Incase not seen here is a list of 50 different individual, partnership and platform initiatives that are addressing green and inclusive growth. We pulled it together as part of a Business Fights Poverty project last year. Would love to know which initiatives have we missed!? https://businessfightspoverty.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Building-Business-Partnerships-That-Are-Fit-for-the-Future-Examples.pdf
A1: What’s a powerful example of cross-sector collaboration you’ve been part of or witnessed—and what made it work?
At Street Child, we’ve seen the power of strategic collaboration through our partnership with the award winning social enterprise From Babies with Love (Corporate Services) (FBWL) that sells unique, ethically sourced babywear and gifts. A key driver of FBWL’s profit – and therefore it’s social impact - has been the growth of its corporate gift service and the development of a HR changemakers network.
From Babies with Love has reimagined corporate gifting by embedding purpose into the moments that matters like welcoming a new child into the world. FBWL’s corporate gift service donates 100% of profits back into their charity partners to deliver social impact. The service is used by companies like Deloitte, Linklaters, Microsoft and Virgin Money to celebrate employees at meaningful life and career moments: onboarding, parental leave, returning to work, promotions, retirements, and other milestones.
This approach puts people first on multiple levels. It helps companies foster inclusive, values-driven workplace cultures that honour important life events—while also investing in children’s futures globally. It’s a win-win: employees feel truly seen and valued, and the company drives meaningful impact as part of its everyday HR practice. That’s what effective, modern collaboration looks like.
The success of the corporate gifting service has led to the development of it’s own sub-brand, Uplifting People, which empowers HR Leaders to create positive social change both within their organisation and beyond. Through its HR-ESG resources and workshops, How HR Leaders Change the World podcast and event series, Uplifting People continues to drive impact for the world’s most vulnerable children while simultaneously working to embed progress towards the UN SDGs across HR and ESG strategies.
The result? FBWL has donated over £1 million in flexible unrestricted funding since 2017, supporting vulnerable children living across seven different countries including Nepal and Nigeria. In 2024 alone, 12,000 children accessed education through this partnership—while businesses strengthened purpose, engagement, and ESG performance. FBWL’s flexible funding model allows Street Child to direct donations to where they are needed most, typically contexts experiencing acute poverty.
This is cross-sector collaboration at its best:
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A social enterprise designs the product and business model that taps into an extensive and competitive corporate gift giving market that creates authentic alignment between building positive culture within workplaces around parental leave and social impact
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Corporates embed giving into core HR practices and deliver on supporting SDG Goals
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The supported charities including Street Child deliver high impact, locally led education programmes
And here is a report we published last year: Building Future Fit Business Partnerships for Green and Inclusive Growth. It includes examples from Cemx, Visa, Anglo, Food Fortification and Clean Cookstoves Alliance. Building Future Fit Partnerships for Green and Inclusive Growth - Business Fights Poverty
Many of the cross-sector collaborations I’ve been part of have been initiated by, led by or in other ways harnessed the UN as a platform. Certainly the most rewarding and exciting one I was involved with personally – though it happened during what feels like a very different era – was the building of the Sustainable Development Goals, which started several years before they were adopted. Personal reflection on why this process was successful and possible brings up factors such as 1) strong political will from global leaders committed to sustainable development 2) a baseline of expertise on lessons learned from global development who were a platform for global discussion across many different stakeholders, specifically the panel established by the SG Ban Ki-Moon for this purpose 3) dedicated diplomats in New York who were open to a different type of dialogue with their peers and others who wanted to be part of the process and 4) a global galvanizing of publics on the potential of the new agenda and what it could mean for them.
A2: What do you think holds companies back from deeper, more meaningful collaboration with other businesses, foundations, civil society or government?
In our experience at Street Child, the key barriers include:
Short-term business thinking— Companies often focus on immediate returns, underestimating the long-term business value of investing in communities outside their current markets. This overlooks the reality that global prosperity and stability are inherently good for business. As economies in regions like Africa—home to the fastest-growing youth population and some of the world’s most dynamic emerging markets—continue to rise, investing in inclusive development today helps lay the foundation for long-term, sustainable growth.
Restricted funding models: Traditional grant-making and procurement processes tend to be inflexible, making it hard to adapt to local realities or rapidly changing needs. Research shows that unrestricted funding enables NGOs to be more effective, agile, and sustainable—especially in fragile contexts—driving greater systemic change.
