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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. Below is a summary of our progress in July.
Working in the open in this way is just one of the changes we’ve made to the Hub this year as a result of discussions at our monthly Strategy Group sessions.
We’re looking for some new members to join this group. Find out more about the existing group and the reasons they got involved.
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 28 collaboration opportunities added to the Hub since January 2022, we are well on track towards our full-year target of 50.
Three opportunities were added to the Hub in July:
- Supporting the mental health of grassroots VCS workers (emerging opportunity)
- Youth voice in funding (existing collaboration)
- LocalMotion (existing collaboration)
These new listings also took us past a significant milestone - we now have more than 100 collaboration opportunities on our website!
Visits to our collaboration opportunity search page in July were similar to June, with more than 1,300 monthly views by more than 300 users.
July’s Top 10 most visited collaboration opportunities were:
- DEI Data Standard (341 views)
- Supporting the mental health of grassroots VCS workers (92 views)
- Youth voice in funding (85 views)
- Infrastructure Support in the Youth Sector (76 views)
- Collaborative online grants portal for people in financial hardship (75 views)
- Funder Safeguarding Collaborative (75 views)
- Building alternative futures (64 views)
- Empowering Local (63 views)
- LocalMotion (60 views)
- Collaborate with Co-op Foundation on our Carbon Innovation Fund (57 views)
We already had two people reach out to us because of the Hub and one of them is actually part of our collective now!
We have started to gather evidence of how using the Hub is contributing to more connection between funders, in the following ways.
Existing collaborations engaging new funders in their work: The most common reason for sharing opportunities on the Hub, this is a desired outcome for around two-thirds of opportunities. This includes more than 20 existing collaborations for which the Hub provides the main or only public source of information about their aims, activities and ways to get involved.
“We already had two people reach out to us because of the Hub and one of them is actually part of our collective now!" Existing collaboration leader
Existing collaborations sharing their learning more widely and openly: Around half of the opportunities on the Hub are using the Hub to share learning and resources from their work with other funders.
"I’m really glad to have had my attention drawn to the civil society infrastructure work in London. We had a discussion about something yesterday that this is really helpful for, so thank you." Foundation CEO
Funders connecting to explore potential new collaborations: Around one in five Hub listings are ‘emerging opportunities’ with funders seeking to collaborate on shaping work at an early stage.
“Things are going well with the match funding – we’ve got two irons in the fire… both came through having seen it on the Hub.” Emerging opportunity leader
"We have had one funder (a family trust) get in touch about the collaboration opportunity, and I had a very good conversation with them about how we go about our grant-making.” Emerging opportunity leader
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 July there were 1,186 views of our blogs and funder collaboration case studies and 171 views of our Funder Collaboration Toolkit homepage – both well above our monthly target.
July’s most viewed blogs:
- Our Strategy Group is looking for new members (331 views)
- The voluntary sector workforce faces a growing mental health crisis. Funders have a role in tackling this. (108 views)
- How funders are finding their collaborative advantage (82 views)
July’s most viewed case studies:
- Advice, agility and anti-racism (Justice Together, 58 views)
- Building a movement (LocalMotion, 50 views)
- One application to many funders (Gloucestershire Funders, 45 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
Raising awareness of the Funders Collaborative Hub continues to be a major focus, both amongst funders and with wider stakeholders who have an interest in effective funder collaboration.
Total visits to our website were similar month on month (6,428 page views in July, compared to 6,409 in June).
Taking a slightly longer view of our progress since launching our new website in December 2021, our 46,000 page views between January and July 2022 compare very positively to just 17,000 views of our previous website over the same period in 2021 – an increase of 170%.
The reach of our other communication channels also continued to grow:
- 714 newsletter recipients (+4.7% vs June)
- 1,822 Twitter followers (+3.6% vs June).
In July, we also:
- Attended an NPC event for philanthropists and funders on confronting the cost-of-living crisis
- Had the Hub's work highlighted (as an example of the sector’s emerging shared infrastructure) in the programme of Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s New Frontiers in Funding, Philanthropy and Investment conference
- Supported an event for funders run, by Shift and Careful Industries, to share learning from The National Lottery Community Fund’s New Infrastructure Programme, on funding digital and organisational capacity-building.
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.
