Funders working together and sharing experiences is a step forward. So too would be if funders funded the work of people working and learning together instead of writing this collaborative activity off as an admin cost.
In addition, if you want to make real systems change then there’s a need for storytelling to change our culture of organizational management that says that change only happens with great leaders. When collaboration works everyone should hear about it.
This publicizing capacity should be developed as a core function of funders and not left to the marginal abilities of funding recipients.
Great initiative. I love the arguments! Look forward to following the impacts from this initiative. It could be the beginning of re-writing history. GREAT THINKING!!!
Co Impact is going to be the way forward ..
Social Sector has to look seriously at sharing projects, problems and learnings ...
Everyone here today start for A to Z in a project life cycle .... collaborative effort will help the sector to achieve Zplus rather than working on the ABC of every Project…
Co Impact is going to accelerate growth and address the problem of resource gap which the sector is facing for long…
We at SynergyConnect work towards a Social collaboration using 20 years of our social sector experience to help larger IMPACT…
Congrats Olivia and the Co-Impact team. This is a thoughtful analysis with a bold solution—a welcome and too rare coupling in Donorworld. Looking forward to seeing how you all learn by doing in the next few years.
Thumbs up Co-Impact, core partners, facilitators and Olivia for such a Great initiative!!! Systems Change is definitely the way to go to sustainably eradicate at the core level developing world’s most pressing issues.
Using High-Tech to address Health and economic opportunity are essential for a rapid advancement of prosperity and sustainability in a world that’s more and more interconnected not only digitally but also through natural resources.
I’m working on a systemic change solution to address interconnected issues with on the frontline one core issue: Access to clean water for drinking & agro-ecology which simultaneously pulls forward climate change mitigation, agro-ecology development at a local level. Please check this out http://www.bluerayame.org
I have practically seen many socio-economic dev. Projects implemented in Afghanistan and most of them did not generate the desired impact it was planned for.
Excellent Initiative!
In case of Afghanistan, please do not hesitate to contact me If I could have a contribution with your team.
Hi Olivia, we just started Common Goal with the aim to embed philanthropy across a whole industry (here: football/soccer) and have created a collective fund that’s fuelled by a 1% model, and with the football/soccer players themselves taking the first step. We are still in early stages when it comes to the most efficient allocation and initially start with a portfolio we`ve developed ourselves over the past 15 years, that consists of high quality community based organisations that are using football itself to either accelerate and/or increase their impact. Would love to chat about potential synergies (maybe at WEF?). Congrats and best wishes!
It is exciting to read and learn about Co-Impact. No question, philanthropy focused on large scale systems change is needed and is likely to be effective over time than trying to fund individual aspects/pieces, no matter how exemplar those may be.
Christopher Wilson is spot on in his comment: “So too would be if funders funded the work of people working and learning together instead of writing this collaborative activity off as an admin cost.”
This is an area of particular emphasis for us in our work in systems change in Australia.
The key elements for meaningful and lasting change are all here—big problems, collaborative solutions, long-term support, ongoing learning. Excited to follow Co-Impact as it unfolds and cross-fertilize learning with what we’re experiencing stateside with 100Kin10.
Philanthropic ventures like this are really the stimulus for privatizing public services, and diminishing the role of government, especially democratic governance, in the US and abroad.
Nobody has elected these billionaires to determine social policies.
Further, if Blue Meridian Partners “inspired” this effort, then the talk of system change is really about making social service and causes operate as pay-for-performance schemes for investors, with opportunities to rig the programs to guarantee the return on investment by cherry picking who participates, and what the benchmarks for performance are.
The best examples in the US are the pre-school programs in Chicago and in Utah where the cohorts of children were screened for admission to reduce the need for special education services, and where the scores of children on standardized tests of reading at grade three have been set as one of several benchmarks for “success.” Other benchmarks are set for performance in high school, graduation, and so on. “independent ” evaluators are supposed to measure success. “Intermediaries” manage the performance of the preschool providers, can hire and fire even if they are clueless about preschool education.
Pay for Success contracts, also known as Social Impact Bonds, usually stipulate that the government funds that should have been devoted to securing the same outcomes as the contract (or bond) are owed to the investors. How are those calculations made?