Missed potential of collective action: when a network of businesses aligns around a shared social mission—as seen in FBWL’s growing community of corporate partners—their combined power can drive systemic change. But collaboration at this scale requires shared vision, trust, and the willingness to see social impact as a business imperative, not just CSR.
A3:How can partnerships move beyond short-term projects to create long-term systemic change?
To move beyond short-term, transactional projects and drive long-term systemic change, partnerships must fundamentally reframe their purpose – from isolated interventions to embedded, strategic collaboration. This means aligning around shared goals that address the root causes of poverty - such as structural barriers in education, healthcare, employment, or governance. Crucially, these goals must be integrated into core business and policy strategies, not treated as peripheral or isolated CSR-driven activity.
Long-term change also demands long-term commitment. Partnerships should be multi-year, include joint governance structures, and sustainable financing models. Success depends on shared measurement frameworks that go beyond short-term outputs and instead track systemic outcomes like improved livelihoods or policy change, with the ability to evolve in a changing external landscape.
True systemic change also means shifting power toward local communities and organisations. This includes co-creating solutions with people who have lived experience of poverty, strengthening local actors’ capabilities, and advocating for policy and regulatory reforms. Finally, given the scale of global poverty, no single financing model will close the gap. We need new, flexible approaches that can evolve – with public and private sector being able to test, learn and scale funding models when they prove both effective and robust.
A powerful example was the international hackathon I joined in Estonia, where a diverse group of technologists, civil society leaders, and remote professionals came together to build and create, in support of flood victims in Valencia. What made it work was the speed of mobilisation, the open sharing of data and local context, and the alignment around a common goal, building practical tools for real people, fast. It showed how cross-sector collaboration can transcend borders when everyone brings their expertise to the table with urgency and trust - and create results in 48 hours
love this example thanks for sharing @isabelle can i reach out about including in our report?
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During the COVID Pandemic, The USCIB Foundation developed a coalition across business, NGOs, global organizations, to help promote vaccine acceptance and support employers of all sizes https://businesspartners2convince.org/
We shared learnings on how to navigate the pandemic, collected resources from organizations around the globe, developed a Workplace Challenge to encourage employers to participate, and created a series of learning modules to help organizations activate.
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Three really good examples come to mind, all of which offer great insight and value to this topic. They are
• Clinton Health Access Initiative (a primary stakeholder/partner) and the Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) programmes. You searched for EID - Clinton Health Access Initiative
• Partners in Health’s leadership of a major multi-stakeholder, multisector collaboration to build the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais | Partners In Health
• Fundación Paraguaya’s Poverty Stoplight programme and community/ecosystem of partners across all three sectors. Activate the potential of families, businesses and communities
In all three situations, i) clarity of vision, ii) clarity of roles and responsibilities as well as of the expectations of every stakeholder partner, iii) trust, iv) long-term dedication and determination to achieve the collective purpose as well as to fulfil the individual commitments agreed.
Nearly a decade ago, I founded the NYC Sustained Global Impact Community of Practice (SGICOP)—a cross-sector forum for senior and mid-career professionals based in New York City and working across global development, philanthropy, academia, the private sector, and social enterprise. The aim was to create space for candid dialogue, fresh insights, and shared problem-solving across sectors.
Each monthly gathering featured a speaker, panel, or member-led discussion covering a broad range of topics, including radical listening, storytelling for advocacy, countering violent extremism, social network analysis, and behavior change through community-centered design. What made the space unique was its substance-rich, interdisciplinary nature—bringing together diverse perspectives spanning theory, tools, and lived experience, all intentionally translated into practical insights that members could apply in their work.
Beyond the content itself, the real value came from connecting outside formal roles. Members engaged with unfamiliar perspectives, stress-tested assumptions, and carried those insights back into their daily work. Several collaborations grew directly out of these conversations, but equally important were the quieter shifts: more inclusive strategies, better questions, and stronger cross-sector empathy.
The community ended during the pandemic, but its impact lives on—in continued connections, reframed approaches, and a deeper appreciation for the power of informal, trust-based exchange. It reminds me that, sometimes, the most catalytic collaboration begins not with structure or funding but with intentional space to listen, reflect, and build together.
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I’d like to offer as an example a collaboration that might differ a bit from the examples that other participants put forward, but one I think is particularly worth sharing given recent developments in the foreign aid sector.
