Architecting Impact: The Shift Toward Ecosystem-Based Grantmaking

What do a theatre company, a South Asian men’s group, a coastal women’s emergency shelter and a Kinesiologist have in common? 

Aside from the start of a bad joke where these folks meet in a bar, they are all part of one private foundation’s approach to reducing gender-based violence, and societal violence overall, in Canada.

Ecosystem Definition & Structural Infrastructure

ecosystem | /ˈēkōˌsistəm/ noun

1. A biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
2. A complex network or interconnected system of organizations, individuals, and resources—such as an innovation ecosystem—that co-evolve capabilities around a shared set of technologies, knowledge, or strategic goals.

A number of years ago we posted a piece about “Layer Cake” grantmaking. The article features the Silver Gummy Foundation and the approach that, this newly formed private family foundation, took with its grantmaking. Fast forward to today and the foundation has evolved its grantmaking into an ecosystem design of giving. It focuses on the intersecting points of its grantees. Instead of just funding collaborations, it actively identifies gaps within its funding portfolio. It seeks out potential grantees and coordinates their work with existing grantees to fill that gap.

This year, the 23 organizations that Silver Gummy Funds from across Canada, will meet in a single location to create a physical representation of this ecosystem at play. It is this funder’s theory that by highlighting the connective tissue between these organizations they will find better, stronger and more sustainable ways of collaborating and system-shifting.

Innovation Ecosystem Infrastructure

An innovation ecosystem refers to a loosely interconnected network of companies and other entities that work cooperatively and competitively to develop new products and services. The following diagram illustrates the functional layers required to support such a system:

This structural framework is essential for moving evidence and research into the hands of practitioners and policymakers in ways that are practical, scalable, and impactful. 

The Silver Gummy Foundation ecosystem

In the context of Silver Gummy Foundation, the sectors/demographics represented include:

• Academia & Research
• Public Policy/Advocacy 
• Performing arts
• Summer camp
• Women’s shelter
• Youth mentoring
• Justice organizations
• Immigrant/Refugees
• Educational organizations
• Indigenous agencies
• Black women
• Sports & Recreation
• Healthcare
• LGBTQ2S+

At the end of their time together, this collective group will have mapped out how they are all connected and which threads to pull on in order to amplify their impact.

This isn’t the only foundation that we work with that is doing this type of work. 

Two years ago, the GeShiDo Foundation started working at the intersection of mental health, food security and housing. Landing on a cornerstone project with Toboggan Flats this foundation asks a series of questions starting with WTF…

For example:

WTF does it matter what the corporate structure is?  We are buying the success outcomes that address social issues like housing and access to quality food.

Or

WTF if foundations keep saying to charities that they want them to collaborate, why are they not funding the up-front-costs of collaboration and trust building?

Or

WTF if foundations want charities to collaborate, why aren’t they working just as hard to leverage their capital and collaborate with other funders?

Do they have the answers to these questions (and others)? In part. One of the things they realized is that to get to the root of these answers in the Canadian market (organizations like GeShiDo exist elsewhere in the world – US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, to name a few) they need to demonstrate that ecosystem funding can work in Canada.

In both of these cases there has to be a backbone organization that is willing and able to take on a modicum of risk and responsibility for the outcomes.

backbone organization | /ˈbakˌbōn ˌôrgəˌnīˈzāSHən/ noun

A centralized infrastructure with dedicated staff whose role is to help participating organizations shift from acting alone to acting in concert. Ultimately it provides strategic support across an ecosystem.

For Silver Gummy it is the funder acting as the backbone. In the case of GeShiDo, it is Toboggan Flats, an investee that is the backbone. 

In the third installment in our year-long series on trends in the sector, ecosystem grantmaking is a new trend, but one that we see is gaining momentum. This is most evident in sectors where government funding seems to  be drying up and civil society is being asked to backfill the loss. Read our previous installments here.