The Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, led by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, is supporting coalitions in five communities and an attendance initiative in seven school districts. In Iowa, funders decided to focus on grade-level reading after consulting with our nationwide campaign and with the six Iowa communities involved in our network. Rather than pool their money or create a new entity, they will co-fund the work, issuing their own grants to align with common goals.
Conceptually, most people agree that working together is the right thing to do. But when limited time and resources enter the picture, collaboration often falls down the list of priorities. Even its most ardent proponents will admit that when it comes to issues of identity, recognition, and crafting and sticking to a shared agenda, collaboration is no easy road.
Collaboration is not an addon to the work we do. It is the work.
These foundations recognize that to achieve different results, we need to do things differently. That means more than adopting new strategies or rewriting grant guidelines. It calls for real alignment of purpose and directing more money to what works. And it requires collaboration.
It takes courage and a lot of perseverance to achieve what these local and state funder collaboratives have done. They are stepping up to a big challenge and bringing together businesses and government agencies, local and state philanthropy, individual donors, and national foundations.
They realize what so many others do not: Collaboration is not an add-on to the work we do. It is the work.
___________________________________________________________________________________ Leslie Boissiere is chief operating officer and Patrick Corvington is a senior fellow at the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. Article online at: http://pndblog.typepad.com/pndblog/2014/06/game-changing-philanthropy-through-fundercollaboration.html