the cornerstone fund interim learning...

THE CORNERSTONE FUND INTERIM LEARNING REPORT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY YEAR 1

FEBRUARY 2020

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FundersCity Bridge Trust

The National Lottery Community Fund

Trust for London

John Lyon’s Charity

Greater London Authority

In-kind supportLondon Funders

London Plus

London Councils

The Mercers Company

Lead organisations (projects)Race On the Agenda

Superhighways

H4All

London Village Network

HEAR Network

The Winch

The Refugee Council

Partnership for Young London

Sheila McKechnie Foundation

Community Links Bromley THAN

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THE CORNERSTONE FUND

The Cornerstone Fund (the Fund), launched in April 2018, is an alliance between City Bridge Trust, National Lottery Community Fund, Trust for London, John Lyon’s Charity and the Greater London Authority. London Funders, London Plus, the Mercers Company and London Councils are contributing expertise and in-kind support.

The Fund was developed in 2017 to progress the ambitions of The Way Ahead, a joint initiative by civil society, public sector bodies and funders. The ultimate goal of The Way Ahead is “a thriving Civil Society, which is adaptable, resilient, collaborative, sustainable and driven by communities, which will lead to improved outcomes for Londoners.”1

The Fund recognises that, rather than traditional project delivery and funding approaches, contributing to this goal will require systems change, a process of “altering underlying structures and supporting mechanisms which make the system operate in a particular way. These can include policies, routines, relationships, resources, power structures and values”.2

Early in the Fund’s development, funders and projects identified the following two key ambitions to help bring about the systems change needed to achieve the Way Ahead goal:

INTR

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SYSTEMS CHANGE AMBITION 2Developing a new way of funding to achieve

a thriving Civil Society for Londoners and influencing for the adoption of this practice

more widely.

SYSTEMS CHANGE AMBITION 1Developing and testing new ways of working

(for civil society support organisations) to achieve a thriving Civil Society for Londoners.

Ten partnership projects led by civil society support organisations from across London3 were awarded funding in 2018/19. While they are a diverse set of initiatives, all are developing collaborative projects, connecting with partners and communities from across their locality or interest group to strengthen their collective efforts – whether that be on building the capacity of and connecting civil society groups, helping increase the voice and influence of communities, or influencing policy and practice.

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Collaborate CIC acts as learning partner to the Fund to help projects and funders identify what needs to change to support their systems change activities and how to go about that change.

This report provides learning on the first year of the Fund, with recommendations for amplifying the impact of the Fund in year 2 (and for any subsequent funding rounds). The insights in this report are based on interviews, surveys, focus groups and learning events with project lead partners and funders from November 2018 – October 2019.

We developed the below learning framework to help those involved in the Fund reflect on and understand progress. Systems change is both a process and an outcome and one of the key purposes of the framework is to enable learning about the process of systems change, given that outcomes for Londoners may take some time to emerge.

Foundations

Indicators Systems awareness Common vision

Understanding roleand contribution

Accountability

Collective learningpractice

Using insight to adapt and improve

Learning culture andappropriate reporting

Understandingpower dynamics

Building influencingnetworks

Platforms for campaigning and voice

Co-produced approach

Embedding voice and agency

Influencing and leadership

Learning and adaptiveness

Collective visionand purpose

System awareness and behaviours

Convening and creating space for networks

Culture change and people development

Trust-based collaborative relationships

Community leadership and agency

The framework is a working draft that we will refine in collaboration with projects and funders over time.Diagram 1: The Cornerstone Fund Learning Framework

LEARNING APPROACH

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SYSTEMS CHANGE AMBITION 1Developing and testing new ways of working (for civil society support organisations) to achieve a thriving Civil Society for Londoners.

The majority of projects are at a relatively early stage – in September/October 2019 many had recently had funding confirmed and recruited to key staff posts. Given the early stage of most projects, evidence of improved outcomes for Londoners as a direct result of Cornerstone Fund projects is limited at this stage.