For a NYC preschool program, the Robinhood Foundation calculated that the “social worth” of a high quality preschool program was $50,650 per child…in 2014. Robinhood offers estimates of the dollar value of social costs avoided, if “proper” pre-school and interventions are made and produce the best outcomes.
You can bet your whatever that these pre-school programs do NOT invest $50,650 per child. The calculation is designed to market the program to government officials who have a short term goal of cutting budgets for social services, including pre-school. The marketers, including government officials enlisted as “partners,” tell citizens that the “deal” will save taxpayers $50,650 per child in the long run. In fact, if the program succeeds in producing the carefully selected targets, taxpayers pay the investors—with an estimated 7% profit part of the payback.
This kind of financial product is being marketed internationally. One effect is that governmental responsibilities for the public welfare and the common good, especially social services, are transformed into opportunities for government-endorsed private control and profiteering. Notice that Robinhood even has a metric for “quality of life.” It is appropriated from finance in medicine.
This is an excellent, ground breaking initiative, fraught with innovative financing of social development whose impacts are usually difficult to discern without long-term and sustainable financial support. Congratulations to Co-Impact and Olivia Leland. I look forward to learning more about Co-Impact and the evolution of its approach. Systems thinking and investments are the way to go for sustainable impact (beyond reductionist measurement that is informed by pre-defined indicators), especially in the developing world where some philanthropists already feel social development is a bottomless pit!
Especially glad to hear the emphasis on listening to social change leaders, and I hope you mean the people who are part of the communities being affected.
One major challenge you face is the decades of positive social change gains can be wiped out by a few weeks of violent conflict. Just ask Catholic Relief Services about the devastating impact of the genocide in Rwanda, which not only killed over had a million people but also erased many years of steady investment in education, agriculture and health.
Will you be including conflict analysis, prevention and peacebuilding into your Co-Impact model?
This article was very inspiring to read, and immediately a non-profit I work with came to mind. Alas, upon visiting Co-Impact’s website, those dreadful words “not accepting unsolicited proposals” were found.
Too often non-profits with great ideas lack the relationships and/or budgets to get the attention of transformational funders. By keeping the funding process closed, ventures like these continue to restrict the playing field to only the most well-connected organizations and leaders. I understand the need to focus on organizations with the capacity to turn transformational funding into real change, but most non-profits can’t get to that capacity point without transformational funders along the way.
I hope you’ll move towards a more open funding system, whether that be by a diagnostic quiz to see if you even qualify to submit an LOI, a quick pitch opportunity or something that will allow all innovators an opportunity to be transformed into real change.
Inspiring article, yes, but agree with Maureen’s comment re limiting proposals. I volunteer with a non-profit that is succeeding dramatically at reducing maternal and baby mortality through systemic change, and has several countries wishing they could implement their programs there, but I’m sure are not on your list.
If you really want to make an innovative difference, you should open up to hearing about these kinds of change-makers so you can upscale their success and make a huge difference around the developing world.
Lastly, don’t make applications as onerous as many grant givers. The most successful initiatives likely don’t have the manpower to dedicate to that - they’d rather be changing the world for the better today!
Thank you everyone for commenting and providing thoughtful questions and suggestions.If you’re interested in learning more about Co-Impact, please feel free to connect with us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
COMMENTS
BY Christopher Wilson
ON November 15, 2017 11:36 AM
Funders working together and sharing experiences is a step forward. So too would be if funders funded the work of people working and learning together instead of writing this collaborative activity off as an admin cost.
In addition, if you want to make real systems change then there’s a need for storytelling to change our culture of organizational management that says that change only happens with great leaders. When collaboration works everyone should hear about it.
This publicizing capacity should be developed as a core function of funders and not left to the marginal abilities of funding recipients.
BY Esther Ngumbi
ON November 15, 2017 05:04 PM
Great initiative. I love the arguments! Look forward to following the impacts from this initiative. It could be the beginning of re-writing history. GREAT THINKING!!!
BY Nitin Jagannath Naik
ON November 15, 2017 06:42 PM
Co Impact is going to be the way forward ..
