The Rise of Collaborative Philanthropy: Transforming How Change Happens

By Rachael Gartner

Philanthropy is experiencing a fundamental shift. Where isolated giving once dominated the sector, coordinated efforts are increasingly driving significant social impact. This transformation reflects a growing recognition that complex societal challenges require collective responses including pooled resources, shared expertise, and strategic coordination among diverse stakeholders.

While informal community-based collaborative funding has existed throughout human history, the strategic pooling of resources among formal institutions represents a relatively new development. Structured funding collaboratives have experienced significant growth since 2015, and according to recent research from The Bridgespan Group, these partnerships are exhibiting measurably positive outcomes.

Robert F. Smith's 2% Solution exemplifies this collaborative approach in action. Launched in 2020, the initiative called on corporations to invest two percent of their annual net income in minority communities historically neglected by financial institutions. Industry leaders including Bank of America, Netflix, and Smith's own Vista Equity Partners embraced the challenge, directing coordinated investments toward Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs), education, technology, and healthcare. This strategic alignment has created concentrated capital flows capable of addressing systemic inequities at a scale that individual efforts rarely achieve.

The benefits extend across the philanthropic ecosystem. Funders gain access to shared due diligence, increased knowledge sharing, and the ability to make larger, more impactful commitments through pooled resources. Nonprofit organizations benefit from streamlined application processes and access to broader funding networks. Most significantly, communities receive more coordinated, sustainable support.

Collaborative philanthropy encompasses diverse models, each offering different approaches to partnership while delivering distinct advantages. From shared research to participatory grantmaking, these frameworks provide multiple pathways for engagement based on varying organizational capacities and strategic objectives.

The Collaborative Framework

Today's philanthropic partnerships offer a spectrum of collaboration, ranging from light coordination to deep integration, and allowing organizations, whether foundations, corporations, and/or government entities, to find approaches that align with their missions, values, and operational realities.

Co-granting

Co-granting offers an ideal solution for those seeking collaborative benefits while preserving strategic control. In other words, funders can keep their grants “separate” while supporting the same initiative or organization as others. To coordinate funding, grantmakers must come together to assess the grant, discuss individual knowledge of the area or organization, share research, and come to a final decision. This process helps mitigate risk, and results in thoughtful directed funding that can make a meaningful impact. 

Giving Platforms

Giving platforms maintain the collaborative spirit of co-granting while freeing funders from the difficult tasks of convening, screening applications, and researching. These specialized platforms create direct pathways for funders to connect with mission-aligned nonprofit organizations by curating vetted nonprofits within specific cause areas or communities.

Giving Gap, a giving platform that centralizes Black-founded nonprofits in the United States, is one example of this approach. The platform evaluates organizations to ensure they meet established criteria before featuring them in a searchable database. Donors can browse by cause area, confident that their contributions support Black-founded organizations with missions that benefit Black communities.

More comprehensive platforms like The Audacious Project assume extensive administrative responsibilities, from applicant prescreening to advising on implementation parameters and collecting final data. Giving platforms balance the decision-making flexibility of co-granting with the structured constraints of pooled funding collaboratives. For nonprofit organizations, these platforms offer access to diverse funding sources while reducing administrative overhead, allowing greater focus on mission-critical activities.

Pooled Funding

For more substantive engagement in collaborative philanthropy, funders can participate in pooled funding initiatives. This approach unites multiple donors who collectively contribute to a consolidated fund designated for a specific project, organization, or issue area. Strategic resource pooling benefits donors united by shared objectives. By combining financial assets, these collaboratives can establish more substantial, multi-year funding commitments while sharing administrative burdens and staffing costs. As with co-granting, pooled funding brings diverse perspectives into decision-making processes. When implemented thoughtfully, this approach introduces valuable insights that typically result in support for initiatives with the strongest foundations for sustainable success. Similar to giving platforms, this model streamlines operations for grantees by consolidating grant application and reporting requirements. Rather than managing multiple funder relationships separately, organizations can focus their energy and resources on advancing their core mission work.

