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Photograph courtesy of Philanthropy Together as part of the concluding materials for the Global Summit for Collaborative Funds.
The pursuit of justice has always required meaningful collaboration. At the Power of Pop Fund, this has practically looked like international collaboration, knowledge exchange and a willingness to share. In March 2025, the Power of Pop Team had the privilege of engaging in collaboration by spending some time with amazing changemaking organisations in the United States. Our Power of Pop Fund Lead travelled to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The time spent in San Francisco gave us the opportunity to engage a range of collaborative funds by attending the Global Summit of Collaborative Funds hosted by Philanthropy Together and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Through the Summit, we had the opportunity to engage with over 100 collaborative funds. Our time in Los Angeles gave us the opportunity to engage some incredible organisations in the pop culture for social justice ecosystem, including: the Pop Culture Collaborative, Africa No Filter, the Centre for Cultural Power, Cinereach, Pillars Fund, the Hollywood Commission, the Norman Lear Centre at University of Southern California, Fourth Act, The League, Think Tank Equality and Inclusion, Muslim Futures, Black Lives Matter and Picture Motion. After such a number of incredible rich and generous conversations, we have come back to the UK fresh, inspired and keen to share some of our learnings.
Learnings on Collaborative Funding Models
Collaborative funds tend to be structured and run slightly differently from conventional funding programmes. According to recent research by the Bridgespan Group (The Philanthropic Collaborative Landscape) the makeup and functioning of collaborative funds differs. With regards to staffing, 75% of collaborative funds are run by women or non-binary folks and 64% are led by people from racialized backgrounds. With regards to the operations, the budgeting of collaborative funds also tends to differ with 70% of funding directed towards regranting budget, 15% directed towards operating costs and 15% to other programmatic activities.
Collaborative Funds are inherently collaborative and draw a unifying approach in a number of different ways. Collaborative funds tend to be multi-sectoral by design, engaging business, government and non-profit organisations. As a result, this type of funding has been particularly appealing in a moment of polycrisis, where a range of industries and perspectives are required to meaningfully address social and environmental challenges. In recent years there has been a boom with 42% of live collaborative funds launching in the last 10 years.
Collaborative funds work best when there is a meeting of minds between funders, operational teams and programming teams. Treating one another as vendors in this work is to the detriment of collaborative funding. This approach can flow in two ways, firstly donors can be tempted to consider collaborative funds as contractors – a vehicle to achieve their individual mission rather than a collective aim. Secondly, collaborative funds can treat fiscal hosts as vendors, rather than collaborators which can lead to operational tensions. In order to manage expectations, it might be worth setting up ‘funding pre-nups’, so we have a strong shared understanding of what our various roles are and what the expectations of us are in funding practice. Helpful research about how to bring about that meeting of minds can be found in recent research by Sampriti Ganguli, Strengthening and Supporting the Enabling Infrastructure for Collaborative Funds.
Collaborative funds help us to reframe our approach to risk in a way that allows us to achieve more. In a time where funders may be under increased pressure for their work in social justice and diversity, equality and inclusion, collaborative funds can offer a risk absorption while continuing to support grassroots and more cutting-edge work. This does not imply collaborative funds should be left to bear the risk of progressive work alone. However, collaborative funding gives us the opportunity to commit to important work together, across organisations, geographies an sectors.
Collaborative funding encourages us to ask the difficult questions, even about our own practice. Sometimes in conventional funding practice, there is a tendency to continue with a certain approach because it is what we are accustomed to. However, the funding sector benefits from innovation and continued curiosity. We were encouraged to make sure we take the opportunity (every 5 years or so) to ask whether the model being used is still the best approach, whether this work is still needed and whether resource would be better placed elsewhere.
After some incredible learning on collaborative funds in San Francisco, we popped over to Los Angeles, to continue our trip and find out live reflections from the pop culture for social justice ecosystem.
Learning on Pop Culture for Social Justice Work
We need shared deep narratives to take us forward in addressing a range of social and environmental challenges. In progressive social change work, we are accustomed to taking different cause areas in turn, whether that be climate justice, racial justice or gender justice. However, often the same deep narratives are perpetuating inequality across the board. It is time to think about how we can develop some shared narratives that guide us through.
We can understand the various interventions in the pop culture for social justice ecosystem in 3 approaches.
1) Non-discrimination and workers’ rights
How do we protect and support those working in the creative industries? Non- discrimination work includes efforts to make sure that our creative industry has recourse to justice, industry standards and legal protections, ensuring a high quality of practice across the board.
2) Diversity, equality and inclusion in industry practice
How do we make our creative industries more inclusive and accessible? This work includes developing talent pipelines, skills development and breaking glass ceilings within the industry.
3) Authentic storytelling
How do we make sure our content is meaningful, impactful and entertaining? This work considers the content produced by our entertainment industries and how we ensure authentic stories, with constructive deep narratives are reaching mass audiences.
Take the opportunity for saturation when high quality narratives catch the attention of mass audiences. In the ecosystem, we are often keen to create new content. However, sometimes, fantastic spark moments are created organically through inspired work in the creative industries. In these moments, the role of the field is to optimise these spark moments to facilitate meaningful public conversations and engage moveable audiences with a view to garnering buy-in.
Continuing cultural strategy work in a hostile time, may require a narrative pivot. The work of using pop culture to advance social and environmental justice continues, even if the current moment is unfavourable. In order to continue this work, we may have to pivot and evolve the narrative framing of our work. Ultimately, we know that authentic storytelling is appealing for global audiences, leading to greater viewership and larger audiences. The moral case may be less convincing in this moment of apprehension for the industry, but the economic case continuously demonstrates that audiences prefer diverse representation and meaningful narratives in entertainment content.
We are stronger together. It is time to prioritise global and cause area solidarities. We often think about social and environmental challenges in singular country contexts. What can our governments, our individual charities, our content do? However, the global challenges we currently face are going to require international collaboration. The pop culture for social justice field, is eagerly asking how we organise globally in a power aware and equitable way. While we might not have the solution today, a transnational and collaborative approach to cultural strategy is much more likely to get us there.