Many projects reported important progress on developing the foundations for systems change, particularly in developing systems awareness and behaviours, and collective vision and purpose:

• Developing partnerships and collective purpose – developing partnerships that bring together the insight, energy, capabilities and networks of multiple partners behind a shared vision was one of the key achievements identified. In some cases, this involves public and private as well as civil society partners. Some unsuccessful applicants to the Fund also reported to funders that the opportunity to focus on forming new partnerships through the application process had influenced their ongoing work.

• Wider and deeper engagement with communities and partners – projects identified the opportunities enabled by the Fund for more meaningful, wider engagement of local partners and people than typically possible within traditional funding programmes. This was both a result of the Fund’s focus on partnership approaches as well as the time and resource provided through development grants to invest in networking and partnership development.

“The biggest achievement so far is being able to communicate with leaders of small organisations and convince them that with their small contributions they can be part of a system change which could potentially result in or achieve a tremendous positive change for their communities.”

- CORNERSTONE FUND PROJECT

While acknowledging the benefits of the approach, projects also identified the additional demands of partnership working:

• Timing and complexity – projects noted that it had taken a significant amount of time to reach the point of delivery. This is for a number of reasons: a two-stage application process, time to write proposals, waiting for funding decisions, and recruitment. For the most complex and intensive partnerships, the set-up phase was demanding.

Our greatest challenge has been getting the administrative side of such a complex project with so many partners in place – partnership agreement, finances, setting up payments, recruitment.”


THE WHAT: PROGRESS SO FAR 02This section summarises progress to date against the two systems change ambitions.

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The Fund brings together a number of features that funders wanted to test: funder collaboration; funding partnerships (not single organisations); a focus on systems change; and prioritising learning and adaptation. Funders view the Fund as an opportunity to learn about and help shape more people-led and systemic approaches to funding as part of broader strategic shifts happening within their own organisations.

Overall projects welcomed the Fund and its approach:

• The availability of funding for systems change initiatives is seen as a rare and important opportunity.

• Relationship-based and flexible – projects described funders as responsive, supportive and prepared to have a different kind of conversation;

“The relationship with Cornerstone funders feels like more of a dialogue”- CORNERSTONE FUND PROJECT

• Development grants are one specific example of new ways of working that projects welcomed. For many projects, the Cornerstone Fund was the first time they had received a development grant and projects highlighted the importance of these grants in enabling them to deeply explore context, connect with partners and refine thinking.

“The development grant provided the time and space to think”- CORNERSTONE FUND PROJECT

• Many lead organisations appeared to have a sense of the Fund providing added value to their projects through more open, responsive and supportive relationships with funders, and being part of a cohort learning together.

The ambition to influence practice more widely is the main area for improvement identified by projects and funders. Improving external communications about the fund and proactively influencing others is a priority for year 2.

SYSTEMS CHANGE AMBITION 2Developing a new way of funding to achieve a thriving Civil Society for Londoners and influencing for the adoption of this practice more widely.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE FUNDING ROUNDSFunders are planning a second round of the Cornerstone Fund targeted at new organisations. Reflections from funders and projects have highlighted the following learning points that should be taken into account. Many of these recommendations will also be applicable to other funders who wish to experiment with collaborative, systems change funding.

Theme FeaturesSystems change funding • Providing funding for collaborative efforts to tackle systemic challenges

Development grants • Development grants to enable projects to understand their context and develop meaningful partnerships

Relationships and flexibility• Promote and invest in close and honest relationships between projects and funders• Offer flexibility to allow projects to learn and adapt

Meeting and learning together • Opportunities for projects and funders to meet, build relationships and share learning

Theme Features

Timescales• Share learning with Round 2 applicants about the length of time it has taken to develop Round 1 partnerships, and the time it is likely to take to begin

seeing the impact of systems change. Discuss the implications for Round 2, including for funding timescales.• Where possible, align timescales for funding decisions more among funders.

