Three lessons on partnership and unrestricted funding

When we finally our longtime partner, the Landscape Finance Lab, in person, we used the invaluable time together for a deep partnership review. It proved to be an important reflection point for our foundation on what it takes to be a true partner to our grantees – not just a grantmaker – and to provide unrestricted funding.

Since the beginning, RELEX Foundation has granted unrestricted funding besides project grants, which are more typical for philanthropies. Unrestricted funding is currently a bit of a hot topic in the world of philanthropy and Philea - Philanthropy Europe Association just published a practical guide for funders. We agree very much with many of the observations and advice in the guide.

Here are three important lessons we've learned along the way.

1. You are investing in an organisation, not funding a project.
Get to know the organisation holistically. Doing your homework takes more effort than simply assessing a proposal. It’s easy to fall in love with an organisation’s fascinating theory of change, but the people, clear strategy, track record, and a healthy organisation matter in delivering on it. Act like a genuinely interested investor, not like someone on a date ready to fall in love or ticking the checklist for their dream match. (But never act like an investor on an actual date <3)

2. Be patient.
Stick through bumps and hard times, and give credit when you recognise great things happening. It is seemingly easier to monitor the progress of a project, checking whether or not activities and outputs have been delivered. But checking boxes doesn’t change the world. We don’t actually like talking about monitoring but, as fluffy as it might sound, about learning. Our grantee partners have proven to be our most important teachers! And they seem to appreciate tough questions (just deliver them kindly).

3. Don’t give up if you first get ”bad” answers.
Work with your partner to find better answers to your learning questions: significant outcomes, challenges, the lessons learnt from wins and losses, and what needs to change. If you don’t get better answers after all, then you really know your reasons to end the partnership. If you do get them, you helped your partner to identify and express them, perhaps also to themselves. You are confident to continue, knowing the strengths to build on, risks to monitor, and support to provide.

Are you granting, receiving or considering starting to grant unrestricted funding? What’s your biggest lesson, best advice or open question? We’d love to hear it.