Coalitions Archives - Camber Collective

Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing

Ana — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 04:20:43 +0000

Context

Impact Investing has grown rapidly in the nearly 15 years since the term was coined, as awareness and commitment to investing for both financial and impact returns has grown among investors. Yet impact investing still represents less than 1% of all assets under management in the United States, with growth impeded by the relative immaturity of its enabling environment, or the field building “public goods” – such as industry networks, financial and impact data, and policy advocacy and incentives– which enable capital to flow efficiently in any market.

Scope

Camber was engaged by the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance (USIIA), hosted by the Ford Foundation, and the Omidyar Network, to develop the strategy and operating model for the Tipping Point Fund (TPF), a pooled grant vehicle to fund these core field building activities and spur the growth of the impact investing field. This work was done on behalf of, and in consultation with, the USIIA’s Presidents’ Council on Impact Investing, comprising 19 private foundation Presidents and representing over $80B in assets.

Camber facilitated a collaborative co-design process for the TPF, engaging over 30 impact investing subject matter experts, and a consultative group of prospective member foundation leadership to design the fund. Camber’s work to co-design the TPF included (1) a current state landscape of the impact investing market (Exhibit 1) and the challenges impeding its growth; (2) evaluation and prioritization of pooled investment priorities of the fund, prioritizing public goods unlikely to emerge spontaneously through market activity, yet critical to the continued growth of the impact investing (Exhibit 2); (3) design of its operating model and governance structure; and (4) developing the fundraising strategy and collateral pitch materials (prospectus, pitch deck, talking points, etc.).

Outcomes

The Tipping Point Fund launched in December 2019 with $12.5M in pooled grant funding from 9 member foundations. The Fund made its initial public policy-focused grants in July 2020. This first-of-its-kind pooled funding collaborative in the field of impact investing is demonstrating the potential to align funders’ financial and advocacy resources around a common theory of market development to accelerate progress.

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Food Fortification Database

Zack Henderson — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 04:15:44 +0000

Fortification of staple foods, such as grains and salt, with critical vitamins and minerals is one of the most scalable and cost-effective tools available to combat the scourge of all-too-common micronutrient deficiencies that affect billions of people each year. While many countries have mandated fortification with key micronutrients, other are still considering legislation or exploring additional fortification avenues – decisions which require access to data which is often collated by disparate organizations, of suspect quality, or simply not discoverable.

This challenge was taken up by several central players in the nutrition and food fortification space. A core group of technical experts conceptualized the idea of developing a public database for high-quality data on food fortification, then calling upon Camber to manage the strategic alignment around shared goals, guide development of the database, and form a longer-term sustainability plan for the platform. Camber supported the early steps of this process, culminating in a formal announcement of the forthcoming database at a large global nutrition conference. Our team then worked to oversee the development of a prototype web-based platform, interfacing closely with an expert development team to co-design the web platform and test the preliminary database tool.

Camber’s involvement culminated in the development of a high-level communication approach and corresponding materials to accompany the completed data platform. The web-based platform was formally launched to the public by the group of partners and is actively managed and updated by that group. It remains the only consolidated source of data on food fortification legislation status, fortification levels, and other critical information for country governments, donors, industry, and other key stakeholders.

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Campaign Effectiveness Coalition

Ana — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 03:54:39 +0000

Health campaigns are time-bound and intermittent activities to address specific epidemiologic challenges, fill delivery gaps, or provide surge coverage for health interventions. They can be used to help respond to disease outbreaks (such as COVID-19), eliminate targeted diseases as a public health problem (such as with river blindness), eradicate disease altogether (as was achieved with smallpox), or address other health challenges. Campaigns are credited with expanding life-saving interventions to millions of individuals.

As a delivery modality often used in low resource settings, campaigns face challenges in reaching their targets for coverage and equity. The siloed nature of campaigns contributes to these challenges, as the field has historically lacked mechanisms to share learning across different campaigns, coordinate where multiple campaigns are executed concurrently, and limit unintended consequences on health delivery system.

On behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Camber conducted a landscape analysis of the campaign ecosystem to identify opportunities to improve coverage, equity, cost-effectiveness, and impact for campaigns across five priority health areas. The landscaping effort highlighted the need for a coalition committed to enhancing campaigns’ and health systems’ effectiveness to help address critical gaps and meet public health needs.

Following the landscaping effort, the Foundation issued a grant to the Task Force for Global Health to bring together a group of core stakeholders to develop a coalition. Camber supported the Task Force in bringing together a variety of campaign stakeholders across the five health areas – including government actors, coordinating bodies, researchers and implementers – in collaborative working sessions to design an effective infrastructure for the coalition. The Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition launched in late 2020, and since then has completed critical work to promote campaign learning, collaboration, systems change across health areas.

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Hewlett Climate Communications

Ana — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 03:19:11 +0000

As the window for keeping the earth’s temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming steadily closes, achieving broader public support is needed to sustain and accelerate early action on climate change. In recognition of this challenge, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation brought together Camber and a core group of climate communications field-supporting organizations and funders to align on what they needed to prioritize – and change – within their strategies.

Camber worked with these stakeholders in late 2018 – early 2019 to develop a sector-wide view of the strengths, gaps, and opportunities to strengthen climate communications. Our team conducted an extensive review of literature and stakeholder documentation, administered a field survey, and consulted dozens of experts to map out the current state of the field, as well as inform the design of an analytical framework outlining the field’s strengths, gaps, and opportunities. Under Hewlett’s leadership, Camber helped facilitate a series of stakeholder convenings to work toward alignment on a set of joint priorities for collective action.

These joint priorities informed the development of the Hewlett Foundation’s Climate Communications Grantmaking Strategy, which revolves around five key objectives: (1) center communications funding approach around people, and support communities and constituencies, (2) build the field’s capacity to engage populations digitally, (3) support the field’s capacity to respond to disinformation and organized opponents of climate progress, (4) focus on supporting connective tissue and infrastructure for coordination on these issues across the field, and (5) expand resources for communications. The effort has also informed a set of joint funder and stakeholder initiatives to fill specific gaps in sector capabilities.

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