Moving from Good Intentions to Intentional Action and Collaboration:The Grantmaker’s Role in Collective Impact

Who is Community Wealth Partners?

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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

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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

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Where do your initiatives fall in this spectrum from learning to collective impact?

Collective impact funders should keep three overarching principles in mind

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Encourage group

ownership

Embrace working

differently

Ensure transparency

Funders and large organizations typically play one or more of the following roles

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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?

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+ + =

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?

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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 

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Guiding Principle:

The most effective collective impact

funding is multi-year with a long-term

commitment

Transitioning existing grantees is often a major question

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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

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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

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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?