Ripples of change: learning from the Cornerstone Fund in Round Two

The Cornerstone Fund is a collaborative systems change funding programme from City Bridge Foundation and other London funders, launched in 2018. 

The Fund appointed Collaborate CIC as a learning partner for both rounds of the Fund to convene reflective spaces with funded civil society partnerships and funders alike. 

Lessons from Round One, which ran from 2019 to 2022, were published in 2023 alongside a set of stories. See Funding Systems Change: lessons from the Cornerstone Fund.

Fast forward a year, and Collaborate has published their final learning report with insights about Round Two, from partnerships’ work from 2021 to 2023. 

This report demonstrates ripples of change through more stories and key insights that speak to a set of foundations (conditions) for long-term systemic change. It also points to how Cornerstone funding gave room for such experimentation.

Between individual learning conversations and workshops bringing partnerships and funders together, as well as partnerships’ own documentation of their efforts, Collaborate have assembled the challenges and breakthroughs of partnerships’ efforts to strengthen collaboration, address inequalities and effect systems change.

Round Two partnerships have grappled with how to understand the system they seek to change and their part in it, and to translate this into meaningful language and ideas. 

Despite facing immediate financial and capacity pressures, and supporting communities through crises of their own, partnerships have also filled data gaps, built new relationships, shared learning and exercised influence across their system.

Round Two put equity and voice at the heart of things, showing that people with first-hand experiences and knowledge of disability, racial discrimination and trauma, barriers to accessing health care, etc. are well placed to lead on this work. 

There is a recognition that systems change is not ​‘out there’ but ​‘in here’; supporting those with lived experience to lead is indeed some of the work of systems change.

This report presents important messages for funding organisations, civil society, and others seeking to support people’s flourishing, including: that you cannot effect systems change without a solid basis for collaboration, which requires attention to power dynamics; and that creating an evidence base is key, which may draw upon not only formal research but open and honest conversations made possible by a bedrock of trust.

Use the link below to read the report.

For further reading, see London Funders’ interview with Collaborate CIC on systems change and The Cornerstone Fund. Published in October 2024.