CLIENT ADVISORY

Summary

How does collaboration with other funders affect a foundation’s grantmaking strategy?

Champions of funder collaboratives point to visible results – to the large-scale impact that comes from pooling resources and to the institutional learning that comes from sharing information and engaging many and diverse perspectives. But there is more. This collective work also creates the conditions for participating foundations to take bigger risks and for their trustees to move beyond their comfort zones.

As charitable giving seems increasingly dwarfed by intractable and complex problems, collaboration with other foundations may be an essential component of an effective grantmaking strategy. For all but the largest foundations, though, the downsides of funder collaboratives are real. They may be time consuming, costly, ego-draining and they mean a loss of autonomy.

The rewards, however, should be considered.   

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Labor rights and workplace fairness figured prominently in the the recent grant awards of the Sociological Initiatives Foundation.

The research and organizing projects supported by the foundation will investigate wage theft, working conditions for temporary and domestic workers, hiring discrimination, and the challenge of making fair labor practices a part of the growing sustainable food movement.

Most of the projects supported community-academic partnerships and were designed to support regulatory or legislative advocacy campaigns.

To view the grants list, click here.

The health of forests, farms, and people continued to be the main theme in the Conservation, Food, and Health Foundation’s grantmaking in 2012.

Foundation grantees regularly receive recognition for their work as social innovators.  Examples include:

International Rivers’ partner, Ikal Angelei won the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for Africa for her work with Friends of Lake Turkana.  The foundation is helping fund work to stop the Gibe III dam that flows into Lake Turkana – the world’s largest desert lake. The lake is home to the world’s largest population of Nile crocodiles, hippos, and hundreds of bird and fish species. Continue Reading »