Progress Comes Through Collective Action

Source: Charities@Work

By Scott Jackson, Global Impact

I have worked in the international philanthropic sector for more than 20 years. Each day, my colleagues and I have the same goal—get one step closer to raising the resources needed to eradicate poverty the world over. The challenges we face as we try to do this are formidable. Despite the enormous strides we have made towards this goal in the past few decades, much remains to be done. So how do we tackle our problems? Two words: collective action.

The problems we face are too great for any one group to take on alone; we need collective action to tackle these issues. While we’ve known for some time that multi-sector partnerships and collaboration are necessary to deal with challenges like global poverty, disease and gender-based violence, the tools or outlets for organizations to work together can be inefficient or worse yet, nonexistent. A variety of organizations are working to bridge this gap, including two with which we partner, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize Laureates Collaborative and Clinton Global Initiative.

Another promising opportunity to create and support collective action lies with harnessing the power of charities that are focused on common issues. To meet this need, Global Impact has created High Impact Funds. These funds bring together under one umbrella organizations that are leaders in specific thematic areas, including women and girls, health, education, disaster relief and clean water. We then leverage this collective action to make a larger scale impact and provide donors, whether it be an individual, a corporation or a foundation, the opportunity to take advantage of these funds so that their gifts and investments go further toward helping those, creating a more lasting impact.

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