About 10 years ago, I was running a USAID-funded youth entrepreneurship project in Russia’s North Caucasus region - the project differed from many similar programs in that we were providing entrepreneurship training to young people in trade and technical schools, the types of students that typically didn’t have the opportunity to study business and economics. The idea was that rather than work at someone else’s auto repair garage or hair stylist, some of these students could go on to open their own small businesses.
The key elements that made it work were open information sharing and patience - which allowed the project team to build trust. My organization, with funding from USAID, built relationships with the trade and technical schools, to recruit students for the program. We had strong relationships with the local chambers of commerce, which in turn, built relationships with local universities to recruit the instructors. The chambers also brought in local business leaders to serve as mentors to the students as they developed business ideas and served as judges in the eventual business plan competition. The chambers also took the time to explain the program to local government leaders to win their backing and endorsement of the program. We also brought in local banks who chipped in with small loans for the students’ business ideas, backed by guarantees that the local governments agreed to provide, directing some of their federal economic development funds.
Unfortunately, there were political dynamics in play that were out of our control, and after a very meaningful program, the project was wound down after several years.
But I still think about that project often, because it demonstrated the power of patience and openness in order to build trust, thus unlocking the collaboration.
Working with BRAC, Grundfos and social impact investment to develop industrial and domestic water provision and cleaning industrial outflows. The success was founded on all partners coming together right at the start and aligning and designing the business case and the outcomes together from the outset.
In Northern Mozambique, I led a portfolio of partnerships aimed at strengthening the entire agricultural value chain, from inputs to markets to support services, by engaging actors who had distinct incentives and capacities at different points in the system.
Rather than betting on a single solution, we took a systems view and co-created a suite of partnerships across public, private, and civic sectors:
- Government alignment: We engaged both national and provincial governments to integrate the initiative with public extension systems and align on investment incentives which was critical for scale and legitimacy.
- Private sector partnerships: We worked with urban agribusinesses for upstream supply and with rural-based entrepreneurs for last-mile distribution. This created a hybrid model that blended reach with local relevance.
- Local NGO integration: NGOs helped build trust with communities, onboard farmer groups, and tailor outreach strategies that prioritized equity and inclusion, particularly for women and marginalized producers.
One standout result was the co-creation of a logistics system linking wholesale suppliers, transporters, and youth-led enterprises that served last-mile smallholder communities. No one actor held the full solution, but the system did, once aligned through shared goals, risk-sharing, and co-investment.
What made this work wasn’t any one project, but the portfolio logic: matching the right partner to the right part of the system, then creating shared value across the network.
A main reflection is that sustainable change comes from aligning incentives across a diverse set of actors who co-own both the problem and the path forward.
Partnerships can only move beyond short-term projects to create long-term systemic change after a series of smaller successes. Relationships and successes are team based. We often look at large scale, often insurmountable projects - rather than looking at smaller, more impactful projects that build relationships and ensure all parties feel successful, can see the results, and build confidence and trust with all parties. Build off of smaller success to identify great partners who are effective and make impact.
- Pakistan has traditionally had one of the largest gender digital divides in the world. There are strong social norms that mean women and girls are discouraged from using mobile phones - or face family and social disapproval. But 2024 was a breakthrough year for women’s digital inclusion. This is the culmination of a cross sector partnership between the Government of Pakistan, the mobile industry, donors and the international development community.
- Setting the policy framework In 2024, the Pakistan Telecoms Authority launched its first-ever Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy in partnership with the UNESCO and supported by GSMA’s Connected Women programme.
- Evidence-base to tackle the right problems PTA took a collaborative, evidence-based approach involving multi-stakeholders workshops, expert interviews and primary data from the GSMA on the mobile gender gap. Plus a public perception survey (via IVR) reaching 100,000 respondents.
- Building momentum for action on key issues PTA has set up 6 multi-stakeholder working groups to spearhead implementation to drive women’s adoption of digital technology including affordability of smartphones, digital literacy, and safety and security, to address the key challenges women face.
- Sector wide commitment the GSMA Commitment Initiative on gender calls for telcos to set targets for gender equality in their customer base and helps them to track progress. The CEOs of major telcos in Pakistan have signed the GSMA Commitment Initiative on gender. WIth a combined customer base of 200 million there is tremendous potential for scale and finding solutions to the challenges.
