From Egosystem to Ecosystem: Collaboration Within Education Philanthropy

I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration…

I joined the International Education Funders Group (IEFG) Secretariat in November 2023 with the mandate to support members in their desire to work better together. ‘Collaboration’ is one of the current buzzwords of philanthropy, and something our members talk about often. When I joined the Secretariat, I wanted to find out what collaboration really means for our members, and what incentives they have to work in this way. What started as a series of conversations turned into a set of case studies about ‘successful’ (self-defined) collaboration, and these case studies were of real-life, tangible examples that showed funders working together. They celebrated collaboration as enabling them to extend their reach, deepen their impact, and achieve more than they could alone.

So far, so good, and perhaps I should have stopped there. As encouraging as this was, I was also hearing from a small number of voices that collaboration is discouraged – that the incentives in philanthropy are to do the opposite of collaboration: comments such as “do we really believe that working together gets us to more impact?” and “my Board tells me not to collaborate as it will dilute our work”.

Over the course of the following year as I made spaces for IEFG members to come together to collaborate within themes and geographies, spurred on by many of their stated enthusiasm to work together, I began to understand the chasm between working together and collaborating; a distinction we are encouraging IEFG members and education philanthropy more broadly to take serious notice of.

…I even have a definition!

The problem with many of our collaborative case studies was that they didn’t seem very collaborative: although everyone involved was committed to the idea of working together, at the core of a collaboration was often the ability of one individual or organisation to convince others to come onboard with their idea (with co-funding or other support) – and it’s not the same thing.

We know that incentives in the development and philanthropic funding worlds can pull against real collaboration. Many foundation staff members must show the impact of their funding decisions to their Boards, and grantee organisations compete for funding (there’s a bigger point here about philanthropy fostering a culture of competition or collaboration – or as one of our members puts it ‘collabatition’ that I’ll come back to in a future blog). IEFG members are some of the most progressive thinkers and doers in the education philanthropy space and still find it hard to work out what collaboration really means and then put it into practice, but we in the Secretariat, along with some of our members, believe strongly that real collaboration is essential, and that some big mindset and behaviour shifts are needed. Our hope is that the philanthropy community can show the way to wider shifts in the global education community.

A year on from the case studies series, and we now have a working definition of what we think collaboration is, which entails:

• Really understanding the system (the ‘big picture’), who’s in it, what’s happening, what the gaps are, and committing to a process of continual understanding as this moves and changes;
• Understanding one’s unique position in the system, the strengths and power and levers one has, the things one can’t do and one’s blind spots;
• Accepting a (certain) loss of power and creating space for other (smaller) actors;
• Working together to achieve a specific goal and being comfortable with this being an iterative, alive process.

The definition is a work in progress and some of our members have taken time to refine it with us, although many, when it’s put to them, see themselves and their work in it already. Our own observations from our conversations and facilitations of collaborative opportunities don’t always support this: we often see foundations who do points 1 and 2 to a certain extent but on their own, struggle with point 3, and start their collaborations at point 4. Many of our members have volunteered their time over the past month to explore in more detail why this might be the case, in order to find ways to move forward together.

Indeed, the conversations and opportunities we’ve been in with members over the past year have encouraged me to write an update to last year’s case studies: an honest appraisal of where trying to collaborate hasn’t worked and the parts that our members find most challenging, which I expect will result in further amendments to our definition. The question still stands, however: is the education philanthropy sector ready to make the shift, as Laura, the IEFG’s Executive Director, recently put it, from the ‘egosystem to the ecosystem’?

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We started facilitating collaborative opportunities for our members…

Initially we were so encouraged by what we heard from our members through their case studies that we decided to trial Chapters (collaborative groups based on geographies) and Corners (collaborative groups based around themes) among interested IEFG members. We began with Corners focusing on foundational learning, the intersection between nutrition and education, and edtech, and with Chapters for Kenya, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Jordan and Pakistan. We got a first-hand taste of what it means for members of the education philanthropy community to lean into the process of working together deeply and intentionally. This is where we really began to see what collaboration in education philanthropy looks like and how it works. First: the story we like to tell of each group’s successes, and second: behind the scenes.

