(4 minute read)
Published: 3 August 2026
Written by: Sufina Ahmad, Director of John Ellerman Foundation
We launched our strategy for 2025 to 2030 last year. Since then, we have been working hard to ensure that all aspects of our work are aligned to our strategy. One of the highlights of this work has been the design of a new aspect of our grantmaking, which we are pleased to introduce in this blog.
Introducing the Funder Collaborations Fund
The Funder Collaborations Fund is a fund that seeks to back ideas for bold transitions. It has been designed to enable the Foundation to participate strategically in collaborative initiatives that can amplify the impact of our grantmaking, research, influencing and investing activity.
We are committed to this Fund being transparent, accountable and effective. The size of the Fund will be £236,720 for 2026/27. This will be a responsive grantmaking programme, that we will share here through our website and in discussions with relevant colleagues. We will also report on it in the same way as we do our Main Grants programme in our Annual Report and Accounts.
What are the criteria for the Funder Collaborations Fund
- Eligibility will be restricted to grantmaking organisations, by which we mean registered charitable foundations and non-profit funders.
- Unlike our Main Grants programme, no turnover restrictions are proposed, reflecting the potential strategic value of collaboration with larger funders in areas such as learning, influence and profile.
- The proposal has to be linked to one or more of the following three types of funder collaborations, which are based on definitions and examples provided by the Association of Charitable Foundations and its Funders Collaborative Hub:
a) Joint research – Collaborative evidence gathering and field analysis that informs our own work and has wider benefits to other groups and colleagues that we work with.
b) Pooled funding – Multiple funders contributing to a single pot with delegated decision-making.
c) Influencing policy or practice – Coordinated advocacy and sector leadership that helps to shift the dial on important issues, including those that can lead to systemic change.
Applicants should also explain the ways in which working collaboratively adds value, including why this work could not be delivered as effectively through a single organisation.
- The proposal has to show a clear alignment to the ambitions we have set out in our strategy.
- The proposal has to demonstrate a connection with our grantmaking work and/or our investing work.
- There is no minimum or maximum grant size. However, the total budget available through the Fund in 2026/27 is approximately £236,720. Applicants should ensure that requests are proportionate to the scale and expected impact of the proposed collaboration work.
Application process and decision making
At this time the Fund is designed to be open throughout the year, which means there are no deadlines for applying and we will take decisions on a rolling basis. In the first instance, if you want to make an enquiry about the Fund, then you can do so by sending in a short enquiry to our Senior Grants Manager, whose contact details can be accessed by clicking here. They will determine if follow up is required. We can arrange follow up and pre-application support through the Director or the Senior Grants Manager, as needed.
Applications can only be made via our grantmaking applications portal. This can be accessed by clicking here. The application process requires the following:
- Overview information of your organisation, which entails answering questions on a form.
- A proposal of no more than two pages of A4, using a minimum of font size 10, submitted as a PDF or Microsoft Word document, that covers:
- Overview of organisation applying and the collaboration, including the way(s) in which working collaboratively adds value, including why this work could not be delivered as effectively through a single organisation.
- How the proposal links to our strategy for 2025 to 2030
- The intended outcomes and impact of the funder collaboration
- A summary of the amount requested from John Ellerman Foundation, the total collaboration budget, and the timeline being worked to – including key outputs and dates.
There is a dedicated page on our website for the Funder Collaborations Fund, which you can access by clicking here on our website.
What do we hope to learn and achieve from the Funder Collaborations Fund
The Fund represents around 5% of our annual grants budget. While it's relatively modest in size, we believe it has the potential to make a meaningful contribution by supporting collaborations that can achieve more than any one organisation could alone.
We've deliberately chosen to focus on joint research, pooled funding, and influencing policy or practice because these are all areas where collaboration has the potential to amplify impact and help us make progress towards the ambitions we've set out in our strategy for 2025 to 2030.
This Fund is also an opportunity for us to learn. We want to better understand what makes funder collaboration most effective, build strong relationships with other funders who share our ambitions, and explore how working together can help create lasting change. If the Fund helps spark new ideas, strengthens partnerships, and increases collective impact, it will have achieved exactly what we hoped.