Philanthropic Collaboratives Resources

Philanthropic collaboratives that channel resources from multiple donors to nonprofits and community-based organizations are on the rise. These vehicles—which often include stakeholders beyond philanthropy—collectively  deploy at least $4–7 billion per year globally. While many donors are bullish on the impact potential of collaboratives, they also seek tighter strategic alignment with their own goals and greater clarity on how to evaluate impact. While interest in forming collaboratives is high and barriers to starting them are low, some donors and fund leaders wonder if their supply exceeds demand. Such a bubble, they fear, could duplicate existing social change efforts and reduce their overall impact.  

Our research in recent years has highlighted the great potential of fund collaboratives to unlock and deploy even more philanthropic resources to advance social change. Indeed—when executed well, they offer donors the chance to multiply the impact of their giving efficiently and effectively. Further, collaboratives are often guided by leaders with strong knowledge of the topic at hand – and most have charted a course that differs from traditional philanthropy, tilting toward equity and justice, field and movement building, and leaders of color.  


Resources and Tools for Collaborative 
Leaders and Donors

Philanthropic Collaborations Database: A searchable and downloadable list of more than 300 collaboratives that have participated in our annual surveys and/or that we’ve identified through research.

Six Key Questions That Successful Collaboratives Answer: A worksheet to help leaders and funders answer the questions that collaboratives face at launch and during other critical inflection points. PDF or PowerPoint

Getting Started with Collaboratives

Learning From a Decade of Collaborative Philanthropy (SSIR)
A look at the growth and evolution of donor collaboratives and trends that are influencing this evolution. In response to questions Bridgespan often hears from leaders and donors, this piece also offers an emergent framework to help collaboratives and funders clarify their work and sharpen their path to impact.

The Philanthropic Collaborative Landscape 2025
Based on survey responses from nearly 300 collaborative funds, this report suggests how leaders might grow and strengthen this increasingly important segment of philanthropic giving.

Old-fashioned scaleAdditional Reports, Articles, and Tools

Releasing the Potential of Philanthropic Collaborations
Philanthropic partnerships are having their day in the sun. Their impact could be even greater with a clearer path to investing in collaborative funds and a shift in donor mindsets.

How Philanthropic Collaboratives Measure, Evaluate, and Learn
By starting with strategy—and considering three levels of impact—collaborative funds can build measurement, evaluation, and learning processes that help them become more than the sum of their grants and grantees. 

How Philanthropic Collaborations Succeed, and Why They Fail
When executed well, funder collaboratives can drive tremendous results—greater results than funders generally believe they could attain by working alone. 

Want to Fund in the Global South? Philanthropic Collaboratives Can Help
A range of collaborative funds working in the Global South are driving outsized local impact across issues while staying rooted in equity. Here's how they're doing it.

Are Funder Collaboratives Valuable? A Research Study
Increasingly, foundations and wealthy donors are forming collaboratives that, they hope, will produce results for society beyond the reach and capacity of any single funder. But do collaboratives really deliver?

Value of Collaboration Research Study: Literature Review on Funder Collaboration
A review of collaborative-focused materials encompassing academic research papers, practitioner blogs, published articles and reports, as well as syntheses of field-specific research.

Four Pathways to Greater Giving
To help wealthy individuals achieve more with their philanthropy, The Bridgespan Group, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, explored what impedes giving to social-change efforts and how four pathways could potentially double the flow of funding to initiatives that could benefit millions.

Centering the Grantee Experience: A Path to Differentiation for Intermediary Funds
This report from The Center for Effective Philanthropy asks two main questions: how do grantee experiences with intermediaries differ from those with originating funders, and what can we learn from intermediaries that grantees rate highly?

Regional Insights

Indian patchwork blanketIndia:

The Growing Momentum Behind Philanthropic Collaboratives in India
How philanthropic collaboratives in India are evolving their post-pandemic roles and practices to help solve enduring social and environmental challenges. 

Philanthropic Collaboratives in India: The Power of Many
Why and when Indian philanthropists and other stakeholders collaborate, and how they overcome the barriers to amplifying social impact.

Africa:

Philanthropic Collaborations in Africa and Their Unique Potential
Philanthropic collaborations in Africa are forging innovative ways to take on the continent's biggest challenges.

Thematic Insights

Giving together to advance racial equity in the United States
Given the overwhelming need, there is significant opportunity for philanthropic giving to advance racial equity.

Giving together to strengthen American democracy
A brief for organizational and individual funders committed to building and protecting a fair, inclusive, and multiracial American democracy. 

Giving together to address gender inequality
As threats to humanity mount, funding girls’ and women’s collective efforts to solve these problems can offer the holistic solutions required. 

Collaborating Towards Kindergarten Readiness at Scale: A Funder Group Case Study
After two years without settling on investments, a funder group altered course and worked together to fulfill two ambitious big bets on strengthening the field of early childhood.

How We Support Collaborative Leaders

Working side by side with innovative collaboratives and publishing field-leading research, we help collaborative leaders at varying inflection points with services spanning strategy and execution:

  • Developing and launching high-impact collaborative giving vehicles: We help donors seeking to give collaboratively determine the right vehicle to achieve their goals and, when a new giving structure is necessary, support its creation and launch. We help donors align around critical questions of impact, donor engagement and governance, distribution strategy, and measurement and evaluation.
  • Structuring and managing collaborative entities and operations: From supporting collaboratives with a first hire to designing the optimal governance model, we help collaboratives determine the operating model necessary for excellent giving. We also recommend team structures, capabilities, and processes, and can provide extended or additional capacity for the collaborative’s team during start-up and launch phases or critical inflection points.
  • Sourcing and diligence of philanthropic investments: Bridgespan has decades of experience in fields from climate to public health to civic engagement, and a track record of sourcing and vetting more than 3,000 organizations and funds around the world. Collaboratives we support tap into these resources, learning from and leveraging our experience as they build and expand high-impact giving portfolios.
  • Increasing the impact and effectiveness of grantees: Through our nonprofit advising practice, Bridgespan has worked with thousands of social-change leaders on issues of strategy, management, operations, measurement, and learning. We provide tailor-made support (individually or in cohorts) to collaborative grantees or potential grantees, ranging from lighter-touch workshops to more extensive business planning, designed to help nonprofit partners reach their full potentials.

Bridgespan's Funder Collaboration Experts

Additional resources