Convergence partnership: Advancing equity and place-based work through a funder collaborative

The Convergence Partnership (Partnership) is a collaborative of eight funders with the shared goal of changing policies and environments to better achieve the vision of healthy people living in healthy places. The Partnership holds equity as a core value and recognizes that it needs to be a central focus of the work and that community engagement is a crucial element for making changes sustainable. Through collective action, the Partnership is demonstrating a new way for philanthropy to work and an equitable approach that leads to triple-bottom line benefits to people, place, and the economy. Through shared leadership and decision-making, pooled investments, and joint activities, the Partnership has helped to institute policy changes across the country, as well as catalyzed new public and philanthropic resources, new alliances, new partnerships, and new voices joining the effort to achieve more equitable communities. This session will discuss the Partnership's efforts and investments in advancing and promoting equity as the means to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to participate and prosper. Representatives of the national Convergence Partnership, together with local and regional foundation affiliates, will discuss the challenges and enabling elements to a successful model of shared leadership and decision-making as well as describe how they have been able to create collective impact through joint grantmaking. This requires effective partnerships that crisscross fields; strategies that that are equity-focused; and affects change in places that lack healthy systems and structures.