Social Sector has to look seriously at sharing projects, problems and learnings ...
Everyone here today start for A to Z in a project life cycle .... collaborative effort will help the sector to achieve Zplus rather than working on the ABC of every Project…
Co Impact is going to accelerate growth and address the problem of resource gap which the sector is facing for long…
We at SynergyConnect work towards a Social collaboration using 20 years of our social sector experience to help larger IMPACT…
BY Antony Bugg-Levine
ON November 15, 2017 06:59 PM
Congrats Olivia and the Co-Impact team. This is a thoughtful analysis with a bold solution—a welcome and too rare coupling in Donorworld. Looking forward to seeing how you all learn by doing in the next few years.
BY Kidi Basile
ON November 16, 2017 12:47 AM
Thumbs up Co-Impact, core partners, facilitators and Olivia for such a Great initiative!!! Systems Change is definitely the way to go to sustainably eradicate at the core level developing world’s most pressing issues.
Using High-Tech to address Health and economic opportunity are essential for a rapid advancement of prosperity and sustainability in a world that’s more and more interconnected not only digitally but also through natural resources.
I’m working on a systemic change solution to address interconnected issues with on the frontline one core issue: Access to clean water for drinking & agro-ecology which simultaneously pulls forward climate change mitigation, agro-ecology development at a local level. Please check this out http://www.bluerayame.org
BY Jane Smith
ON November 16, 2017 06:47 AM
This is completely and utterly terrifying.
BY Suzanne Kennedy
ON November 16, 2017 12:07 PM
Beautifully written- I support anything that Olivia Leland touches.
BY Shokrullah Amiri
ON November 16, 2017 11:45 PM
I strongly agree with you.
I have practically seen many socio-economic dev. Projects implemented in Afghanistan and most of them did not generate the desired impact it was planned for.
Excellent Initiative!
In case of Afghanistan, please do not hesitate to contact me If I could have a contribution with your team.
BY Jürgen Griesbeck
ON November 17, 2017 04:51 AM
Hi Olivia, we just started Common Goal with the aim to embed philanthropy across a whole industry (here: football/soccer) and have created a collective fund that’s fuelled by a 1% model, and with the football/soccer players themselves taking the first step. We are still in early stages when it comes to the most efficient allocation and initially start with a portfolio we`ve developed ourselves over the past 15 years, that consists of high quality community based organisations that are using football itself to either accelerate and/or increase their impact. Would love to chat about potential synergies (maybe at WEF?). Congrats and best wishes!
BY kiran rupavate
ON November 17, 2017 05:36 AM
Great job i ame interested
BY Todd Johnston
ON November 19, 2017 12:39 AM
It is exciting to read and learn about Co-Impact. No question, philanthropy focused on large scale systems change is needed and is likely to be effective over time than trying to fund individual aspects/pieces, no matter how exemplar those may be.
Christopher Wilson is spot on in his comment: “So too would be if funders funded the work of people working and learning together instead of writing this collaborative activity off as an admin cost.”
This is an area of particular emphasis for us in our work in systems change in Australia.
BY Talia Milgrom-Elcott
ON November 20, 2017 07:27 AM
The key elements for meaningful and lasting change are all here—big problems, collaborative solutions, long-term support, ongoing learning. Excited to follow Co-Impact as it unfolds and cross-fertilize learning with what we’re experiencing stateside with 100Kin10.
BY Laura H. Chapman
ON November 20, 2017 02:26 PM
Philanthropic ventures like this are really the stimulus for privatizing public services, and diminishing the role of government, especially democratic governance, in the US and abroad.
Nobody has elected these billionaires to determine social policies.
Further, if Blue Meridian Partners “inspired” this effort, then the talk of system change is really about making social service and causes operate as pay-for-performance schemes for investors, with opportunities to rig the programs to guarantee the return on investment by cherry picking who participates, and what the benchmarks for performance are.
The best examples in the US are the pre-school programs in Chicago and in Utah where the cohorts of children were screened for admission to reduce the need for special education services, and where the scores of children on standardized tests of reading at grade three have been set as one of several benchmarks for “success.” Other benchmarks are set for performance in high school, graduation, and so on. “independent ” evaluators are supposed to measure success. “Intermediaries” manage the performance of the preschool providers, can hire and fire even if they are clueless about preschool education.
