N Square Funders on the Value of the Funder Collaborative

A funder collaborative is not in itself an innovation; lots of funder collaboratives exist for numerous different purposes. What’s unusual about this collaborative is the degree to which we have tried to break down the perceived barriers between funders and other actors in the nuclear system so we could tap into funders’ unique perspectives and expertise while managing the common wisdom that funders’ presence in a room limits people’s ability to be honest and forthcoming. Our belief is that we benefit from having the “whole system” in the room together, including those whose contributions are partially financial, because along with their dollars they contribute types of knowledge that would otherwise go missing.

the funders were making a bet that by innovating their own practice they would be better positioned to identify and support other forms of innovation in the field.

“It unlocked for me personally and within our organization some new approaches to grantmaking and some new ideas that we’ve built upon. Part of that started even before there was an N Square, in that process of getting together with other funders and just acknowledging that something here is missing, that there are ways in which we support innovation successfully and effectively but there are things that we could do much better, that we can learn from

“Part of N Square’s power is that it isn’t just an NGO running some experiments. It is an NGO running some experiments that funders are watching in order to shape their decision-making and their thinking as well.”

This enabled our funders to ask and wrestle with questions from a new vantage point. How does innovation fit into this space? What does it mean to change how the network of actors in the space function, not just who’s in this field, but who’s outside the field who can become a resource, a partner, and a champion for the field? What are some of the ways in which they, as funders, can support innovation and networks in this ecosystem? In starting N Square, other fields and open the aperture a little bit and recognize we don’t have the answers. That was a very generative moment for me as a grantmaker.”

N Square was that we started by acknowledging that we weren’t all that good at innovation in this sphere. We all agreed that one of the things we would do, even if it was uncomfortable, was not develop really specific metrics or targets or objectives, because we knew enough to know that we didn’t know what innovation in this sphere might look like. That, at least to me, was part of the value.”

“The value add for me personally was getting to know other program officers. That is how you break down silos. We came to understand one another’s organizations in a way that was much more hard hitting and real than reading about it on paper, because we were trying to figure out where we could co-fund things.”

“Funders ... historically squeeze out risk. We take a long time to identify a small set of grantees that are really good in their spaces. What was interesting and novel about

“At the onset of N Square, there was an acknowledgment among the funders that … we needed to innovate and bring in energy and enthusiasm and modes of thinking and learning from different disciplines. That awareness was nothing new. But the explicit public acknowledgment of that by the funders and an effort to be deliberate about drawing on other disciplines and other thinking was significant. And that led to new investment in work with organizations that we wouldn’t have otherwise funded.”