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“What’s Next for Philanthropy?” asks the Monitor Institute, in a report subtitled “Acting Bigger and Adapting Better in a Networked World.” The report identifies ten “next practices” that can help funders have a bigger impact in this crazy, changing world. We spoke recently with co-author Gabriel Kasper, (bio) who will address members of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers at our 2010 Annual Meeting.
Why do grantmakers need to read this report?
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Five or ten years ago, when we first started researching “The Future of Philanthropy,” we were trying to say to philanthropists and foundation staff, “Here’s how the world is changing. If we want to stay relevant, we need to pay attention.” Now, five or ten years later, we don’t need to convince anyone that the world is changing. Between the financial crisis, globalization, new web 2.0 technologies—people get it. Now the question is, “How do we need to behave differently? What should we do differently?” People haven’t figured that out. The status quo is always the easiest path, so this report seeks to help people figure out how to work in these new ways.
In the intro to the “Acting Bigger” section of the report, we read: “We readily acknowledge the importance of working together. Yet collaboration remains more the exception than the rule.” Can you talk about why that is?
There are a bunch of reasons. In many people’s eyes, collaboration means coming to a room and building consensus across a large group. That takes time. That takes energy. That takes commitment. There are lots of barriers, and time is a huge one. But it’s like the classic African proverb says: “If you want to go somewhere fast, go alone—if you want to go far, travel together.” If you want to get somewhere, it takes time and a willingness to give up control. And interpersonal relationships are a big part of it, too. You have to get along and trust people. So in many people’s eyes, collaboration just feels like too much work.
These days, I often use the term coordination instead of collaboration. It can be about working together—that’s one piece of it. Consensus-based collaboration has produced, and will continue to produce, amazing results. But it’s not the only way to do things. There’s also value in just knowing what others are doing and allowing that to inform your strategy… coordinating and working in alignment, simply knowing what others are up to and doing things based on that knowledge. The old school, formal, consensus-based collaborative has been seen by a lot of funders as being too difficult for many of the reasons I talked about. But there are increasingly ways of working together without having to do the formal consensus-based collaboration that they once did.
