Philanthropic collaboratives take many forms. They can be jointly funded single entities, such as the End Fund, set up by the Legatum Foundation to pool resources in the fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). Or, they can be capital aggregators, such as the Audacious Project from TED, which provides funding for promising social innovators, or Lever for Change, from the MacArthur Foundation, which helps catalyse match funding for different organisations.

Another example is Co-Impact, which pools funds to target education, health and economic projects in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Core partners, such as philanthropists, foundations, bilaterals or multilaterals, typically put in $50m over a 10-year period, and this is topped up by broader funders who typically commit $500,000 over a three-year term. These resources are then pooled to fund grants of various sizes, some up to $25m, to support system changing initiatives.

Earlier this year, Co-Impact launched a $1bn Gender Fund, to provide money for women-focussed NGOs in the Global South, with the aim of advancing gender equality and female leadership and correcting harmful cultural norms. Melinda French Gates, Mackenzie Scott, Roshni Nadar Malhotra and the Shiv Nadar Foundation, and Tsitsi Masiyiwa, Zimbabwean philanthropist and social entrepreneur, are among its starting donors.

In India, The GROW Fund launched in late-2021 in response to the impact of Covid-19. Anchored by the EdelGive Foundation, it aims to strengthen more than 100 grassroots organisations over a two-year period by providing funding for capacity building and key organisational functions. A number of leading philanthropies have already pledged their support to the initiative, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Manan Trust, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, A.T.E Chandra Foundation, and Ashish Kacholia.

Closer to home, The Reaching the Last Mile (RLMF) was launched in 2017 by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and The ELMA Philanthropies. RLMF’s mission is to raise $100m over 10 years to support the elimination of two neglected tropical diseases, river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. In addition to the founding gifts donations, RLMF also raises money from the general public through consumer campaigns and UAE-based corporate donors. See below for more examples of collaborative giving.

Two other regional examples of collaborative giving are The Shefa Fund and Alfanar. The former was launched in 2013 by a group of Saudi-based donors with support from the BMGF focusing on polio eradication, maternal health, emergency relief, and malaria control. 

Alfanar, meanwhile, is the Middle East's first venture philanthropy fund. It was started in 2004 by the late Tarek Ben Halim, a London-based investment banker of Palestinian and Libyan descent, and pools funds for promising growth-stage social enterprises. Today, Alfanar and supports social businesses in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine working in a range of areas, primarily education, youth employment, and women's economic empowerment.

“As the landscape of philanthropy continues to expand and evolve, it’s become more and more clear that the future of systemic change … requires not only larger pools of funding, but more combined willpower and expertise," notes this Collaborative Giving roadmap by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA). "If your philanthropic vision involves truly moving the needle on a big issue, it’s worth exploring the possibility of bringing others along with you on the journey.” 

The RPA roadmap is a good jumping off point to understanding the potential (and potential pitfalls) of group giving. In addition to making the case for collaboratives, it outlines different models, from pooled funds to capital aggregators, and lays out key questions for group members to ask themselves before entering into a collaborative.

These include:

• Why are we giving? What impact do we want to create?
• How will we achieve the impact we’ve identified?
• What is each partner willing (and expected) to invest – not just in funds but in time and effort?
• How soon do we need to see our desired results?
• Why are we the right team for our shared area of focus?
• Do we need to collaborate in order to reach our goals?

Four reasons why funders may wish to pool some of their philanthropic capital to collaboration giving efforts:

1. Learning opportunities for donors. If you’re a newer player in philanthropy, becoming part of a collaborative can provide access to wisdom and experience that will help inform your future giving strategies and practices. And even experienced donors can tap into the skillsets and expertise of their peers.
2. Better management of risk. With access to the wisdom of other donors, a wider network of advisors and other shared resources, collaboration can mitigate the risks of striking out on your own or duplicating efforts while you may still be learning about a specific sector or cause.
3. Increased impact. When you can pool funds for longer-term or larger gifts, you free your grantees from excessive reporting duties; you also give them the security of knowing that their big visions are supported by a more substantial flow of capital, helping them grow their initiatives without the uncertainty of consistently applying for smaller, shorter- term funding.
4. A focus on decision-making processes. When you collaborate, the interaction with others is a catalyst for thoughtful decision-making (and without it, you’re in trouble). When you’re acting alone, you may be more likely to give without an overall strategy or rubric for decision-making. Working with others to define a process can help avoid this while creating the satisfaction of an integrated giving strategy that aligns with your personal values, as well as those of the group.

The RPA guide is candid about the potential difficulties involved with collaborative philanthropy and outlines ways to structure group giving vehicles to avoid longer-term issues arising. “If solving problems together were easy, everyone with a big vision would be doing it,” it says. “It’s important to understand the challenges of working with others toward a big philanthropic endgame; failing to prepare for these challenges has sunk many a promising collaboration.”

It also profiles several leading global collaboratives. These include:  The End Fund, a pooled fund targeting neglected tropical diseases in seven countries across Africa and the Middle East; Kiva.org, a crowdfunded capital aggregator providing credit to SMEs in developing economies; and Big Bang Philanthropy, a group of private and corporate donors funding high-impact, scalable poverty solutions across Africa and Asia. Download the full roadmap here.

