Our Strategy Group is looking for new members

Please note: the deadline for this opportunity has now passed. If you'd like to hear about future opportunities to get involved in the Funders Collaborative Hub, sign up to our mailing list.

Could you help to set the future direction of the Funders Collaborative Hub?

• Do you believe that funders can achieve more by working together? 
• Do you have practical experience of funder collaboration, together with other knowledge, experience or networks that could help the Hub to maximise its impact? 
• Would you like to work with colleagues from the Association of Charitable Foundations and other grant-making innovators and influencers, to contribute to sector-wide progress?

The role of the Funders Collaborative Hub Strategy Group is to agree the strategic direction of the Hub and provide creative and constructive feedback on its activities and plans. Our monthly Strategy Group meetings create a space for mutual accountability between the organisations and individuals who are working together to deliver the aims of the Hub. 

The concept of the Hub originated at the start of the pandemic. Funders recognised the need for increased understanding, closer alignment and opportunities for collaboration as they responded  to Covid-19. Throughout 2020 and 2021, we prototyped and tested various service ideas to help funders connect and collaborate.

By December 2021, when the current version of the Hub website was launched, it was clear that funders were motivated to build on their learning from Covid and to sustain the benefits of collaboration longer-term. We are now helping funders to do this by providing information, inspiration and tools. In particular, the Hub offers a means to share and search for collaboration opportunities of all kinds, from informal information-sharing to pooled funds and strategic partnerships.

As the Hub’s activities and ambitions have evolved, so too has the role and make-up of our Strategy Group. The Hub recently secured further funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation towards its work over the next 18 months. We are now seeking new Strategy Group members to help us shape and deliver the next stage of the Hub’s development.

This will include exploring questions such as:

• How might we scale up funders’ engagement with the Hub in ways that are sustainable?
• How might we use data and insights from the Hub to help funders target their resources as wisely as possible?
• How might we engage more leaders and decision-makers in the sector, to influence the conditions that would enable more and better funder collaboration?
• How might we ensure that collaborations supported by the Hub are as impactful as possible, both for funders themselves and for the organisations, causes and communities they support?

What we’re looking for

All members of our Strategy Group must have:

• A strong commitment to the aims of the Funders Collaborative Hub
• Practical experience of developing or supporting collaboration between funders
• Willingness to commit to regular participation in online Strategy Group meetings (around 60-90 minutes per month, plus reading papers)
• Willingness to act as an advocate for the Hub with key audiences, eg by making introductions to relevant networks, writing blogs, amplifying Hub communications.

Beyond these essential criteria, we’re open to hearing from a wide range of people who could bring valuable additional lived or learned experience, knowledge or networks to our group.

This might include:

• Perspectives from different types of funder (including geography, size or funding source) to those who are currently represented on the Strategy Group
• Diversity of lived experience.

Read more about current members of the group here. The Strategy Group's full Terms of Reference are here.

Get in touch

To express an interest in joining the Strategy Group, please email Jim Cooke, Head of the Hub, by midday on Friday 26th August, outlining why you are interested and what value you feel you would bring to the Funders Collaborative Hub.

If you’d like to find out more, please contact Jim for an informal conversation about the Hub and the role of the Strategy Group. Please also get in touch if you feel you may have any barriers to participating in the group and we will be pleased to explore how we might be able to address these. 

We aim to appoint new members to the group in September.