Philanthropic Partnership Summit

Solutions to significant science and engineering challenges rely on breakthrough fundamental research but also require the translational research necessary to have lasting societal impact with speed and scale. In this project, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) will gather information from a variety of stakeholders in Philanthropic Partnership Summit to help inform innovative strategies for fruitful and lasting collaborations between the philanthropic sector and other sectors of society to enable lasting societal impacts.

The proposed Philanthropic Partnership Summit will help advance translational research by identifying targeted and well-developed collaboration models with philanthropic organizations while also considering the role of a variety of other stakeholders, including local, state, and federal government institutions in promoting the progress of science and advancing national health, prosperity and welfare.

Via this Partnership Summit FAS seeks to establish connections among a wide range of philanthropic organizations to serve as a powerful resource going forward to enable future joint initiatives by convening leaders from a strategic set of philanthropic organizations and identifying high-impact partnership approaches and strategies for amplifying the impact of this sector. The Summit agenda will be designed to help identify cross-sector needs, analyze gaps and barriers to partnership, and develop a menu of approaches to move the process forward more efficiently with the goal of reaching a broad range of philanthropic organization—in number as well as across thematic areas.

Engaging philanthropic organizations requires a tailored and relationship-driven approach in order to identify shared priorities beyond just potential return on investment, which is seldom the only driver for such organizations. Thus, adequate and appropriate groundwork must be laid in advance of the convening. The process of attracting these funding organizations and cultivating their interest takes thoughtful engagement and planning to ensure mission alignment and clarify of the respective value proposition.

FAS will identify target philanthropic organizations and develop “personalized” outreach and engagement messages and sessions to reach each individual organization, or groups of them that are similar in nature and intent. This initial effort will help in designing the format and agenda of the actual summit—in terms of details of the agenda, specific sessions at the meeting, areas for discussion and areas for potential collaboration.

Reports will be compiled from each of these sessions as well as for the overall summit, outlining strategies and directions for future collaborations. The Summit will be designed as a strategic touchpoint and to be one part of an ongoing process.

This Summit will convene a strategic set of philanthropic organizations along with relevant government partners to identify a range of effective strategies as well as nontraditional approaches for partnership formation. The vision is to encourage experimentation with new approaches for creating an ecosystem of partnerships to support use-inspired and translational research.

This will have broad impact on programs and program design not only across the philanthropic sector but also between the philanthropic and other sectors including government at all levels.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.