As the Global Alliance on the Future of Food marks its 10th anniversary, I’ve reflected on 10 lessons that I’ve learned through my 10 years of collaborative leadership of the organization. I hope this might guide others in philanthropy as they seek more collective and effective impact.
1. Focus on the shared goal
Global challenges we currently face are unprecedented, from war to pandemics to the collapse of natural systems. There is no time to be anything less than strategic, with foundations owning their agency and taking a more explicitly active role in pushing for change — with all the accountability, transparency and profound responsibility this entails. That means knowing your niche and sweet spot, knowing who you want to influence on what, knowing why, and figuring out how. For philanthropies that want to work together to deliver more impact, this includes focusing on the goal and not on institution-building.
2. Let principles be the glue
The most powerful guiding framework for any collaborative or network is a set of principles or shared values. Principles surface what really matters to the group, they shape collective vision, and they provide a tool to guide strategy and action. They create a container that holds everyone but provides enough space for each member to be themselves. Principles are their most powerful when they come as a set, not a menu — when no one principle has supremacy, and all are brought into service to help groups achieve multiple objectives at once in a complete and beautiful whole. For many years, our principles have been described as the beating heart of the Global Alliance: resilience, renewability, health, equity, inclusion, diversity and interconnectedness.
3. Use your collective voice
In a world of deep fragmentation and increasing polarization, it might seem impossible to find common ground. Yet, for philanthropies that set out to campaign around a shared goal or objective, they must find ways to agree and speak with one voice. Lean into the power of coming together, finding consensus on core issues, and then shout from the rooftops. It is no mean feat, especially today. The Global Alliance works to amplify its members’ collective voice and those of its partners and allies to tackle the narratives and questions that undermine action and mislead the public about what’s possible, like in our report on the Politics of Knowledge.
4. Invest ambitiously together
From farmers changing practices to businesses reinventing supply chains to public institutions bringing in new purchasing policies, food systems transformation is both an expensive and utterly necessary proposition. It requires significant funds and finance strategies built on creativity and collaboration, as our research spells out. The scale and scope of the challenge calls for levels of philanthropic investment and requires new modes of blended finance not seen before, prioritizing holistic and cooperative approaches that meaningfully engage all actors in food production, distribution and consumption.
5. Take care of the whole
Everyone comes to an alliance, network or collaborative with different interests and agendas. This is unavoidable. Within the alliance, however, those interests and agendas need to take a back seat to the collective goals of the initiative. Both can co-exist — what might be right for one foundation might not be right for the alliance and vice-versa, but they can stand side by side. Alliances must take care of the whole. This builds trust and requires listening explicitly to each other, to diverse perspectives, to different opinions; and it means listening implicitly to the “shadow system” of tensions and disagreements that lurk in dark corners that may need to be tended in order to protect the health of the whole.
6. Embrace multiple theories of change
Theories of change matter deeply to those of us involved in social change. Just as they have different interests and agendas, foundations often have different theories of change, and this helps guide and inform their work. The power of the alliance is in that difference — it is in embracing the diversity of strategies that foundations employ. Complex issues require systemic responses — for example, we cannot achieve the climate objective of limiting warming below 1.5 degrees through one theory of change alone. It will require all we’ve got on every front. Instead of attempting to rationalize diverse theories of change, the Global Alliance embraced an overarching Theory of Transformation that is inclusive of multiple approaches. It’s not one or the other. We need all of it.
7. Never forget that language matters
We don’t all use the same terms, have the same understanding of common words, or bring the same assumptions to discussions when sharing our perspectives and opinions. This is all the more exaggerated when closing the gaps between business and government, Global North and Global South, youth and elder. Language matters. By attending to language, we surface values, we expose biases, we build relationships, and we find ways to hold our collective understandings that form the basis of working together.
8. Feed the system with information
This is one of the non-negotiable commandments for effective alliances. As the late, great Donella Meadows said, “Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information. You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.” As a collaborative venture, your members are what support the system: Understand what makes your members tick through frameworks that draw out data and information, and that enable them to make connections.
9. Go slow to go fast
Like it or lump it, process is absolutely fundamental to the effective functioning of an alliance and, ultimately, the long-term sustainability of collective initiatives. Sometimes the importance of process is described as “going slow to go fast.” But process doesn’t have to be slow, it just has to be good — well-considered, clear, trusted and respected by all. Those who want to move quickly push back on process, but its value always wins out in the long term. Equally important as good process is to be adaptable and developmental. In fact, the two go hand-in-hand. With good process, a complex alliance working on complex issues can work adaptably as the only appropriate way to navigate internal and external complexity with a clear goal in sight.
10. And act with urgency
With increasing and compounding crises — COVID-19, the invasion of Ukraine, skyrocketing rates of obesity, wildfires and heatwaves — the evidence that our food systems need rapid and deep transformation is irrefutable. We must tend to the immediate emergencies these crises provoke, such as extreme hunger, and at the same time, we must not shy away from embracing longer-term, systemic solutions that lead us out of mindsets, behaviors, policies and practices that keep us locked into an industrial food system that threatens our children’s future and the fundamental life-support systems that will sustain them.
Ruth Richardson is the outgoing executive director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food — a strategic alliance of foundations committed to food systems transformation.