Target audience

• Accessible and simple application materials that encourage a more diverse pool of applicants• Proactively engage with specialist organisations/partnerships/groups to encourage applicants beyond the ‘usual suspects’ e.g. BAME, refugees, people

with lived experience• Consider how to engage changemakers beyond formal civil society organisations e.g. collectives, individuals; and broadening/changing the criteria

for lead organisations.

Communications

• Provide greater clarity to applicants from the start about the process and expectations, while making clear what aspects are unknown given the Fund’s emergent approach

• More external communications – to promote the Fund to applicants, and raise awareness more widely• Secure comms capacity and develop comms plan from the start• Schedule a regular series of funder meetings in advance for key decision points to enable timely decisions and communication to projects

Engaging more funders • Encourage more funders to get involved to help progress systems change ambitions 1 and 2

Features from Round 1 to continue:

Changes to consider for Round 2:

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EMERGENCE

The opportunities and challenges of emergent change4 have been a recurrent theme in the reflections of both projects and funders, particularly given the fast-moving external context. Key learning points include:

• Flexibility to experiment and respond – projects welcomed the flexibility of the Fund compared to other funding programmes, where it can be very hard to iterate and deviate from plans. Experimenting with different ways of working, learning and adapting rather than fixing delivery plans early on was considered crucial to success.

“It’s a very volatile local context to work in… we have had to tread very carefully, and it has taken longer to develop… because we want to co-design how it is developed”


• Behaviours and trust - projects acknowledged that it can take time to adjust to the flexibility offered by the Fund, trust that funders genuinely mean it, and understand and make the most of the opportunities it presents. For funders this requires emphasising their commitment to new ways of working in order to build trust with grantees and reinforce the sense of permission.

“[Traditionally] projects are not allowed to look at process, a lot of the time it’s about outcomes. It can be quite threatening. The Fund is about giving them the luxury to focus on this.”

- CORNERSTONE FUND FUNDER

“We need to spell out that we are allowing them to test and try, saying, “we encourage you to do new things.”


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THE H

OW: L

EARN

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THEM

ESThis section summarises key learning themes that have emerged during the first year of the Fund.

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• Projects reported an improved understanding of the systems they are working in, including and awareness of and understanding of the potential of working with partners. Both projects and funders also improved their awareness of their own role in achieving systems change. For funders this included the need to think about systems not organisations as the starting point and supporting projects’ work by playing more of a facilitative critical friend role.

“Our role is to corral everyone into action, bringing people together, acting as the spider in the web”


• The long-term nature of systems change – project ambitions such as citizen co-production of health and wellbeing services and transformation of their community will take time to achieve - and while significant progress can be made, they are unlikely to be achieved within a 2-3 year project timescale.

This has important implications for funders, including in managing expectations of key stakeholders and gaining buy in from trustees.

“I had a high level of freedom to fund. I have a huge amount of respect for our Board for working with uncertainty and coming at it with a different set of principles.”


• Systems change is about mindset not ‘new’ activities – over time there has been increasing recognition among funders that funding systems change is not necessarily about funding ‘new’ approaches and that many ‘traditional’ activities like community development can play an important part in contributing to systems change. What matters is having a systems mindset – understanding the system and an organisation’s role within it, seeking to change the system in a way that helps positive outcomes emerge over the long term, and a commitment to learning and improving as contexts change.

SYSTEMS CHANGE THINKING AND PRACTICE

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• Collaboration is a key enabler of success – while partnership approaches vary considerably, the benefits noted by projects include gaining a better understanding of the system, access to new networks, better alignment, addressing gaps and sharing resource to increase capacity and improve efficiency in working towards shared goals.

• Right approach, right time – projects reported a nuanced understanding of different approaches to collaboration at different times and with different partners.

• The challenges of collaboration – projects acknowledged the costs of collaboration, particularly for small organisations with fewer resources. The time needed to develop partnerships as well logistical and legal arrangements for more intensive forms of collaboration were noted.

