Helping Individuals and Families Collaborate with Other Funders

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Sometimes joining with other funders is the best way to accomplish ambitious, equitable social change. Whether it is an informal collaboration or building a multi-donor philanthropy platform, collaboration brings more resources, more capacity, and more leadership to the issue at hand. We help you structure and staff a funder collaborative.


 

How We Support Funder Collaboratives

Funders need to agree on expectations for how their collective action will create value for constituents, grantees, and themselves. We listen carefully to understand your ambitions, goals, and concerns. After rigorous research, we advise you on options that match your needs. You and your funding partners control the decisions.

  • Designing and Launching: We help identify the core value proposition for you and your grantees, as well as the rationale for how philanthropic resources will lead to social impact.
  • Sourcing and Vetting Grantees or Investments: We identify high-potential nonprofits, NGOs, and leaders—explicitly casting a broad net to identify leaders most proximate to the issues they seek to solve. We also screen grantmaking opportunities based on the collaborative’s criteria, and incorporate lessons from our work on racial disparities in philanthropy.
  • Working as Part of the Operations Team: We provide staff support as needed.
  • Planning for Impact: We assist grantees or potential grantees, providing a range of consulting services before and after the collaborative invests in them.

What Blue Meridian Partners Has to Say About Working With Bridgespan

Nancy-Roob.jpg“Bridgespan has been our trusted partner in aggressively expanding the scale and scope of our philanthropy. They work closely with us to hone our philanthropic strategies, then they do the follow through...doing the deal sourcing and diligence we need for crisp decisions. Their insights have multiplied our philanthropic impact—and it’s a lot more fun now with experts at our side.”

Nancy Roob
CEO, Blue Meridian Partners

Individuals and Families Bridgespan Has Helped Collaborate With Other Funders

We have had the privilege of working with some of the most ambitious and generous individuals and families with collaborating with other funders.

Bridgespan Publications About Funder Collaboratives

We conduct research and share our insights on the power of philanthropic collaboration. Our insights have been published by Stanford Social Innovation Review, Harvard Business Review, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and are available on our website.

Bridgespan's Funder Collaboration Experts