Collaborations, or the lack of them, will feature prominently at the Philanthropic Foundations Canada 25th-anniversary conference in Ottawa, when leaders will be challenged to stop talking and start doing.
By almost any measure, the best way to bulk up is to join forces. It’s no different in philanthropy, where collaborations provide the muscle needed for stronger and more enduring outcomes, whether it is accelerating the move to a greener economy or moving to real system change, sector leaders say. They will tell you that whether it is a partnership that raises the financial ante needed to effect change, a coming together that challenges ingrained perceptions and provokes new ideas, or a collaboration that breaks down silos, there is more bang available when organizations work together.
Why, then, is the Canadian non-profit sector a laggard when it comes to partnerships, and why are those trying to increase collaboration in the sector so often frustrated by an insular mindset that keeps the benefit of collaboration, from social-impact investing to partnerships with marginalized organizations, stuck in perpetual adolescence? “We’re trying to move forward, but we’re caught up in our own egos and caught up by practices of the past,” says Surabhi Jain, the executive director of the Workforce Funder Collaborative, stressing that she is speaking about the sector as a whole. “We’re trying to be creative, but I think we’re scared to do it.”
The phrase “a coalition of the willing” may unfortunately be associated with George W. Bush’s folly in Iraq earlier this century, but a coalition of the willing is precisely what many in the sector are advocating.
There are a lot of silos that exist, and partnerships and collaboration break them down so we can accomplish more.
Wayne Miranda, Boann Social Impact
Building partnerships is Wayne Miranda’s calling card. “There are a lot of silos that exist, and partnerships and collaboration break them down so we can accomplish more,” he says. But Miranda, of Boann Social Impact’s engagement and market development team, says there is more talk than action among foundations, funds that raise and deploy capital, organizations on the ground, regulators, government agencies, and Crown corporations. There may be conversations, but these entities are not landing on the same page around priorities, policies, programming, or models that work, he says. “We’re not trying to build a new organization,” he says. “We’re trying to get everyone pulling together to bring their strengths. It is a collective effort.”
Collaborations, or the lack of them, will feature prominently at the Philanthropic Foundations Canada 25th-anniversary conference in Ottawa when leaders will be challenged to stop talking and start doing.
Collaborative work is being done, but it seems to be done by the same foundations that are often mentioned in this realm, Miranda says. He cites the McConnell Foundation (which partnered with 183 organizations in 2022), Hamilton Community Foundation, Catherine Donnelly Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Mastercard Foundation, Inspirit Foundation, Definity Insurance Foundation, and Dragonfly Ventures. “It’s a long list, but we need it to double and triple,” Miranda says.
Not every tale will be one of unfulfilled potential. Wanda Brascoupé and Nicole McDonald of Indigenous Philanthropy Advisors will bring a message of progress when it comes to foundations working with Indigenous-led organizations. There has been a big move in that direction since the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they say. “People were suddenly awake to the history in Canada,” McDonald says. “When the survivors of residential schools came forward and shared the real history of Canada, I think there was a desire to get more involved.”
Sometimes people feel like it is going to be this difficult, complex process to get into a relationship, but it starts with wanting to have a relationship and wanting to collaborate.
Nicole McDonald, Indigenous Philanthropy Advisors
But McDonald, like others who are pushing for more partnerships and collaborations in the sector, says that this welcome shift is usually the work of the same foundations coming to the table. “We would like to see more. But some are just afraid of making mistakes. Sometimes people feel like it is going to be this difficult, complex process to get into a relationship, but it starts with wanting to have a relationship and wanting to collaborate.”
McDonald, a member of the Métis Nation now based in Quebec, and Brascoupé, who is Skarù rę’ and Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and based in Texas, founded Indigenous Philanthropy Advisors after the duo spent many lunches at Beckta, a downtown Ottawa restaurant, “solving all of philanthropy’s problems,” Brascoupé jokes. But these two women did more than lunch, both having extensive backgrounds in progressive philanthropic organizations, including the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund (IPRF), co-founded by Brascoupé in 2020 to break down philanthropic barriers so help could be delivered to Indigenous communities in remote locales during the pandemic. It ultimately worked with 1,200 Indigenous-led charities and non-profits.
They continued to meld Western charitable regulations to their understanding of Indigenous protocol and cultural nuances when they founded Indigenous Philanthropy Advisors earlier this year. They use their knowledge of Indigenous perspectives, traditions, and values to build more meaningful and respectful relationships between funders and Indigenous organizations. “We, as practitioners, understood the Western concepts of philanthropy, so it was up to us to do it within the confines of Western tax laws but push it . . . We always said we were a ball in the box. IPRF was the ball, and Western tax law was the box,” Brascoupé says.
Siloed professional communities are difficult to unite, leaving vested interests and the forces of inertia to crowd out innovation.
