“We need to think grocal”: this was the call from Kieron Boyle, of 100x Impact, closing one of the sessions at this year’s Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) conference – the challenge to think and act globally, regionally and locally. This was a sentiment echoed in panels and workshops throughout the three days: whilst the issues we’re tackling are often global or international in scale, the solutions are often delivered, and outcomes felt, at a local level.
Our commitment as London Funders to be generous with our learning, and open to the challenge and inspiration of others from beyond the capital, saw us take part in this year’s conference (and reconnect with many friends and colleagues from the UK and beyond!). In the spirit of the conference, and being inspired by Asian leadership, allow me to use that as the basis of some reflections from the conference: for us to rise to the challenges of both today and the future, we need to be Ambitious, Sector-inclusive, Investment-focused, Action-oriented, and Networked.
Ambitious: throughout this year’s conference, we were encouraged to focus on the ambition rather than the end result. “Measure intent, not outcomes” as a way to enable the flexible, responsive and learning-informed ways of working that we instinctively know will lead to better results. Starting with the ambition also means we’re more likely to use the right tools to achieve the change we want to see. For several speakers, there was too much time spent talking about the “how” of philanthropy or investment - how to make blended finance work, or which impact investment tools to use - rather than starting with the problem and then finding the tools to match. Less “I’ve got a hammer, I’m looking for nails”, more “what’s the house we want to build?”. Sheetal Vyas from Virgin Unite encouraged us to focus on the exam question of “how do we achieve the greatest impact” – opening up conversations about scale and risk that, in turn, enable better results for the people and places we serve. We were also reminded that strategy can kill ambition – making us too focused on looking for, or at, the things that ultimately don’t matter. We need to keep our eyes on the prize, not the process.
Sector-inclusive: being in a room with government, corporate and philanthropic bodies reminded me of the power of the London Funders network, of bringing together people with shared ambitions, with the focus being our collective goals rather than the sector each represents. This was also a common theme across the conference – how do we break down our silos and work across sectors effectively? We heard powerful examples from Indonesia, which faces an average of ten disasters (floods, earthquakes, extreme weather) every day across its 17,000 islands. Here, government data and intelligence are being shared to inform and target philanthropic investment, and co-create solutions across sectors to promote resilience.
Lisa George, global head of our member, the Macquarie Group Foundation, talked about how they were able to leverage the talents and networks of their employees to shape effective impact investment decisions – sharing this expertise with funders across sectors to grow their confidence in doing this work well. Many of the sessions looked at systems change, with a key message being that we also need to think about who benefits from the current system and what the pushback might be when we try to change it, so we can get in front of this. And without a diversity of voices, perspectives and sectors in the room, we’ll never be able to get this right. Funders together across sectors are the future – so thanks for being with us in this work.
We also need to think about who benefits from the current system and what the pushback might be when we try to change it, so we can get in front of this
Investment focus: there were countless examples of how social investment (in the broadest sense, from grantmaking to impact investment) led to positive returns for people and the planet, and also in terms of profit. From investment in green skills, jobs and tech, to innovations in healthcare co-produced with communities already massively impacted by the climate crisis, the encouragement to think more clearly about investment and impact was loud and clear. Shaun Seow from Philanthropy Asia Alliance reminded us that funding itself isn’t the problem—it’s often the type, with programme timescales rarely matching the timeframes real change requires. Matching the right investment approach to the challenge or opportunity is key – and going back to Kieron’s “grocal” encouragement, that can be where government action is needed to create the environment where investment in social change can flourish. It’s also where we need philanthropy to take risks and spotlight opportunity, and for impact investing to look at scaling. Through all this, we need to work together to ensure there are no gaps in this journey, and that every sector and player is investing its resources and energy in the right ways. You may have heard us talk about the power of collaboration a few times at London Funders too…
Action-oriented: one of my favourite anecdotes came from Tracy Pun Palandijans at Social Finance. She had discussed the conference with her mum, who reminded her (and us all) that “talk doesn’t cook rice”. With the challenges facing communities across the globe, the volatility in political and economic spheres, and the uncertainty about the future, we can become stuck – we may never have enough data, certainty or confidence to act, but sometimes we just need to stop talking and get on with it, learning as we go if necessary (as we did so successfully in response to covid-19). One of our members recently reminded me of the importance of this– “this network is London Funders, not London Talkers, we need to fund things!”. And things don’t always have to be exciting or innovative, as Wen Yi Tan at Johnson & Johnson reminded us, urging us to celebrate the boring – there’s often a lot of hard work that needs to happen for change to be achieved, so we mustn’t forget to invest in this stuff too.
Networked: funders together, with each other, with communities, across sectors – collaboration has come up in every conversation I’ve had at the conference. Some of that comes in spaces like these, for talking, sharing and exploring as the basis of taking action together, and some of it comes through the often long process of building trust. Larry Kramer from LSE made a particularly powerful contribution on the barriers and opportunities to collaboration between funders – highlighting how funders can often hold onto “their” process, “their” way of doing something, “their” understanding of the issue or the outcomes, and that all the time spent talking about how hard it is to do something creates a mindset that things are hard to do. With dispersed decision-making, different hierarchies and processes, and competing views on how to achieve change, we can get inertia. We were encouraged to think of collaborations as one team – how can we break down those barriers, trust people to do the work, not think that we can control or create perfection if only a few more people were involved in a decision? The panel centred the power of ideas – and why we need to invest in them. Ideas can change how people think, and how people think changes how they behave. This mirrors a lot of the emerging learning over at Collaboration Circle.
Money isn’t the only tool funders have, and in many ways it’s the least powerful one: trust, relationships, advocacy, standing together often matter more
It can feel at times that the task ahead is impossible – there’s too much to do, not enough resources, and the context is shifting too fast for us to achieve positive change. But we must never forget the power of being together, standing together, working together. One of the final sessions highlighted the power of solidarity – between sectors, between communities, between cities and continents. As an example, in the face of huge cuts to international aid budgets, it’s clearly impossible for philanthropy anywhere to mobilise enough money to plug all the gaps that will emerge, but it doesn’t mean we can’t act. Standing together with the groups affected, making the grants we can, showing that we’re still investing in those areas, showing our trust and belief in the credibility and effectiveness of the work that’s being done, advocating for the importance of tackling the issues that matter, can enable groups to have the confidence to keep going. Money isn’t the only tool funders have, and in many ways it’s the least powerful one: trust, relationships, advocacy, and standing together often matter more.
We started with a quote from Kieron Boyle, so let’s end with one he highlighted from the Hong Kong Museum of Art: “Those who change shall remain. Those who don’t will see their demise. The ones who transform shall flourish”.