How did funders work together last year – and what’s next for the Hub?

Engaging with collaboration opportunities

All these collaboration opportunities can be freely explored on our website at any time. I encourage funders to make a habit of checking the Hub early on whenever they are starting to develop a new piece of work. This can quickly highlight whether other funders are already discussing or working together on a related issue. It then becomes easier to decide whether it makes sense to engage with an existing collaboration, or to start something new that builds on previous work or fills an identified gap.

In 2022, our ‘Search the Hub for collaboration opportunities’ page was visited around 1,400 times per month. We also highlighted new and updated opportunities in our monthly newsletter (which you can sign up here to receive) and on Twitter.

In total, there were more than 25,000 page views of individual collaboration opportunities.

The ten most visited collaboration opportunities in 2022 (number of views shown in brackets) were:

• DEI Data Standard (4,728)
• Funder Safeguarding Collaborative (1,265)
• Collaborative online grants portal for people in financial hardship (962)
• Philanthropy Lab (578)
• Grant Funders’ Network (461)
• Enterprise Grants Task Force (412)
• Empowering Local (406)
• Exploring the routes to power and influence for small and grassroots women’s organisations (396)
• Building alternative futures (351)
• Future Mental Health Collective (348)

Although these popular pages attracted the most interest, engagement was widely spread between the opportunities published on the Hub. Opportunities typically received between 50 and 300 views each.

Collaboration as a means to an end

By analysing the opportunities shared on the Hub, and informed by hundreds of conversations with funders about what they are hoping to achieve together, we identified four main ways that funder collaboration can be a means to an end.

1. The power of networks – even the most informal connections with peers can enable funders to work in more mutually aware ways, sharing intelligence to help them identify gaps and reduce duplication. These ‘loose ties’ often provide an essential starting point for other forms of partnership, as Lloyds Bank Foundation wrote in October 2022.
2. Improving efficiency – from a long-running Harmonising Reporting programme in Scotland to Yorkshire Funders’ recently developed Yorkshire Common Application Form, working together to streamline processes can benefit funders, applicants and grantees.
3. Engaging with non-funders – some funders are using collaborative structures to create more equitable and inclusive ways of engaging with the organisations and communities they want to fund, like LocalMotion, which is driven by a “desire to challenge the typical power structures and hierarchies that become barriers to progress”.
4. Tackling systemic issues – when funders align their resources, knowledge and networks towards a shared goal, truly transformational change can come within reach. The benefit of this can be seen at work in local cross-sector collaborations like Perth & Kinross’s Strategic Youth Work Partnership.

These benefits of collaboration are explored further in our June 2022 blog, How funders are finding their collaborative advantage.

Our plans for the Hub in 2023

In two-and-a-half years, the Funders Collaborative Hub has evolved from a pandemic-focused pilot into a valued piece of infrastructure for the whole funding sector. In 2023, we aim to build on this progress, working towards the following four objectives.

1. Be the go-to source for information on funder collaboration opportunities

This will include:

• Keeping our current collaboration opportunities up-to-date and regularly adding new ones
• Improving our process and guidance for adding collaboration opportunities on our website
• Sharing more data and analysis about funder collaboration.

We’re currently looking for some funders to help us review how well our website's search and filter tools are working. If you can spare up to an hour to take part in some user research, please get in touch.

2. Enable diverse funders to make new connections that help them take action to advance their work more effectively, equitably and inclusively

This will include:

• Following up all emerging opportunities shared on the Hub to understand their progress and outcomes
• Evaluating the Hub's role in enabling funders to make beneficial new connections, and sharing the impact of this through case studies like this one
• Offering additional engagement to existing collaborations at times when they have a particular need to connect with wider funders, for example by publishing guest blogs from collaboration leaders.

3. Identify and champion collaborative funder practices that are effective, equitable and inclusive, and share tools and resources to enable these 

This will include:

• Continuing to produce regular case studies of collaborations that demonstrate excellent practice
• Reviewing our funder collaboration toolkit
• Sharing more diverse perspectives on funder collaboration, through blog contributions from non-funders as well as funders.

If you have a viewpoint on funder collaboration that you’d be interested in sharing, please get in touch.

4. Plot a clear pathway towards the Hub’s integration as a sustainable part of ACF’s role in the charitable giving ecosystem

As ACF implements a new five-year strategy, we will work with the Hub’s Strategy Group to assess options for how the benefits of the Hub can be maximised for the long-term in a cost-effective way, and plan the transition to a sustainable future delivery model.

Follow our progress

We’ll publish our progress towards these objectives in a new monthly performance dashboard. You can see our first update, for January 2023, here.

Reporting in this way is part of our commitment to openness and accountability. If you have any feedback or questions about the Hub, please contact us.