Pay for Success contracts, also known as Social Impact Bonds, usually stipulate that the government funds that should have been devoted to securing the same outcomes as the contract (or bond) are owed to the investors. How are those calculations made?
For a NYC preschool program, the Robinhood Foundation calculated that the “social worth” of a high quality preschool program was $50,650 per child…in 2014. Robinhood offers estimates of the dollar value of social costs avoided, if “proper” pre-school and interventions are made and produce the best outcomes.
You can bet your whatever that these pre-school programs do NOT invest $50,650 per child. The calculation is designed to market the program to government officials who have a short term goal of cutting budgets for social services, including pre-school. The marketers, including government officials enlisted as “partners,” tell citizens that the “deal” will save taxpayers $50,650 per child in the long run. In fact, if the program succeeds in producing the carefully selected targets, taxpayers pay the investors—with an estimated 7% profit part of the payback.
This kind of financial product is being marketed internationally. One effect is that governmental responsibilities for the public welfare and the common good, especially social services, are transformed into opportunities for government-endorsed private control and profiteering. Notice that Robinhood even has a metric for “quality of life.” It is appropriated from finance in medicine.
https://robinhoodorg-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/04/Metrics-Equations-for-Website_Sept-2014.pdf
BY Tsitsi Maradze, Partner in Q Partnership Internati
ON November 22, 2017 02:36 PM
This is an excellent, ground breaking initiative, fraught with innovative financing of social development whose impacts are usually difficult to discern without long-term and sustainable financial support. Congratulations to Co-Impact and Olivia Leland. I look forward to learning more about Co-Impact and the evolution of its approach. Systems thinking and investments are the way to go for sustainable impact (beyond reductionist measurement that is informed by pre-defined indicators), especially in the developing world where some philanthropists already feel social development is a bottomless pit!
BY Diana Kutlow
ON November 24, 2017 10:50 AM
Especially glad to hear the emphasis on listening to social change leaders, and I hope you mean the people who are part of the communities being affected.
One major challenge you face is the decades of positive social change gains can be wiped out by a few weeks of violent conflict. Just ask Catholic Relief Services about the devastating impact of the genocide in Rwanda, which not only killed over had a million people but also erased many years of steady investment in education, agriculture and health.
Will you be including conflict analysis, prevention and peacebuilding into your Co-Impact model?
BY Maureen
ON November 26, 2017 06:30 PM
This article was very inspiring to read, and immediately a non-profit I work with came to mind. Alas, upon visiting Co-Impact’s website, those dreadful words “not accepting unsolicited proposals” were found.
Too often non-profits with great ideas lack the relationships and/or budgets to get the attention of transformational funders. By keeping the funding process closed, ventures like these continue to restrict the playing field to only the most well-connected organizations and leaders. I understand the need to focus on organizations with the capacity to turn transformational funding into real change, but most non-profits can’t get to that capacity point without transformational funders along the way.
I hope you’ll move towards a more open funding system, whether that be by a diagnostic quiz to see if you even qualify to submit an LOI, a quick pitch opportunity or something that will allow all innovators an opportunity to be transformed into real change.
BY Diane Reader Jones, Save the Mothers volunteer
ON November 27, 2017 10:42 PM
Inspiring article, yes, but agree with Maureen’s comment re limiting proposals. I volunteer with a non-profit that is succeeding dramatically at reducing maternal and baby mortality through systemic change, and has several countries wishing they could implement their programs there, but I’m sure are not on your list.
If you really want to make an innovative difference, you should open up to hearing about these kinds of change-makers so you can upscale their success and make a huge difference around the developing world.
Lastly, don’t make applications as onerous as many grant givers. The most successful initiatives likely don’t have the manpower to dedicate to that - they’d rather be changing the world for the better today!
BY Joshua Murphy
ON January 24, 2018 07:05 AM
Thank you everyone for commenting and providing thoughtful questions and suggestions.If you’re interested in learning more about Co-Impact, please feel free to connect with us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)