationships with other funders, TA, or capacity
building
Summary of Major Guiding Principles
17
Encourage group
ownership
Embrace flexibility
Ensure transparency
Guiding Principle:
The most effective collective impact funding is multi-year with a long-term commitment
Guiding Principle:
Funders should not fund organizations
outside of the initiative for topics
covered by the initiative
Roundtable discussion
18
How are you funding a current initiative? Why did you decide to fund it?
How did you decide what the funding would look like? What obstacles did you face?
What might you do differently moving forward?