An Independent Philanthropic Trust

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An Independent Philanthropic Trust Helens
Legacy to Victoria, Australia
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• TRUST
• Established in 1951
• Initial corpus of 275,000 current value 100
  million
• Grants of between 5-7 million per year
• Total grants to date of over 65 million
• Support Victorian Charitable Institutions
• Web address www.hmstrust.org.au

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• TRUST
• PRIORITY AREAS
• Aged Persons Care and Support
• Arts, Culture and Heritage
• Community Support
• Disabled Care and Support
• Employment and Vocational Training
• Environment
• Health and Medical Research

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TRUST MANAGE ENGAGE COLLABORATE MODEL OF
GRANTMAKING

• Manage
• manage process of grantmaking ie respond to
  applications received
• Engage
• with those seeking support
• enhance understanding of the issues to foster
  more strategic grantmaking focus
• Collaborate
• developing Trusts insight and understanding
• the issues
• the sectors which are involved
• the evidence base which does or should exist
• gap or opportunity that needs to be articulated,
  defined and scoped
• aspiration contribute to systemic change and
  better outcomes across the community

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• TRUST
• GIFT RELATIONSHIP
• Relationship along a continuum

Responsive Strategic CHARITY CREATIVE Manage En
gage Collaborate
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• Focus For Today Strategic End of Spectrum
• Collaboration The True Power of Strategic
  Partnerships

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• CREATIVE PHILANTHROPY (strategic, venture)
• Foundations, can if they choose, think the
  unthinkable, ignoring disciplinary and
  professional boundaries. They can take risks,
  consider approaches others say cant possibly
  work and they can fail with no terminal
  consequences Foundations are free to be
  imaginative and creative, working across
  sectoral, organisational, professional and
  disciplinary boundaries
• (Diana Leat, London School of Economics)

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• CREATIVE PHILANTHROPY
• Creative foundations exist in complex and
  constantly changing social, political, economic,
  legal and organisational environments that
  impinge on, constrain, subvert, and support
  courses of action. Knowledge, authority,
  compliance, resources and so on are limited, and
  for that reason..linkages and networks are often
  crucial in getting things done.
• (Helmut Anheier and Diana Leat
• Creative Philanthropy (2006)

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• CREATIVE PHILANTHROPY
• Heart of all networks partnerships
• Increasingly not-for-profits, governments,
  corporates and other stakeholders are looking to
  partnerships to solve community problems
• Trusts role institution builder and
  mediator(Anheier and Leat Creative
  Philanthropy)
• Institution builder activate existing or
  potential coalition of individuals and
  organisations to implement a program networked
  across sectors and regions
• Mediator place emphasis on the collection,
  analysis, sharing of information and knowledge
  across different project sites and sectors
• Key focus of HMS Trust further develop its
  understanding of partnerships, to foster
  collaboration and networks

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• CREATIVE PHILANTHROPY
• Trust As Partner
• No single voice can provide solution to
  persistent and intractable problems
• Answer ? deeper understanding of collaboration
  between sectors
• Respect for expertise of stakeholders in the
  community
• Supporting leadership initiatives and strategic
  thinking, within and between sectors
• Developed number of partnerships with
  not-for-profits, government and corporates

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Not-for Profit
• Support initiatives across the spectrum
• 20 charitable, 50 engaged, 30 collaborations
• Receive hundreds of applications each year
• Essential because intelligence gathering
• Priorities
• Emerging trends
• Identification of areas of need
• Context
• Innovation
• Solutions
• Important Construct Of This Relationship - Trust
  Is Not The Expert

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Philanthropy and Government
• HMST seeks to build relationships and build
  partnerships with all levels of government
• Many other Trusts and Foundations dont engage
  ie philanthropy is not an alternative to
  Government
• Important in terms of
• gathering intelligence about priorities
• providing insight in regard to sustainability
• Knowing where the s are, understanding the
  budgetary process
• facilitating development of collaborations and
  projects

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Case Study Office of Youth Macpherson Smith
  Trust Mentoring Initiative
• MOU
• Key objectives/partnership support delivery of
  youth mentoring programs through funding six
  state-wide regional coordination projects
• 3 funded by Office of Youth
• 3 funded by HMS Trust
• Evaluation funded by Trust
• Over a 2 year period
• Independent body jointly selected planning
  design completion
• Overseen by Reference Group membership (Trust,
  Office for Youth, 2 not-for-profits - Victorian
  Youth Mentoring Alliance and one other)

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Whole of community responsibility to tackle
  disadvantage and exclusion
• Extent to which this is accepted?
• Example pathways to employment
• Case Studies
• Melbourne Cares working to enable business,
  communities, government to work together to
  sustainably improve the quality of life for the
  people of Melbourne, in particular those in need
• Dairy Industry

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Not-for-profit
Government
Corporates
Community
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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Collaboration True power of strategic
  partnerships
• Trust honest broker
• Focus support development of networks which
  foster collaborations
• Non-politically aligned
• Role of Philanthropy
• Scope the projects what is the hook?
• Challenge the existing mindset
• Provoke debate question underlying assumptions
• Identify the evidence gaps
• Mediate the solution
• Support the influence strategy
• Advocacy where does it fit?

