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Grant-making foundations vary widely in their size and scope, but they have one thing in common – all of them want to maximise the positive impact they can make on their charitable missions.
The Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) worked with more than 100 foundation representatives over two years to create Stronger Foundations – a set of 40 ‘pillars’ that can help foundations to pursue excellent practice.
These pillars are explored in depth across six thematic reports. There is also a shorter report developed specifically for smaller foundations, and another for chairs of foundation boards. ACF members can access a self-assessment tool to measure their progress against the pillars, and some of their learning has been shared in the report Becoming Stronger Foundations.
'Connection' is a cross-cutting theme throughout the Stronger Foundations pillars of practice. Exploring the Funders Collaborative Hub provides lots of examples of how funders are working together to pursue excellent practice. These include opportunities that you can get involved in, or simply take some learning and inspiration from.
In this blog, I’ll look at how funder collaboration relates to the Stronger Foundations themes of Strategy and Governance, Transparency and Engagement and Funding Practices.
Strategy and governance
“A Stronger Foundation is aware of the external context and its role in the wider ecosystem” (Pillar 6, Stronger Foundations Strategy and Governance Report)
This Stronger Foundations pillar highlights how foundations can identify others already working on similar areas, think collaboratively, and consider how they can add value rather than duplicate each other as they develop their strategies.
It points to the variety of networks that can help foundations build their ecosystem awareness. In addition to ACF’s own member networks, many others can now be explored on the Funders Collaborative Hub. Some, like the North East & Cumbria Funders’ Network, are geographically focused, while others are issue-based, such as the National Advice Funders Network.
Information-sharing is one of the most common activities undertaken by the collaborations listed on the Hub. By understanding what their peers are doing, each foundation can more confidently determine whether to focus on their own particular ‘niche’ or join up their efforts more closely with others, such as by pooling or co-ordinating their funds.
The Stronger Foundations report notes that, while cherishing their autonomy, “increasingly, foundations are seeking to work together through joint funding initiatives”.
Rather than being a barrier to collaboration, foundations’ independence is the very attribute that gives them the freedom to choose how best to balance making “a unique contribution” with being “more alike”. This is one of the key strategic decisions for each foundation to make.
As Duncan Shrubsole, Lloyds Bank Foundation's Director of Policy, Communications and Research (and member of the Hub’s Strategy Group) says: “Not all funders can nor should do the same things – but we need to better understand how we all fit together”.
For the foundation sector to raise its collective ambitions and effectiveness, thinking collaboratively and co-ordinating efforts can enhance the benefits of foundation transparency and engagement.
Transparency and engagement
A Stronger Foundation “proactively engages external audiences” and “makes the most of opportunities and initiatives that enable transparency” (Pillars 4 and 5, Stronger Foundations Transparency and Engagement Report)
Building connection between funders is at the heart of these pillars of excellent foundation practice. As the report argues, “a stronger foundation sees its peers as a key audience and takes steps to engage with other foundations at different levels… For the foundation sector to raise its collective ambitions and effectiveness, thinking collaboratively and co-ordinating efforts can enhance the benefits of foundation transparency and engagement.”
For a long time, lots of funder collaboration happened below the radar. Initiatives like 360Giving have helped individual funders to share information about themselves and their grants, but at a collective level, until recently the infrastructure simply wasn’t there for funders to share open information about their many and varied collaborations.
The Funders Collaborative Hub has changed that: our website now brings together easily searchable information on more than 100 existing funder collaborations.
The Hub is also enabling funders to share their emerging ideas and intentions at an earlier stage. By adding a collaboration opportunity to the Hub, funders can quickly identify themselves to others who are interested in pursuing similar aims or exploring questions and challenges together – including those who may not have been in their existing networks.
Fiona Ellison, Director of the Unite Foundation, used the Hub to do just that: “Our collaboration opportunity on the Funders Collaborative Hub set out our ambitions and our interest in having conversations to understand what other funders were doing and thinking around care experienced and estranged young people in higher education. Open, honest conversations about what we could do individually or collectively were crucial for identifying shared priorities, interests and learning opportunities.”
Funding practices
“A Stronger Foundation regularly reviews funding practices as part of a culture of learning and thinks collaboratively to enhance its impact” (Pillar 5, Stronger Foundations Funding Practices Report)
Sometimes described as “where the rubber hits the road”, funding practices play a vital role in how foundations pursue their missions. So it’s no wonder that this is a common area of focus for funder collaboration, as evidenced by the wide range of opportunities on the Hub that relate to this issue.
Exploring the Hub can help foundations to answer one of the key questions that the Stronger Foundations report suggests that they should ask themselves: who else is trying to solve this problem, or has worked on it previously?
A stronger foundation also “proactively explores the processes of others and asks where there might be opportunities to reduce duplication in the funding ecosystem”. There are several collaboration opportunities on the Hub that involve funders aligning processes.
One example of this is Gloucestershire Funders, which has simplified how charities apply for funding through a single application form shared by a group of local grant-makers. Sally Byng, Chief Executive of the Barnwood Trust, told us: “We don’t act as a pooled fund. Rather, we aim to make our individual funding processes easier and less speculative, making the most of our collective contribution by connecting applicants to a larger group of funders.”
Share your funding practice experience with the ACF community
ACF is currently inviting its members to share examples of good funding practices and what they have learned from these. These examples will be used to create a new set of case studies showcasing the Stronger Foundations pillars in action.
Chris Llewellyn, Chair of the Stronger Foundations Funding Practices working group and Director of the CriSeren Foundation, explains how these case studies will bring Stronger Foundations to life: “ACF member case studies will demonstrate how Stronger Foundations pillars have been put into action. The first set of case studies on funding practices will showcase how all foundations can make a difference where the rubber hits the road”.
If you are an ACF member and would like to submit a Funding Practices case study, please complete this form or contact policy@acf.org.uk by Friday 15 September.
Part two coming soon...
In my next blog, I’ll explore how collaboration is helping funders to work towards the Stronger Foundations themes of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Impact and Learning and Investment.
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