Lukas, what are funding alliances, anyway?
Lukas Hupfer: In an alliance, several organisations join together in pursuit of a common goal, so in a funding alliance, those are funding organisations. Alliances are more or less formally structured and intentionally designed for the long term. It’s what distinguishes them from ad hoc cooperation initiatives or the collective funding one so often finds in philanthropy. In the latter case, several sponsors will decide to support a particular project independently and possibly without knowledge of one another.
What are the benefits of a funding alliance?
Funding alliances are based on jointly developed strategies, which ensures that all partners align their resources and actions towards a clearly defined goal. This boosts impact, prevents duplication and creates continuity and stability. Alliances make joint learning processes and the transfer of best practices much easier, and the nature of shared responsibility helps reduce risk. Finally, the joint presence of sponsors can increase visibility and influence in both public and political discourse.
Sounds great. Why don’t all funding organisations take this approach?
Agreeing on a goal is easier said than done. For all their similarities, partners often differ in culture, values and perspectives. Recognising this diversity and putting it to use is critical for setting realistic goals and expectations. What’s more, alliances often operate at a higher systemic level. Some foundations do still prefer projects with clear attribution and causality: ‘Our contribution has made this project happen. But as I said, if anything, alliances accomplish more than that.’
Have you got an example?
A few years ago, I established a foreign policy think tank called foraus and got to experience the ins and outs of a funding alliance myself: five foundations jointly provide core funding for the organisation’s further development. After forming the alliance, the constitutive foundations and foraus now regularly exchange information regarding their common interests: what trends are heading our way? How do I keep a community engaged? In my opinion, we should build on these positive experiences and results and go one step further: I believe a comprehensive alliance unites not only funding organisations, but also grantees.
How do Con·Sense and StiftungSchweiz help strengthen funding alliances?
We believe that funding alliances in philanthropy are becoming more important than ever because of increasing volatility. They give nonprofit organisations planning security, stability and the resources they need to stay in the game and react flexibly to new developments. In short, they boost resilience.
In order to better exploit the potential of networks and make it easier and more efficient to set up funding alliances in future, we are hosting a webinar to provide them a platform using examples from organisations that have experienced it all first-hand. StiftungSchweiz is also using the new network module to reduce the effort involved in coordination and is developing a framework with processes, tools and templates to facilitate the establishment of funding alliances.