Participatory Grantmaking

Participatory grantmaking brings together the diverse expertise of funders, community members, government entities, and nonprofit organizations to address shared challenges. This model shifts power dynamics by centering the voices of individuals with lived experience and intimate understanding of the issues at stake; in other words, those most directly impacted by funding decisions. By including these community experts in application evaluations and resource allocation decisions, the process identifies and supports initiatives with the greatest potential for meaningful, sustainable impact.

However, participatory grantmaking models require substantial upfront investment in time, resources, and relationship cultivation. Grantmakers must establish authentic partnerships with community experts, ensure diverse representation in decision-making processes, and willingly share or transfer authority over funding choices. Despite these initial challenges, the outcomes prove transformative. This approach empowers marginalized voices, generates more informed funding decisions, demystifies the funding process, and actively advances equity by redistributing power within philanthropic systems.

In Philadelphia, the Bread & Roses Community Fund exemplifies this model’s potential. The organization emerged from grassroots organizing when underfunded groups united to fundraise collectively, pool their resources, and advocate for systemic change. Today, Bread & Roses uses “community-led decision-making processes” to fundraise and distribute grants to local organizations working to improve quality of life throughout the Philadelphia region.  Since its inception in 1977, the Bread & Roses Community Fund has contributed over $17 million dollars to community-led organizations making a difference in Greater Philadelphia.  The result is community-driven change that reflects genuine needs and priorities rather than external assumptions about what constitutes impact.

Beyond Funding Models

Beyond collaborative funding models, philanthropic organizations can embrace alternative partnership approaches that streamline operations and reduce administrative complexity for both funders and their nonprofit partners.

Sharing Research and Expertise

Transparent exchange of information benefits all parties involved in philanthropy. Those with specialized knowledge in particular areas can disseminate research findings and engage in professional networks to facilitate knowledge sharing. Similarly, funders can partner with diverse stakeholders to leverage community expertise, identifying promising organizations and exploring strategic grantmaking opportunities that address unmet needs. This type of collaboration streamlines processes, eliminates duplicative research, and puts capital otherwise spent on research into the communities, projects, and organizations that can make an impact. Funders can join member organizations to network, share research, attend workshops, and learn from one another. 

Sharing Process

Grantmakers can significantly reduce the administrative burden for nonprofit partners through common grant applications and reports. These standardized forms streamline the funding process for all parties involved. Funders save considerable time by utilizing pre-built applications and reports containing essential grant questions, while still maintaining flexibility to add supplemental questions tailored to specific issue areas or funding priorities.

For grantees, the benefits are even more pronounced. Organizations can complete a single comprehensive application and distribute it to multiple potential funders, dramatically reducing the time and resources typically spent crafting individualized proposals. Funders can also accept grant applications or reports designed by another funder. The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation utilizes this trust-based approach, stating “Please submit a recent grant application that represents your organization well, and reflects our funding interests. Feel free to share one that you’ve used to apply to another funder...” This efficient approach allows nonprofits to redirect valuable staff capacity toward program implementation rather than administrative tasks.

Collaborations like these benefit both sides of the funding equation, creating broader connections between funders and organizations while fostering more efficient resource allocation across the philanthropic ecosystem.

Creating Lasting Impact

Whatever form it takes, collaborative philanthropy represents a fundamental shift in how funders drive meaningful progress. In an increasingly interconnected world, isolated efforts cannot match the transformative potential of collective action. In a 2019 commencement address at Morehouse College, just one year prior to launching his 2% Solution, Robert F. Smith noted, "when Dr. King said, 'The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,' he wasn't saying it bends on its own accord. It bends because we choose to put our shoulders into it together and push."

The growing body of evidence supporting collaborative approaches suggests that this philosophy is not just idealistic, it is strategic and practical for organizations serious about creating lasting impact.