John W. McArthur & Zia Khan, “Rebooting the Sustainable Development Goals”
Addenda Capital collaborates across the investment sector. One of the country’s largest multi-asset investment firms, with more than $37 billion in assets, it is a leader in environmental and social-collaborative-impact investing. It handles about $1.5 billion in investments from philanthropic foundations, and its investment products aim to provide financial and “positive” sustainability in line with a net-zero framework and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. But those UN goals of 169 targets on global challenges, including poverty, gender equality in health, and climate change, unanimously adopted by all UN member states in 2015, appear increasingly elusive. The reason? According to an analysis by the US-based Brookings Institution, a lack of collaboration is hampering efforts. “Many organizations have difficulties updating their goals or building partnership strategies,” John W. McArthur and Zia Khan write. “Siloed professional communities are difficult to unite, leaving vested interests and the forces of inertia to crowd out innovation.”
Addenda was also one of the founders of Climate Engagement Canada, a finance-led coalition of 43 partners that take on high emitters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. “We recognize all boats need to move forward if we are going to drive transition and have a sustainable economy,” says Andrea Moffat, Addenda’s senior director of investment stewardship. Addenda’s partnerships with foundations begin when those foundations search for a way to align their investment strategies with their mission statements, Moffat says. That can also include investments in climate transition funds, which Moffat concedes can be frustrating and require a lot of “grinding” but ultimately can result in positive outcomes with high emitters. “I’m not saying it’s easy, and I’m not saying [change] is as fast as many of us would like it to be. But it is an important way to drive transition in the overall Canadian economy,” she says.
Addenda has also partnered with PFC over the next two years, a collaboration in which PFC will draw on Addenda’s expertise in pursuing “common objectives . . . which include supporting meaningful social and environmental impact, amplifying collaboration and building capacity for the common good,” according to an Addenda announcement of the agreement.
Having different brains and thought processes looking at issues from different angles will overcome restrictive thinking and find nuances.
Surabhi Jain, Workforce Funder Collaborative
The benefits to collaboration appear evident. Organizations together can drive change that they cannot individually. If five, six, or seven organizations come together, you’re going to get ears and eyeballs on things “that otherwise you wouldn’t get eyeballs on,” Jain says. Having different brains and thought processes looking at issues from different angles will overcome restrictive thinking and find nuances, she says. “You’re speaking to each other, not at each other, which means egos don’t get involved,” she says. Collaboration means learning from each other, and that means sitting in a certain amount of discomfort, she says, because someone is challenging your thoughts or providing a thought that had never been considered. “That’s where growth happens – and that is needed in the sector.”
Jain also maintains that fear of failure is misplaced. There is no such thing as failure, she says. If a million dollars is spent on a project that is deemed to have failed, it should still be seen as a successful learning experience, she says, not an excuse to never try again.
But collaborations can also be tactical, Miranda says. “It’s a coalition of the willing,” he says. “It can be beyond financial; it can be their time, expertise, and their networks. Different values might come together on one file, and on the next one you might not see eye to eye. But on the next one, you might come together again.”
We’re at a historic moment where collaboration can yield some game-changing results, he says. The government’s Social Finance Fund potentially provides that opportunity, he says. First announced by the federal Liberal government in the economic update in 2018, the Social Finance Fund finally got off the ground last year. Some $400 million (out of a total of $750 million) in social-impact funding has been released into the system, and Boann was chosen as one of the investment managers, along with Realize Capital Partners, CAP Finance, and the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association’s Indigenous Growth Fund. The money is eventually repayable to the government, but Miranda says there is an opportunity for the Social Finance Fund to collaborate with philanthropic partners, because ultimately that $400 million is a drop in the bucket. The funds are aimed at organizations led by or serving women, Indigenous Peoples, Black and other marginalized communities, the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, linguistic minorities, recent refugees and immigrants, and impoverished Canadians. If non-refundable capital from philanthropy is combined with what is available in the Social Finance Fund, Miranda says, that money will get to smaller funds serving marginalized communities, which are sometimes not an attractive investment in their years of starting up and building a track record.
It also provides an opportunity for the social fund actors and philanthropy to come together and build the social finance infrastructure lacking in the Canadian system. “This kind of sector infrastructure can outlast any of the players and the repayment timeline to continue to provide social and environmental outcomes beyond the fund,” Miranda says.
Miranda feels that Canada lags behind in collective action because there is a “risk-averse” attitude in this country. “We tend to put our heads down and not really look abroad or see what is happening in the US or the UK,” he says.
The first step is as individual as where you are at as an organization. Don’t be afraid of getting it wrong.
Wanda Brascoupé, Indigenous Philanthropy Advisors
But Brascoupé says that when trailblazers demonstrate that there is really no risk involved in heading down the collaborative path, others will follow. “This is doable. It’s doable today. Take a first step,” she says. “What is the first step? It is as individual as where you are at as an organization. Don’t be afraid of getting it wrong. Just tell yourself, ‘I’m a beginner here.’”
Jain, however, warns that the pendulum always swings back. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, there was movement on funding and reaching out to Black-led organizations, just as there was a move toward closer ties with Indigenous-led charities following the TRC report, she says. But any momentum toward diversity, equity, and inclusion is waning, she says.
Advocates of collaboration see the benefits and will not be deterred by spotty progress. “I would love 50 more of us,” Brascoupé says. “When we did IPRF, we didn’t do anything new. It came out of the teachings of the way we are with each other. There was ease because there was a network, because we knew community, because we knew how to speak with each other. The work was joyful.”
