Intermediary Infrastructure

Collaborative donor funds play an important role in aggregating and deploying social impact and philanthropic capital. These funds rely on host organizations to provide the operational platform and backbone services for their activities. To date, donors have invested limited attention and direct resources in strengthening the capacity of these host institutions or in nurturing the larger enabling infrastructure and systems that are foundational to the successful operation of collaborative funds. Conflicting interests, priorities, and risk misalignment often creates friction between the funds and host organizations and undermines the efficiency and effectiveness of each of them.

Without a more intentional approach to strengthening the enabling conditions for collaborative funds, the operational and governance infrastructure and systems for these funds will be fragile, and the performance of the funds themselves suboptimal. Learn more about the detailed findings from our study here. Read more here for our summary report.