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 the Hub’s progress up to the end of November.
This includes sharing a first draft of our priorities for 2023, which we invite you to feed back on.
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:
Four collaboration opportunities were added to the Hub in November. This brings our year-to-date total to 53 opportunities added since January - exceeding our full-year target of 50.
The opportunities added in November were:
- Applying a 'climate lens' to funding of buildings/refurbishments (emerging opportunity)
- Identifying Bangladeshi/Pakistani-led organisations for action research (emerging opportunity)
- Youth Employment Funders Collaboration (existing collaboration)
- Strategic Youth Work Partnership (existing collaboration)
The number of visits to our collaboration opportunity search page increased in November to 1,594. The year-to-date monthly average views of this page is 1,454.
There were 265 unique users of this page in November, slightly below our year-to-date average of 278.
November’s Top 10 most visited collaboration opportunities were:
- DEI Data Standard (474 views)
- Developing an arts funder network in the West Midlands (143 views)
- Applying a 'climate lens' to funding of buildings/refurbishments (134 views)
- Funder Safeguarding Collaborative (131 views)
- Enterprise Grants Task Force (106 views)
- Funders for Race Equality Alliance (94 views)
- Identifying Bangladeshi/Pakistani-led organisations for action research (93 views)
- Diversity Forum (90 views)
- Tackling health inequalities (86 views)
- Environmental Philanthropy Lab (80 views)
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 November there were 1,127 views of our blogs and funder collaboration case studies and 206 views of our Funder Collaboration Toolkit homepage, both significantly above our monthly targets.
November’s most viewed blogs:
- Building power in communities (194 views)
- Funding community organising: lessons from the US (94 views)
- Why all funders should be thinking about enterprise (89 views)
November’s most viewed case studies:
- A new approach (Strategic Youth Work Partnership, 99 views)
- Growing together (Farming the Future, 24 views)
- A good match (Enterprise Grants Task Force, 17 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. We're particularly interested in hearing from non-funders who have experiences to share (whether positive or negative) about how funder collaborations have impacted your work or wider field.
Priority 3: Integrate the Hub within the wider landscape and develop a sustainable model
At our November Strategy Group meeting, we discussed a first draft of the Hub’s priorities for 2023. We considered how the Hub might:
- Be the ‘go-to source’ for information on funder collaboration opportunities
- Catalyse collaborations between diverse funders (and between funders and others) to achieve greater impact
- Identify and champion collaborative funder practices that are effective, equitable and inclusive, and share tools and resources to enable these
- Ensure the sustainability of the Hub’s offer by developing a cost-effective model that adds value to ACF’s wider role in the funding ecosystem.
We are continuing to refine these priorities to inform the specific plans we develop for the coming year. In particular, we think we need to be more precise about the best role the Hub can play in ‘catalysing collaborations’, alongside other parts of the funding ecosystem.
We welcome all feedback and input into this process, so if you would like to comment on these draft priorities, please get in touch.
The reach of our main communication channels continued to grow in November:
- 7,796 website page views (+17% vs October)
- 827 newsletter recipients (+2.7% vs October)
- 1,949 Twitter followers (+1.9% vs October).
It is notable that the growth in our Twitter reach slowed down this month, which may reflect recent concerns arising from this platform’s change of ownership. As Twitter is currently a key communication channel for the Hub, we will need to closely monitor this and consider how to mitigate any impact on our work.
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.