Bridgespan, a nonprofit consultancy, has published a collection of helpful research papers on collaborative philanthropy. Their 2021 report, Releasing the Potential of Philanthropic Collaborations, for example, examines the growing popularity of collaboratives, highlights some of the challenges associated with group giving, and talks about mindsets adaptions to help collaborative approaches succeed. It encourages donors considering a collaborative route to ask these three questions:

1. What does the collaborative aim to accomplish? Identify the social impact the fund seeks to have, the rationale and strategy it is employing to attain this impact, and how it is measuring its progress (and adapting work as necessary).
2. How does the collaborative work with donors? What decision rights do funders have in terms of strategy and grantmaking? How much are funders expected to contribute? And what types of donor networking, education, and engagement does the collaborative offer?
3. How does the collaborative operate? Who is the leadership and staff? How do they source and support grantees? Are the leaders expert in the issues at hand, and, ideally, do they have personal experience with these issues? Also consider whether the fund solicits input and perspectives from those it seeks to support.

A 2019 Bridgespan report, The value of philanthropic collaborations, based a survey of funders and grantees involved in collaboratives,  found that donors reported “deepened field expertise that led to more strategic, informed, and effective investments”. Grantees that Bridgespan interviewed said the benefits of participating in a collaborative outweighed the costs but called for funders to streamline reporting, promote grantees more actively, and facilitate more grantee input into strategy setting and execution.

Bridgespan's 2019 guide also looks at why collaboratives fail. Based on a study of unsuccessful initiatives, it identified five characteristics most frequently associated with unsuccessful ventures. These were:

1. Misaligned goals among funders
2. Failure to translate overall goals into time-bound, winnable milestones
3. Failure to right-size the collaborative’s administrative and operational structures to optimize effective pursuit of its goals
4. Inability to adapt strategy in the face of external or internal challenges or opportunities
5. Limited or ineffective stakeholder engagement in shaping the collaborative’s goals and facilitating implementation

For a deep dive examination of giving collaboratives in India, it is worth reading Bridgespan’s Philanthropic Collaboratives in India: The Power of Many (2019). The authors interviewed more than 50 people —core and operating partners, as well as leaders involved in philanthropic collaboratives—to help develop and validate a definition of philanthropic collaboratives in the Indian context, as well as identify their typical goals and roles.

Organisations surveyed and profiled in the guide include: Transform Rural India Foundation (TRIF); India Climate Collaborative (ICC); India Sanitation Coalition (ISC); Alliance for Saving Mothers and Newborns (ASMAN); and the Village Social Transformation Foundation (VSTF). Some of the key challenges around collaborative giving identified by interviewees included: a lack of trust, leading to excessive control from core partners; siloed approaches by partners, and a difficulty in balancing partners organisational priorities with the collaborative’s agenda; and a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities of partners

Another useful resource about collaborative giving comes from the US-based entity formerly known as Grantcraft and now called Candid Learning for Funders. Funder collaboratives: why and how funders work together sets out common anchor points that bring funders together, considers the pros and cons of group giving, and considers how organisations and individuals can organise for good relationships and outcomes.

Grantcraft is upfront about the complexities and challenges involved in philanthropic collaborations. “A collaborative effort may run up against organizational cultures that place a high value on institutional independence, recognition, and leadership,” it notes. “Diverse interests and personalities can make for challenging waters to navigate, and the commitment, time, and resources required to be part of a collaborative can be daunting. The incentive to collaborate may also seem elusive, given a dearth of hard evidence about the benefits, cost-effectiveness, and strategic advantages of collaborative grantmaking.”

It also discusses how the “messiness” of collaboratives is part of their value. “The process itself is what catalyses the critical shift from believing that the right answers and expertise are held by a few to an understanding that it is the collective wisdom of the group that determines right action and greater impact,” says Marianne Hughes, the founding executive director of the Interaction Institute for Social Change, a US-based advisory firm focussed on social collaboratives.

Within the guide is a set of nuts-and-bolts questions aimed at people coming together to form a collaboration. You can download a printable (and editable Word Document) version of this here. Points covered include: purpose; membership; operations; governance; grants and resources; and evaluation.

There is also a second checklist to help establishing and established collaboratives assess how they are doing. Do they have clarity about end goals, outcomes, and strategy? Is there enough money in the pot to get the job done? Is there evidence of ongoing learning among members? Is there an exit plan? You can download this checklist here. 

You will find a step-by-step guide to forming and managing a funding collaborative on the Funders Collaborative Hub, hosted by the UK’s Association of Charitable Foundations. The Funder Collaboration Toolkit covers the strategic and practical steps recommended for effective collaborations. It outlines 12 steps grouped into three stages (foundation, building, and stewarding).

1. The Pathfinder
2. The Navigator
3. The Articulator
4. The Landscape Mapper
5. The Engagement Pack
6. The Meeting Planner
7. The Purpose Crafter
8. The Role Definer
9. The Collaboration Charter
10. The Top Tips 
11. The Health Check
12. The Library

How philanthropic collaborations succeed and why they fail

Funders need to push past politeness and hammer out expectations for how their collective action will create value—for beneficiaries, grantees, and themselves—beyond what they could do alone, argue Alison Powell, Susan Wolf Ditkoff & Fay Twersky in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Collaborative philanthropy in Asia, AVPN 

Five guidelines for successful funder collaborations

This 2015 article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review is a few years old, but it offers a good summary of lessons from a Bridgespan report on the US-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation's experience with collaboration.