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Each month we publish how we’re doing against the objectives and targets we’ve set for the Funders Collaborative Hub.
At the start of September we said goodbye to two colleagues – Rick Hebditch and Joanna Pienkowska – who have left ACF to pursue new opportunities. Both Joanna and Rick made important contributions to the design and delivery of the Hub over the last two years.
In August, Joanna facilitated an event which brought together more than 20 funders to explore collaboration in response to climate change. ‘Environment’ is one of the most common issues addressed by collaboration opportunities on the Hub. Read Joanna’s blog to catch up on the discussions and watch presentations from three emerging climate collaboration opportunities.
Over the summer, concern has been growing about inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. Some funders are already taking action, while others will be considering how they are best placed to respond in the light of emerging Government plans.
The Hub, together with our ACF colleagues, will regularly share information and opportunities to help funders work together to the most of their resources in response to these challenges. Read ACF’s cost of living resources page here, and if you’re thinking about developing a collaborative response, please get in touch with the Hub.
Below is a summary of the Hub’s progress in August.
Priority 1: Grow and develop our collaboration opportunities offer
Intended outcome: Funders are more connected, through using the Hub to share and engage with impactful collaboration opportunities
Indicators:
- Increase the number of collaboration opportunities shared via the Hub (2022 target: 50 collaboration opportunities added)
- Increase the number of funders actively using the Hub to search for opportunities
- Evidence of increased engagement between funders through using the Hub
- Evidence of the contribution of funder collaboration towards increased overall impact
Our progress:
With 32 collaboration opportunities added to the Hub since January 2022, we are on track towards our full-year target of 50.
Four opportunities were added to the Hub in August:
- Plastic pollution - UNEA global treaty (emerging opportunity)
- Enterprise Grants Task Force (emerging opportunity)
- #iwill Fund (existing collaboration)
- Bedfordshire and Luton Funders Network (existing collaboration)
Visits to our collaboration opportunity search page were below average in August, but despite the impact of summer holidays, this page still registered 1,095 views by 234 users.
August’s Top 10 most visited collaboration opportunities were:
- DEI Data Standard (321 views)
- Collaborative online grants portal for people in financial hardship (210 views)
- Enterprise Grants Task Force (111)
- Funder Safeguarding Collaborative (90 views)
- Plastic pollution - UNEA global treaty (65 views)
- Youth voice in funding (61 views)
- Environmental Philanthropy Lab (58 views)
- #iwill Fund (54 views)
- Foundation Practice Rating (51 views)
- Infrastructure Support in the Youth Sector (48 views)
Priority 2: Develop the Hub’s inspiration and influencing role
Intended outcome: Funders are informed and inspired by the Hub to collaborate more effectively.
Indicators:
- Number of views of Hub case studies and blogs (2022 target: 600 per month)
- Number of views of Hub toolkit content (2022 target: 150 per month)
- New funder collaborations are developed, informed by data and insights on needs, gaps and opportunities
Our progress:
In August there were 1,283 views of our blogs and funder collaboration case studies and 179 views of our Funder Collaboration Toolkit homepage.
These sections of our website have consistently performed well above our monthly targets, suggesting that funders value this in-depth content from the Hub.
August’s most viewed blogs:
- Meet the Strategy Group (240 views)
- Exploring and expanding: the shift to an Enterprise Grants Task Force (206 views)
- Our Strategy Group is looking for new members (190 views)
August’s most viewed case studies:
- Humans at the heart (Future Mental Health Collective, 55 views)
- Advice, agility and anti-racism (Justice Together, 37 views)
- A good match (Enterprise Grants Task Force, 29 views)
If you have a viewpoint or some learning to share about funder collaboration, please get in touch about contributing to a blog or case study.
Priority 3: Integrate the Hub within the wider landscape and develop a sustainable model
In August, we were focused on recruiting new members for our Strategy Group, 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?
We had strong interest in joining the group from across the grant-making sector. We will be announcing our new members soon.
Total visits to our website were down by 5.5% month-on-month (6,073 page views in August, compared to 6,428 in July), which is likely to be due to the effect of summer holidays.
Year to date, we have recorded 52,412 page views between January and August 2022,compared to just 19,264 views of our previous website over the same period in 2021.
The reach of our other communication channels grew slightly in August:
- 727 newsletter recipients (+1.8% vs July)
- 1,844 Twitter followers (+1.2% vs July).
The Hub was also showcased at PEXforum 2022 in Istanbul, where ACF’s director of membership, Gemma Instrall, shared our progress and lessons learned with foundation and philanthropy peers from across Europe.
Previous monthly updates
Get in touch
We welcome all feedback on the Hub. Whether you're a funder, or anyone else with an interest in how funders can work together to make the world a better place, get in touch to let us know what we're doing well or what we can improve.
