The Role of Philanthropy in Scaling Solutions toward Systems Change

About

How can funder behavior evolve to be more collaborative, and more supportive of scaling the solutions and impact of grantees whose work creates positive, systemic changes to pressing problems?

For more than two years, the Scaling Solutions toward Shifting Systems, an initiative launched by the Skoll Foundation, Ford Foundation, Draper Rickards Kaplan Foundation, Porticus, and  Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, has been a learning journey examining when, how, and why certain solutions were able to grow and achieve system-level shifts, and the role of philanthropic funders in that.

The initiative’s first report in 2017, Scaling Solutions toward Shifting Systems, highlighted organizations that had scaled solutions and how funders had helped or hindered the process, including a set of recommendations for interested funders.

In 2018, our second report, Approaches for Impact, Approaches for Learning, delved deeper into two questions: Which funders go beyond an endorsement of such recommendations and put them into practice, and why and how is this happening?

And given the importance of collaboration, what can we learn from existing funder collaboratives aimed at some kind of systems change?

Join Us To

• Understand the highlights from the Scaling Solutions toward Shifting Systems initiative
• Discuss how interested funders in the Bay Area could move forward on this theme
• Learn how funders can shift approaches to better support grantees to scale their solutions and create systemic change
• Learn about the challenges and opportunities in using a Scaling Solutions approach