• Benefits and drawbacks of funder collaboration – funders recognised the importance of modelling collaborative behaviours as a cohort. Benefits of funder collaboration noted including shared learning on developing new funding approaches and influencing for change more widely together. In the early stages, some projects found the logistics of funder collaboration confusing (e.g. how decisions were made, how timescales aligned across funders, and implications for those funded by more than one funder). Developing a deeper understanding of how funders can best play to their individual strengths and support one another to effect change is a priority for the future.

COLLABORATION

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Cornerstone Fund projects all aim to shift greater power to Londoners, particularly those facing the greatest inequalities, through increasing their involvement in communities, connections to networks of support, and improving their ability to influence change. Key reflections so far, and areas to explore further in year 2 are:

• Lead organisations sharing power - one particular challenge identified by lead organisations is how to navigate their own position, for example, how to manage the power that comes with a responsibility for holding and administering funding to partners, and how to adopt a facilitative approach to leadership that enables power sharing with communities.

• Influencing the public sector – many projects aim to challenge existing power structures to provide channels for citizens and communities, including through influencing policies and commissioning approaches. This is a task that projects have identified as challenge, and an opportunity to focus on as a cohort of projects and funders.

“When working with public sector, even when you have a seat at the table, it feels like you are co-existing.”


• New dynamics between funders and projects – as learning partner to the Fund, we have coordinated shared spaces for projects and funders to learn together. This is for many the first time they have engaged in such dialogue and is a key opportunity to shift the dynamic among funders and grantees, enabling changes to current funding approaches and processes towards more emergent and people-led change.

“[The Fund is] more iterative and resource intensive but a richer and more rewarding experience than mainstream funding programmes.”


POWER DYNAMICS

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There are strong foundations to deliver and influence for change as the Fund enters its second year. Working flexibly in response to emergent change has been a key feature of the Fund to date. How projects and funders navigate this as they begin project delivery will be a key area for learning in year 2, including recognising systems change as both a process and an outcome, and developing understanding of if and how collaboration, and what types, are effective in what contexts.

As the Fund develops and considers further funding rounds, it will be important to reflect on the implications for the initial hypotheses of the Fund and its emerging narrative. This will also help with external communications as part of the Fund’s ambitions to influence wider practice. Refining the narrative and sharing basic information about the Fund externally is the immediate priority, as well as creating a platform for wider influencing activity in late 2020.

The Fund aims to understand and develop new and more effective ways of working to support civil society in the future. Over the next year there is the immediate question of ‘what next’ for those projects already involved, how further funding rounds can further develop and test ways of thinking to inform the future, and how the Fund fits into and can help nurture the broader ecosystem of support.

LEARNING QUESTIONS FOR YEAR 2 In addition to a continued focus on the topics in this report, over the next year we will explore the following specific questions that have emerged in Year 1.

• What are the experiences of wider partners involved in Cornerstone Fund projects?

• What is the impact of the Fund on the wider organisation for participating funders and projects?

• What are the opportunities for the Fund to influence wider changes in funding practice, and approaches to social change more widely?

• How can the Fund best position itself as part of the ‘pipeline’ of support for social change?

• What is the Fund learning about the future of civil society support in London?

• What type and features of funder collaboration(s) best supports the aim of the Fund?

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IX1. https://thewayahead.london

2. Foster-Fishman (2002) How to Create Systems Change, quoted in the NPC Guide to Systems Change.

3. City Bridge Trust website: Cornerstone Fund. https://www.citybridgetrust.org.uk/what-we-do/grant-making/infrastructure-support-london/cornerstone-fund/

4. The concept that “change is not a linear process or a one-off isolated event but is a continuous, open-ended, cumulative and unpredictable process.” (Burnes, 2009, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14697010903360558)

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COLLABORATEClarence Centre for Enterprise & Innovation6 St George’s Circus, London, SE1 6FET: +44 (0)20 7815 8297E: [email protected] CollaborateCIC

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