Beyond Grants: How partnerships among foundations multiply social impact

As traditional development funding faces unprecedented pressure, philanthropic impact investing represents a powerful opportunity for foundations to address systemic challenges at scale. Through value-aligned collaborations, foundations can diversify their activities and amplify their impact by partnering with organizations that bring complementary expertise. By leveraging each other's strengths, foundations can deploy capital more effectively, reach greater scale, and create deeper, more sustained impact.

The global funding landscape for emerging economies is experiencing an unprecedented shock. Budget cuts across USAID and international development agencies have introduced widespread uncertainty into the development sector, while global challenges such as poverty, climate change, and inequality continue to demand urgent attention. Yet this disruption also presents an opportunity to reposition private capital and philanthropy as critical forces in international development, not as a replacement for aid funding, but as a strong complement. Private capital, unlike government aid, is less exposed to political shifts; it can deploy capital with greater flexibility and can respond to emerging needs with speed.

At the same time, this moment invites us to expand our thinking about how philanthropic capital can be deployed most effectively and catalytically. While grant-making remains essential in certain contexts, such as for example disaster relief, there is growing recognition that blending it with other approaches can create even more durable outcomes. Organizations that can absorb diverse forms of support, including patient capital and investments, often demonstrate resilience when external funding landscapes shift. Philanthropic impact investing offers an exciting complement to traditional grant-making, enabling foundations to support impact ventures integrating social outcomes into sustainable and resilient business models designed to address local challenges.

However, philanthropic impact investing requires expertise that takes time to develop. It involves capabilities that differ from traditional grant-making – such as financial analysis, deal structuring, portfolio management, and balancing financial risks with social impact. Furthermore, individual foundations, however thoughtful, work with modest capital relative to the scale of global challenges and while many share common goals, each brings its own valuable theory of change and investment approach. This is where collaboration becomes transformative. By embracing partnership as a core strategy, foundations can accelerate and amplify impact in ways that would take more time and capacity to achieve independently. One strong example is when foundations that are new to impact investing partner with those that have already built deep expertise, creating clearer pathways for resources to flow toward systemic challenges. This type of collaboration shows how building on each other’s complementary strengths can turn diverse approaches into shared value and amplified impact.

There is growing recognition of the benefits that strategic partnerships can create in philanthropy. However, successful collaborations require deliberate effort and shared principles. Based on our experience, strong partnerships depend on three elements:

1. Trust – built over time through transparency and the willingness to openly share approaches and challenges
2. Strategic alignment – shared conviction about the problems to solve and the fundamental approach to solutions, even when operational models differ
3. Humility – the honest acknowledgment of where each partner adds unique value and where others excel, resisting the temptation to do everything alone

We recognize that our model and two decades of experience in philanthropic impact investing can complement other philanthropic approaches, and we are excited to engage in eye-level collaborations with foundations that seek to integrate impact investing in their model and share a partnership-oriented mindset. The partnership with Livelihood Impact Fund (LIF) illustrates this in practice. By aligning resources and expertise, we can build on each other’s strengths and better support impact entrepreneurs addressing poverty with the capital and guidance they need to succeed.

Aude Anquetil (Chief of Staff at Livelihood Impact Fund)

The foundation of the partnership between elea and Livelihood Impact Fund is built on trust and mutual appreciation for each respective model cultivated over the years.

Both organizations share the deep conviction that impact entrepreneurship is crucial for addressing poverty and improving livelihoods at scale. What transformed this shared conviction into partnership was a mutual recognition of complementarity. We encountered similar impact ventures and backed similar entrepreneurs, but our approaches diverged in the type of capital deployed, stage of investment, and capacity for value creation. Rather than each organization stretching to cover gaps or duplicating capabilities, we asked a different question: What if we leveraged each other's strengths? The answer was straightforward. Through strategic alignment on the mandate and humility about our individual strengths, we created a partnership where each organization focuses on its strongest capabilities, and together we share learnings, insights, and pipeline opportunities, while ensuring ventures receive appropriate support.

Aude Anquetil (Chief of Staff at Livelihood Impact Fund)

Once we defined the common goals of the partnership, we structured the collaboration around mutual learning and co-creation, focusing on the three dimensions below:

• Shared deal flow and collaborative assessment: Regular exchanges of opportunities that might fit each organization's criteria, translating the opportunities each organization sees through respective lenses. This approach surfaces strong potential matches that might not fit typical patterns, while deepening collective understanding of the entrepreneurial landscape.
• Co-investment opportunities: When organizations trust each other's judgment and due diligence processes, capital can flow more efficiently. Assessment of each venture's specific needs enables deployment of different capital structures at the appropriate stage, ensuring entrepreneurs receive the right type of support at the right time without duplication or delay.
• Mutual learning and co-creation: The partnership creates an open space for exchanging insights across sectors, business models, and impact measurement approaches. Rather than each organization building every capability independently, we collaborate to leverage complementary sectoral expertise and analytical work, making better use of collective resources while strengthening both organizations' capacity.

After the first year of collaboration, we reflected on what we achieved together and the results that have been mutually beneficial for both LIF and elea. We have shared deal flow, which has expanded both our reaches and helped us discover compelling impact ventures we might have otherwise missed. Regular conversations have created a valuable forum for sharing lessons from our respective portfolios and discussing emerging trends. Most significantly, we have deployed capital together by leveraging the complementary strengths of equity and grant funding. As we build on this foundation for the next phase of our partnership, we're excited about what we can accomplish together in the years ahead.

Aude Anquetil (Chief of Staff at Livelihood Impact Fund)

The partnership between Livelihood Impact Fund and elea illustrates that collaboration can extend beyond deploying capital and receiving activity reports. When built on trust, strategic alignment, and humility, partnerships unlock catalytic capital that flows more efficiently while creating genuine mutual benefit where organizations learn from each other, strengthen collective capacity, and achieve greater impact.

At elea, we are excited to explore deep, meaningful partnerships with like-minded organizations. As the global landscape continues to shift, the challenges facing emerging economies are increasingly urgent and complex. Through strategic partnership, philanthropy can deploy its unique advantages — flexibility, patient capital, and capacity for risk — with greater effectiveness.

We welcome conversations with foundations interested in exploring how collaboration might amplify our collective impact. Learn more about how we partner with foundations by reaching out to us.