In the Robert Bosch Stiftung’s work on inequality we are centering on advancing systemic change through our funding. This involves looking at what we fund as well as at our funding practices. To strengthen debates about power sharing and systems change thinking in philanthropy, we are supporting Leap, a collective of activists, social entrepreneurs, foundations, and philanthropists.
The Leap Collective wants to fundamentally shift philanthropy towards more sharing of power, full transparency, and a willingness and ability to fund systems change. Leap tries to achieve this goal by collectively developing and hosting participatory processes and funding experiments that directly channel philanthropic funds to so far under-funded systems change work. Furthermore, Leap aims to communicate about experiments and share lessons learned in order to challenge and change values and narratives in philanthropy.
The Robert Bosch Stiftung also supported one of Leap’s first experiments: a working group of European climate justice activists that collectively developed a concept for how funders might better support the grassroots European Climate Justice ecosystem. This work led to the launch of Collective Abundance, a participatory regranting fund to support grassroots climate justice organizing in Europe.