Our biggest Corner of 2024 focused on foundational learning, and began with no clear sense of what action they might take together. It started with an analysis of who was doing what on foundational learning, then the group took their time to get to know each other through a series of show and tells that focused in particular on positions, challenges, strategies and interests, going back and forth with ideas and questions and bringing in perspectives from outside the core group. This process led the group to zoom in on the foundational learning definition question: should foundational learning include socioemotional and other skills, as well as literacy and numeracy, or not? The Corner recognised they had a common voice on this but did not articulate it well or often enough, and brought this philanthropic voice to the members of the Coalition for Foundational Learning through a 4-part roundtable series co-hosted by CUE Brookings. Through this collaborative dialogue and on-the-ground case studies, this Corner progressed the debate in the global education policy architecture and gained new understanding of their shared goal across the skills spectrum. The commitment to a shared narrative as a statement of intent to work together to ensure that all children have access to the range of skills required for them to thrive in a changing world will, we hope, have an impact on how the foundational learning agenda plays out in-country.

The EdTech Corner continues to meet, and the Nutrition x Education Corner (in partnership with Stronger Foundations for Nutrition) are working together on a shared project concept for an outcomes-based approach to school feeding which may influence decisions about whether to include education outcomes in the School Meals Impact Accelerator, which would be an important step to link the importance of nutrition to learning outcomes. Like the foundational learning Corner, both groups started by going deep into their interests, desires and challenges, but the similarities around the collaborative process end there – this time the groups decided the way to concretise their collaborative efforts was to meet in person – a leap of faith in the collaborative process and the belief that working together is more impactful that working alone, considering the time and cost implications of a day of time and travel to one location.

The Nutrition x Education Corner was unique in the Corner process in that the individuals in the first meeting were those who met together and thrashed through their own goals to find geographical and thematical overlaps that they could come together around, and the final collaborative team comprises three organisations (down from the ten or so who started the journey with us), but those three are committed to examining whether fortified school feeding can be done more effectively and lead to improvements in education outcomes, findings which could impact global initiatives such as those undertaken by the School Meals Coalition or the School Meals Impact Accelerator.

The EdTech Corner’s in person workshop had fewer posterboards and Post-It notes, and brought together some of the biggest spenders in education philanthropy: no mean feat considering each could influence the direction of the sector on its own, and a testament to their belief that the only way they will improve education outcomes is by working together. This group’s composition changed consistently over the course of the online meetups, as each organisation shifted and twisted to work out which individual had both the time and the authority to both represent the foundation and negotiate collaborative work. The group continues to meet autonomously to align their edtech strategies and efforts for a more harmonious approach to the topic, with the power to advocate for solutions that work at scale.

Our country-based Chapters have each taken a life of their own, and were quicker to settle down as groups, create trust-based relationships between members, and decide on routes of collective action than their Corner counterparts, perhaps because many of their members were based in or have very close relationships with the countries of focus, and some, although by no means all, at least were more likely to have met previously or be familiar with each other’s work. This doesn’t mean the collaborations that have been sparked didn’t take effort and compromise, and a deliberate commitment to show up, open up, and undertake the work that each group agreed.

Our five Chapters have each formed an in-country network that meets informally to share work and ideas; formalised a representative relationship with the local education group and organised an in-person, in-country meetup and (what we call a) Great Grantee Gathering[1]; started to dive into the education data available to map and understand the education landscape better to be shared as public good, mapped their own ongoing and planed programmes and projects to identify the myriad tiny areas of synergy and overlap so that they can be more efficient, effective, and demand less of the actors in the overstretched education system; and committed to a learning process for themselves to advocate for more funding to the education sector in the country, and for their grantees to support their own in-country advocacy efforts.

Some Chapters are in discussions about sharing a person-resource to continue weaving threads of collaboration between them and the wider sector, and we watch this space as the momentum grows. Each Chapter now has self-appointed leads or co-leads from within the IEFG membership to keep the collaboration live, and this willingness from members means the groups will continue to run in response to the needs of the education systems and their actors in each country.

…but when we look closely, are we really seeing collaboration in action?

To begin with: the way collaborations played out within each group was a result of the complex interactions between individuals and their organisational strategy; although each group was chosen and set up in the same way (participants were selected to attend based on the interests they had stated on our member data dashboard, and the IEFG Secretariat facilitated the first meetings using a common format), not one group followed the same path, took the same time, and resulted in the same action(s).

Each group took a huge amount of work to coordinate and facilitate, with the dynamics of bringing busy people across time zones, often up to 12 hours apart, a challenging task. Many of the members who attended the first meetings did so either to showcase their work to their peers (with some even leaving once they’d presented their projects, not staying to listen to what others had to show them), and with the majority giving the impression that they see collaboration as something they do in addition to their day job rather than an integral part of it, although this is often not something they can control.

