Q&A: Olivia Leland on her mission to make philanthropy do more

SAN FRANCISCO — Since leaving the Giving Pledge — the elite network of billionaires who commit to giving away half their wealth — Founding Director Olivia Leland has been conducting research on how to make philanthropy more effective. Over the past three years, Leland has spoken with hundreds of philanthropists and social change leaders, and identified what she calls a market failure: “There are few effective mechanisms to match leaders looking to solve social issues at scale with the philanthropists interested in providing the right size and kinds of capital, and the partners needed to succeed,” as she described it recently in an article for Stanford Social Innovation Review. Last week, Leland announced the launch of a new $500 million philanthropic collaborative called Co-Impact, which includes philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates — who started the Giving Pledge — and shifts the focus from how much of their wealth they donate to how they give that money. Leland is building a platform and community that will bring philanthropists together with social change leaders, as well as partners in the global development community. The aim is to go from supporting individual organizations to changing underlying systems, with a focus on health, education, and economic opportunity in developing countries. Co-Impact will make its first systems change grants next year, with flexibly structured grants of up to $50 million over five years that will support initiatives that are positioned to scale. Leland, who is also a managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation, spoke with Devex about the approach Co-Impact is taking and how she hopes this new model of collaborative philanthropy can accelerate systems change work. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Co-Impact takes a “systems change” approach. How is this connected to the idea of “systems entrepreneurship,” which was emphasized at the Skoll World Forum earlier this year? Jeff Skoll and the Skoll Foundation have been supporting the effort from the outset — from the early research as well as being an anchor funder. I've spent a lot of time talking with the social entrepreneurs that are part of the Skoll network. They actually really do all work on transforming the systems they're a part of. And what they're most interested in is this question of how to do that. “Common across both philanthropists and social change leaders is this desire to have more impact.” --— Olivia Leland, founder and executive director, Co-Impact The thing you hear repeatedly from them, both in speaking about what they're able to do and also their hopes and dreams about what’s possible, is that what is blocking the leading social entrepreneurs is having the funding as well as the nonfinancial support to help them to do that. Systems entrepreneurship requires having a longer term funding horizon, significant enough funding, and support to make the connections and build the partnerships needed to transform systems. Co-Impact is a response to what we were hearing from these social entrepreneurs about what they needed to transform systems. Everything we’re doing is to try specifically to respond to what they said they want and need and believe will truly help them move from reaching maybe 1 or 2 percent of the people they could be reaching to truly transforming systems. These are incredibly inspiring leaders who are doing this during nights and weekends, because most of what they're asked to do is about scaling their organization, or they’re being pulled in different directions by their funders. In the year following my transition from the Giving Pledge, I really wanted to take the approach of talking with the leaders closest to the work to hear from them what they think is most needed in philanthropy. And I found that common across both philanthropists and social change leaders is this desire to have more impact. There are a number of leaders who have the vision and approaches that could drive this sort of impact with enough funding and support over the long term, and so what I wanted to do is be able to contribute to bringing those groups together. You have some high profile core partners — Jeff Skoll, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the Rockefeller Foundation among them — but your website explains that your donor community spans three complementary groups. Can you expand on how this is structured and ways the global development community might get involved? We’ve been pretty focused on the fact that this isn’t a donor collaborative. It’s a collaborative of social change leaders, as well as philanthropists, as well as the other actors together to drive large-scale change. We have three different ways for donors to engage, and that’s intentional. Depending on the stage, as well as the interest, as well as the different approaches philanthropists take, we wanted to make sure we offered different options. “We realize philanthropy is only part of the equation, and therefore it’s really important for us to focus on working with other funders and bringing in additional capital.” --— Olivia Leland, founder and executive director, Co-Impact The first is to join as a core donor. That is the group that will be setting the strategy and designing the grants we'll be making, and this will be made up of no more than 10 people. The second group is our co-investors. The idea is that’s a way for both individual philanthropists but also institutional funders to get involved. The key piece here is looking for additional leverage from governments, multilaterals, and the private sector on particular opportunities. Finally, we have the Co-Impact Network, which is a way to engage at a lower financial commitment over a shorter timeframe. Whereas the other donors are in for the entire timeframe of eight to 10 years, the network members join for three years and put money into the pool. And that will be a group of 15 to 20 individual funders from around the world. We realize philanthropy is only part of the equation, and therefore it’s really important for us to focus on working with other funders and bringing in additional capital. Something we’ll learn as we go is: How could something like Co-Impact be most relevant to the multilaterals and government funders? We have a perspective as to what philanthropic capital and grant funding can do to leverage additional capital, but we’ll want to really build this together. “One of the biggest things that came out of my Giving Pledge experience is just seeing how much the members want to learn from one another, and the benefit of coming together to learn and to drive large-scale results.” --— Olivia Leland, founder and executive director, Co-Impact For each of the opportunities we look to fund, we'll work really closely with members of the development community to inform what we do and to partner with us on that. If people see ways to partner with Co-Impact, we would love to hear from them on how we can most effectively work together so we can drive the kinds of results we are so focused on. And we’ll also be reaching out ourselves. Once we identify something to receive planning funding, we’ll actually take somewhere between six and nine months to talk with other co-investors about what we could do together. We’ll work the anchor and ask which other partners should be at the table. So when it’s time to make the grant, it will be something we’ve designed together and we can make best use of the philanthropic funding. Much of what I’ve read about Co-Impact describes your transition from the Giving Pledge to Co-Impact as move from asking “how much” to focusing on “how.” Can you expand on this? The goal of the Giving Pledge is not to get everyone to join. It’s actually to encourage a conversation around giving, and around how much families decide to give, and also how to be effective in your giving. You don't need to be part of Giving Pledge to be part of Co-Impact, and we wanted to create something that would give people different ways to engage. One of the biggest things that came out of my Giving Pledge experience is just seeing how much the members want to learn from one another, and the benefit of coming together to learn and to drive large-scale results. We don't have all that many mechanisms for philanthropists to collaborate in that way. There are some, and they’re really exciting, but we need many more. The other thing was the constant focus on driving impact and what does it take to do that? We would have constant discussions pushing at questions about what could be done better and how to have more impact, so we're coming at it with similar approach. Neither the Giving Pledge nor Co-impact will be the answer for everything. What we need in the sector are more models like this and more ways for philanthropists who want to drive large-scale change to engage. So part of what we’re doing is working with some of the other efforts that are out there that we’re inspired by and that we hope to contribute to and that are also sharing with us. That’s something I would like to see more of in philanthropy overall: learning from one another on all these kinds of efforts, and recognizing what different roles we each play. Read more Devex coverage on philanthropy.