Instead of coming up with clear answers to these questions we in fact realised that there are many more questions which funders face and that many of these are not at all easy to answer. The business of giving money away is complicated. Funders and philanthropists have to consider numerous questions and make difficult choices and it seems appropriate to describe this challenging situation as a ‘conundrum’.
For example, there is no straightforward answer to the question of how funders can bring about positive social change. It is not possible to say that an aspiration to achieve systemic improvements through policy change is better or more effective than developing the talents of outstanding individuals or concentrating on meeting immediate needs through funding service delivery. Equally, there is no clear answer to whether funders should restrict themselves to funding or whether they should also become directly involved in campaigning for example, or whether they can have more impact by collaborating, or whether proactive selection of grantees is preferable to the use of open grants rounds.
One important consequence of this complexity is that funders and philanthropists will be well served by taking some time to analyse and affirm their approach. And yet, the very complexity of the challenge can make it quite hard to know where to begin this process of reflection, what to focus on and how to break the work of a funder up into more manageable chunks which are easier to analyse.
Out of our research have emerged a descriptive framework and some concepts which we hope might make this process of reflection a little easier for funders to conceptualise. I will talk about these in more detail in future blogs. We have also established a number of important principles that apply to funders’ reflection:
- There is no right or wrong way to go about funding; there are numerous approaches which have the potential to make a real impact. What we need is a mixed economy of different funders and different approaches, each fit for its particular purpose.
- There is an important distinction between your mindset as a funder and your ways of working and funders will benefit from understanding and confirming both. What motivates you? What do you think is the role of the funder? How much risk do you want to take? Under what conditions might you collaborate with other funders? These are the sort of questions to think through.
- Being clear about your own mindset and ways of working means that you can be intentional about the approach you take and this is likely to make you more effective. Intentionality is an idea which came very clearly out of our research, from interviews with a wide range of informants and from a number of events and debates attended by funders. What I mean by ‘being intentional’ is that having reflected on and become clear about their values and beliefs and the context in which they are operating a funder formulates clear objectives in line with those values and beliefs and in turn develops ways of working that are best suited to achieving those objectives.
- Finally, it is very important that when funders are clear about their approach and the rationale for it, they communicate this to other stakeholders, such as staff and trustees, applicants, grantees and other funders.
I hope that future blogs and the report and additional resource materials to be published alongside it will help funders to shape this process of reflection. In the mean time there is a short article on the Fund’s website based on extracts from the report which provides some additional thoughts on this subject.
If you have any thoughts on the topics covered please email Dörte Pommerening. If you would like to contact the Fund about their work please email Andrew Cooper.