We set the Corners up to be time-bound collective action spaces. We expected that Chapters would only continue if IEFG members saw enough value in them to co-lead. But we found that – despite the lack of clear collective action – Corner members were reluctant to let go of the online meetings entirely and give up on the potential of a collaboration. But, while learning and sharing has a place in collaboration, this can result in feelings of a stalemate if it goes on for too long, or when individuals leave once they’ve got the information they need from others to go off and do their own thing again. We believe in the power of a timeline for collective action: do something together, make a joint statement together, and the basis for future collaboration can grow from this sense of achievement.

We noticed that Chapters (groups formed around geographies) were quicker to identify and move to collaborative actions, perhaps because their boundaries were literally better defined: participants have been more easily able to see their work in the context of a much wider set of issues, stakeholders and dynamics, and recognise that it is impossible for them to ‘do it all’. They have been able to map, either literally or through their conversations, that they’re part of a puzzle or a link in a value chain, and we’ve seen greater humility in these groups than in our Corners (thematic groups), something that’s particularly fascinating when it’s the same individual behaving in different ways depending on the group.

Notwithstanding, it was difficult for most of the groups to identify collaborative actions, and in most cases required the IEFG Secretariat to listen to the conversations, identify opportunities (for example where we noticed a particular gap or challenge that spoke to the interests of several group members), and present these back. Often, members who identified collaborative opportunities were simply pitching (hard!) their ready formulated idea to the group, and left when they realised they weren’t getting traction, a particularly infuriating behaviour as the IEFG is a no-pitch zone, which some individuals forgot applies to themselves as well as grantee partners (looking for co-funding partners is allowed, but this starts to feel like a pitch when the opportunity is not open to being shaped together). Even when first steps towards or a collaboration were agreed (a data deep dive, or a mapping, or a series of case studies to illustrate a point, or a joint statement for example), it wasn’t a given that the people in the room would actually provide the details they had promised, or use the output they’d worked on together (in one memorable case where there’d clearly been a breakdown of communications within an organisation, with individuals posting contradictory messages on LinkedIn!).

Ultimately, we have seen reluctance across almost all the groups to commit to (and fund) collaborative actions; even though initial amounts are comparatively minimal in relation to other expenditure. We know that this can be as frustrating for those in the room as it is for us as facilitators and observers, as they lean into the collaborative effort as those with technical authority, do not have the authorising power to press the go button, and know that the decision makers don’t or won’t make the time to engage in collaborative conversations at this depth. We’ve seen decisions being kicked down the line, hiding behind the requests for in-person meetings or strategic moments in the year, with little visibility of whether this will move things forward or take the process back to the beginning again. Understandably, these delays result in drop outs from the groups. In philanthropy, delays matter. A new CEO joins an organisation, and strategy shifts can happen quickly. In one case, this happened and marked the end of what had been a promising joint initiative in one of our Corners.

As with many activities of a network, it has been difficult to attribute success to the groups, with the successes outlined above often on a much smaller scale than we (and group members) may initially have hoped. We saw that this is one of the reasons it’s so easy to fall into a position of trying to convince your peers to come on board with your idea – if you win others over to your project it’s a big result (for you, your Board, your strategy), in contrast to the small, behavioural collaborative victories we’ve seen in our Corners and Chapters. Real success in these groups was only seen where those involved were committed to tackling the hard stuff – what we like to use the phrase ‘systems change’ for. These people know that it’s not enough to build classrooms or buy textbooks; but that inputs like these need to lead to improvements in learning outcomes, and are willing to tackle the reasons that this seemingly logical equation doesn’t always work despite what are often pulls to the contrary within their organisations. These individuals recognise that philanthropic giving is small in relation to other funding, is always personal, and is often funded by people who haven’t had to work systemically to make a change in their own sector and are impatient with the development industry and its systems change language; but are willing to push against these ant-collaborative (‘finding the silver bullet) dynamics to work with others to do the hard work that really improves learning outcomes.

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Our members do say they collaborate and talk about why they do it…

Back then to our case studies, each one of which illustrates something on the spectrum of collaborative opportunities, from simple information sharing to complex joint programming and advocacy efforts. These examples do shed light on parts of the collaboration picture, because they each tell a story of education funders working together, and point to some of the mindsets needed to be able to do this effectively. I share these reflections here as they begin to illustrate the gap that exists between theory and practice, and will be a jumping off point for my reflections on what we are really seeing in education philanthropy.

