Ecosystem Building
Stronger from Within
Our society is interconnected. This interconnectedness of social, economic, and environmental factors requires a holistic approach to all systems. Rather than focusing on isolated issues, sectors or programs, ecosystem building is vital to take a broad view of the challenges and opportunities facing a community and work to address them in a comprehensive and integrated way. Our work in this field involves supporting organisations across sectors working towards building the field and the ecosystem. This may also translate to supporting the institutional capacities of organisations and leaders to build resilient teams through relevant processes and practices by means beyond grants.
OPPORTUNITIES
The problems we’re facing are complex and multifaceted, and we can no longer afford a fractured approach to problem-solving. It is time that we recognise that society and ecology are highly interconnected systems. Climate change, justice, and equality cut across all domains and cannot be tackled individually by specialists. And technology and private capital alone cannot solve the problems of tomorrow.
With a trust-based philanthropic approach, we intend our grants to allow partners to show up for the communities they serve. This enables us to respond, helping them visualise their role better and deepen our understanding of the issue. We need to ensure that ecosystems are conducive to serendipity and leave space and opportunity for tinkering and exploration.
Subcategories
Strategic Philanthropy
Strategic philanthropy is about giving focused on long-term goals. By design, it is research-based, using planning, strategy, and proven methods for implementation. It looks for ways to take results to scale using policy. There’s an urgent need to support endeavors that have taken on audacious goals, that work strategically and collaboratively using rigorous approaches.
Grassroots Support
Uncommon Ground
This idea that first found its expression as a television show and book (Uncommon Ground: Dialogues Between Business and Social Leaders, 2011) created by Rohini Nilekani. Co-created as a dynamic and expanding movement with the CAMP Advanced Mediation Practice and other network partners, Uncommon Ground aims to build a societal muscle for transforming conflict and dissonance into a creative impetus for change by serving as a conduit of shared know-how and competencies.
Capacity Building
Work in this area focuses on building institutional capacity, technical expertise, and intellectual capacities for organisations working in the social sector. This field allows organisations to experiment and conduct research in areas where quantification is challenging, thus allowing long-term impact.
Early Grants
The intention of small grants is to leave the door open to discovering and supporting promising and new ideas that work closely with communities. Under this category, we support organisations to tide over operational challenges, fund projects that serve hard-to-reach communities or preserve and advance local knowledge & tradition, as well as enable local leaders to take their work to the next level.
Grantees in this field
Current Grantee
Ecosystem BuildingResources in this field
Podcast
Funding Hope and Wellbeing | Rohini Nilekani & Melinda French Gates
In this insightful conversation, Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, engages in a heartfelt conversation with Melinda French Gates, Founder of Pivotal Ventures, about the power of wellbeing to inspire welldoing. As[...]
Article
IDR | Do finance and compliance in the social sector need a makeover?
Complex and changing financial rules often make it difficult for nonprofits to sustain their work. To turn finance into a strength rather than a burden, organisations need better training, peer[...]
Article
IDR | Connection, not abstraction
Philanthropy’s most important role is not to abstract solutions by distilling them into replicable frameworks. It is to nurture the connections that make them possible. – By Gautam John (CEO,[...]