‘Which SDGs does your project align with?’ has become a familiar question in funding proposal templates around the world. But the latest data on SDG progress shows that simply funding aligned projects isn’t hitting the mark.

In July 2026, the United Nations (UN) reported that nearly half (49 percent) of SDG targets are advancing too slowly, and 15 percent are actively regressing below 2015 baselines. Beyond compounding global crises, this gap is heavily driven by the lack of strategic financing for the 17 global goals, and we’re now facing an approximate US$4 trillion shortfall.

What’s more, despite the 2030 SDG Agenda specifically prioritising cross-sectoral collaboration, and over 8,800 multi-stakeholder initiatives being registered with the SDG Actions Platform since 2015, strategic investment in ecosystem orchestrators continues to be overlooked.

This has to change if we are serious about achieving the SDGs, and philanthropy can play its part by giving these core actors far more considered thought.

The Cost-Efficient Way to Fund the SDGs

To understand how to better support the ‘orchestrators’ of SDG collaboration, philanthropy must first understand what these ecosystem actors actually manage.

To this, the 2011 Collective Impact article by Kania and Kramer for the Stanford Social Impact Review, outlines five areas we can borrow from:

  1. A common agenda – Orchestrators ensure a shared vision for change, including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it.
  1. Shared measurement – They facilitate agreement on the ways success will be measured and reported, and as a way of holding each other accountable.
  1. Mutually reinforcing activities – They drive complementary activities undertaken by diverse stakeholders.
  1. Continuous communication – They promote ongoing communication that helps stakeholders create a common vocabulary, establishing shared ways of working.
  1. Backbone support: They serve as a dedicated secretariat that manages a complexity of actors, targets, and timelines.

These are all crucial conditions for collaborative environments, and though the SDGs bolsters some of these (for example, a common agenda and a means of shared measurement with their 169 targets and 234 indicators), others, such as backbone support continue to be underserviced.

Read the full article about funding work towards the SDG targets by Milet Aquino and Gina Estipona at Alliance Magazine.