Case study respondents emphasized that working together is grounded in honesty, trust, and a strong sense of community. By thinking of themselves as part of a larger orchestra, IEFG members and education philanthropy more widely say they have begun to harmonise their efforts, to try and create a unified voice that resonates far beyond their individual parts. There is a theoretical understanding that working together could vastly improve or even solve systemic challenges, and that pooling resources and knowledge could amplify impact, allowing more effective support for project design and funding, research and evidence generation that tackles broad systemic issues. There is a shared view among those I interviewed that collective action has the potential not only to improve learner outcomes and advocate for scalable education models, but also influence education systems and policies at national levels.

Many of our members say that working together allows them to leverage complementary strengths so that they can address various facets of education challenges – positioning themselves on a continuum from early childhood care to tertiary education, injecting expertise on foundational learning, social and emotional wellbeing, teacher professional development and education in humanitarian contexts among other things – and ensuring that the combination of expertise that can be accessed through partnerships means that no aspect of the needs of each whole child is overlooked, as well as overcoming geographical and logistical barriers to reach and support the most marginalised communities.

I also heard that collaborative efforts create spaces for innovation and learning, addressing immediate challenges while paving the way for new solutions. Partners can experiment, learn from each other, adapt strategies and enhance their overall effectiveness. Funders said that collaboration served as a powerful advocacy platform, allowing partners to unite their voices to push for systemic changes and education reforms, and that despite challenges, it builds resilience and adaptability, and that working together provides a robust support system to navigate regulatory changes and unforeseen obstacles. Motivated by the desire to achieve greater impact and foster innovation, individuals said they collaborate to overcome limitations, enhance efficiency, and drive meaningful change in education systems worldwide.

…and they even have lessons they can share about what mindsets and behaviours it takes

IEFG members explained that working together in education philanthropy relies on specific mindsets and behaviours that create a supportive environment for collective action and help navigate the complexities of joint efforts. They pointed out that some people have these qualities, some are working to cultivate them, and some do not. As you might imagine, they include humility, respect, openness and transparency, alongside trust in each other and in the belief that everyone is working for a shared goal is a cornerstone of working together, and members recognise that building trust requires consistent, honest communication and deep engagement with partners including clarity about internal processes, expectations, and limitations to foster mutual respect and understanding.

I heard that flexibility, patience, and perseverance in mindset and practice are critical for adapting to the dynamic nature of collaborative projects, in particular through initial challenges, and being open to changes in governance structures or project goals ensures the collaboration stays relevant and effective. Collaborative work often takes longer than independent efforts, so an ability to focus on the shared goal, plus a sense of co-creation and inclusivity ensures all partners feel valued and committed to the project’s success. Strengthening collaborative partnerships means involving all stakeholders in decision-making and creating spaces for diverse perspectives, alongside the ability to recognise each partner’s value and openness to learn from others: a desire to learn and improve continuously is essential, and the collaborations that encourages feedback and adaptation were the ones more likely to survive; they were able to refine their strategies based on new insights, respond to changing needs, and maintain their focus on their larger objectives for greater impact and hopefully lasting change in education.

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We’re not giving up and neither should you

We know that collaboration as a concept is valued by IEFG members and their partners, and we’ve learnt a lot through our network’s collaborative efforts this year. As we move forward, the IEFG Secretariat is committed to supporting these and other collaborative endeavours among our members: whether it’s tackling fundamental learning needs, exploring the intersection of education and technology, or addressing climate challenges, these platforms provide fertile ground to keep practising this skill. We started with huge ambitions and we’ve counted over 150 individual member representatives who have actively engaged in the opportunities this year, and several members who have now come forward to co-lead real collaboration, so we know we’re already a little further along than just the beginning of this journey, and we invite members to share their aspirations and areas where they seek real partnerships as we collectively shape the future of education philanthropy.

To those who have shared their journeys of collaboration, and those who have learnt into the IEFG Chapters and Corners, thank you. Your stories of trust, openness, patience, and humility, and your persistence and belief in the collaborative process have inspired some of your peers. Now is the time to build on these experiences, to push boundaries, and to showcase what can be achieved when we go far, together. Let’s define our shared goals, strengthen our bonds, and continue to make a difference, one collaborative step at a time.

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[1] Great Grantee Gatherings are meetings convened and paid for by the group of education philanthropies in one country or location for all their grantees at the same time. These have been suggested to alleviate many of the time and resource demands philanthropies place on their grantees (to attend many separate funder meetings, for example); to demonstrate unity and collaboration across education philanthropy and break down the competitive conditions philanthropy create for their grantees (who are often not aware that their funders or potential funders know each other); and for grantees to meet each other and potentially introduce other, lesser-known implementers to a group of education funders.

➡️ Click here to read the case studies in full and find out more about the spectrum of collaboration across IEFG member projects