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Case Study Agora Think Tank
• Building inclusive communities is not somebodys
  job, its everybodys.
• Collaboration between not-for-profit, business
  and government sectors
• Looking to address issues of disadvantage in new
  and different ways
• Initial lens economic participation of
  socially-disadvantaged young people and their
  families through workforce engagement
• Four funding partners Melbourne Citymission,
  Trust, Department for Victorian Communities,
  Ernst Young

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Case Study Agora Think Tank (contd)
• 5 working groups
• plus conference

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Case Study Agora Think Tank (contd)
• Agora questions
• What are the learnings-to-date about new ways of
  working?
• Whether and how innovations are emerging?
• How a more preventative approach to social
  problems could be instituted?
• What successful approaches could be scaled up and
  how?
• What are the pre-conditions for constructive
  government, business and not-for-profits sectors
  working together?
• Analysis is being made of aspirations,
  capabilities, expectations and challenges for
  cross-sector partnerships.

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COLLABORATION STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

• Case Study Agora Think Tank (contd)
• Leaders, Ideas Partnerships
• Agora Think Tanks 2nd Conference
• 14 June 2007 at Zinc, Federation Square
• Conference will
• Celebrate existing cross-sector
• Understand how such partnerships work
• Learn how to generate new partnerships
• Make corporate social responsibility work for you

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• Factors that impact on success of cross-sector
  partnerships
• (Cross-Sector Partnerships in a Crime Prevention
  Context..Regina Hill, Effective Consulting Pty
  Ltd)
• Partnership Structure
• Breadth vs Depth (Focus)
• Balance breadth and complexity of partnership
  with capability of partners to deliver including
• Scope of program
• Number of partners
• Focus of activity
• Geographic spread
• Partner Selection
• What do partners want to get out of the
  partnership

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• Partnership Structure (contd)
• Partnership Design
• Design partnership to take account of the
  partners different objectives and operational
  styles (ways of working)
• Focus on areas of alignment/common interest
• Manage differences
• Be clear on decision-making and operating
  processes (particularly important when needing to
  work within the political and bureaucratic
  requirements of Government)
• Ensure that participants have requisite authority
  to make and deliver on commitments

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• Partnership Structure (contd)
• Coordination Framework
• Set up and resource a clear coordination
  framework (taking account of partners different
  operational styles)
• Strong Leadership
• Need to have a clear Lead Agency/Owner/Champion

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• Partnership Set Up
• Platform for Collaboration
• Establish or build it
• Consultation
• Engage at early stage
• Critical for
• Identifying and connecting with key stakeholders
• Understanding the issue
• Framing the project

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• Partnership Set Up (contd)
• Planning
• Where partner interests are aligned and where
  they are not
• How things should be structured to
• Deliver on the objectives of the partnership
• Manage differing partner interests/ways of
  working
• How things should be implemented
• Funding and resourcing constraints
• The need for partners to learn how to work
  together
• The need to engage the community/community
  institutions and networks

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• Partnership Set Up (contd)
• Documentation
• Clearly document partnership objectives and ways
  of working, articulating rules of engagement,
  explicitly recognise and address cultural
  differences between cross sector partners
• Invest in the partnership
• Need to invest in the development (design,
  resourcing and operation) of the partnership in
  its own right not just the programs that it
  operates

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• Partnership Set Up (contd)
• Leverage of Existing Networks
• Benefit from leveraging existing local and/or
  industry networks to access potential partners
• Achievement of Critical Mass
• Need to establish critical mass to support the
  effective implementation of partnership programs
• Achieve economies of scale
• Access sufficient participants and service
  providers to support effective program
  implementation

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• Partnership Set Up (contd)
• Education
• Need to educate Corporate and Community Partners
  to understand territory within which partners
  are working
• Provision of Opportunities to Trial
• Build relationship with Corporate Partners by
  exposing them to opportunities to engage
  gradually and encouraging them to move from lower
  to higher levels of engagement opportunities
  based on positive trial experience/experience to
  manage perceived risk

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• Partnership Set Up (contd)
• Management of Stretch (Under Promise and Over
  Deliver)
• Need to manage the stress that the partnership
  places on the partner resources to make sure that
  partners can sustain the commitments that they
  make
• Adequate Funding
• Fund partnership and program activity adequately
• Medium/Long Term Commitment
• Need to be able to make a sufficiently long
  commitment to the partnership and the program to
  be able to work through the set up and pilot
  operation phase

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• Future Challenges
• Partnership Structure Strong Leadership
• Need to have a clear Lead Agency / Owner /
  Champion

Government

• Role of Philanthropy?
• Leadership who?
• Challenges
• Solution
• Collaboration Leadership Models
• Construct of Project