- Addressing social norms Jazz pakistan launched a wide reaching campaign to educate rural populations and women about hte benefits of mobile internet, using community gatherings, comedy skits, large screen and in-person training support, local community champions. All to try and address the often-restrictive social norms that prevent women from accessing digital technology. This focused on the benefits of the internet for everyone.
- Relevant use cases Telenor expanded its IVR service for rural farmers, which targets women with information on livestock management and health. In 9 months women users increased from 0.7 million to 1.9 million.
- Commercial benefit For the mobile industry, closing the gender gap in mobile access and use in Pakistan would result in a $4 billion revenue opportunity over 8 years.
- Celebrating your wins Prime Minister Sharif recognised this breakthrough in a recent address on World Telecommunications and Information Society Day, urging stakeholders to work together to drive inclusive and equitable digital access.
-I had the opportunity to support an important exercise led by the UN Secretary-General last year which included discussions and data collection on this exact topic. You can see the report, “Enhanced cooperation between the United Nations and all relevant partners, in particular the private sector” here.
-This report involved a number of discussions with companies who have worked with the UN closely on topics ranging from digital cooperation to jobs and skills development to sustainable finance. Companies consistently cite issues like the need for co-creation and active engagement in the partnership; a clear understanding of the goals and needs corporate actors have to their stakeholders; and an understanding of the full range of assets they bring to global problem solving (often beyond just financial) to fully realize the potential of cross-sector collaboration.
-It also involved discussions with a cross-section of UN staff who manage these collaborations across the UN system, who cited needs such as more personnel dedicated and trained for partnerships; alignment around a common focus; more clarity around partnerships strategy; and increased risk tolerance for innovative pilot projects.
-The bottom line is that building meaningful collaboration and impactful partnerships is time consuming and not always easy in a world of constantly shifting dynamics and priorities, and it takes commitment and flexibility. However we are lucky to have a number of resources and lessons learned to pull from, including others I’ve been involved in such as this one supported by the Gates Foundation: “Reimagining Private Sector Partnerships in a COVID-19 World” which captured emerging lessons from the pandemic era.
A powerful example of cross-sector collaboration is the long-term partnership between GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) and Save the Children, which set a new standard for how a global pharmaceutical company and a leading international NGO can work together to drive systemic change in child health.
What Made It Work:
1. Shared Mission, Different Strengths
At the heart of the collaboration was a clear, shared goal: to reduce child mortality in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. GSK brought scientific expertise, supply chain capabilities, and funding, while Save the Children contributed deep local knowledge, community trust, and on-the-ground programme delivery. This complementary approach ensured alignment without duplication.
2. Innovation with Purpose
The partnership wasn’t limited to funding. One standout innovation was the reformulation of chlorhexidine antiseptic—originally used as a mouthwash—into a low-cost gel to prevent newborn infections in remote settings. This was possible because both organisations were willing to co-create solutions, not just operate in parallel.
3. Embedding the Partnership
Rather than treating the partnership as an external CSR initiative, GSK embedded it into its core strategy, engaging departments across R&D, policy, and operations. Similarly, Save the Children created dedicated teams to manage and scale the work. This institutional commitment gave the partnership longevity and strategic weight.
4. Transparent Governance
The partnership included joint decision-making, impact measurement, and a willingness to course-correct based on learning. Having clear governance structures, mutual accountability, and an openness to critique made it resilient over time.
5. Long-Term Commitment
Unlike many transactional partnerships, this one spanned over a decade, enabling not just short-term outputs but systemic, scalable impact—from frontline health worker training to influencing national policy in countries like the DRC and Kenya.
This partnership worked because it moved beyond philanthropy into transformational collaboration—where both parties leveraged their full assets, stayed mission-aligned, and embraced innovation and transparency for shared impact. It’s a model that continues to inspire how private and nonprofit sectors can tackle global challenges together.
-Anchored in a common goal – what is the problem the partners are trying to solve and what are the collective motivations and assets they are bringing to solving that challenge?
-An understanding of the gaps – who is missing, what are the additional assets needed and how can they be harnessed/leveraged?
-Long-term commitment, contingencies around issues that can take partnerships off track (everything from the seeming smaller issues like key personnel moving on to the big issues like political dynamics and uncertainties!)
-Bake in the ability to be flexible and pivot where needed. Sometimes a partnership can change scope to broaden or take on different aspects of a problem or issue, and sometimes the fundamental goals even need to shift.
This is an excellent roadmap for developing systemic change. I made a comment in this chat about how partners often have different objectives and that is normal and should be recognized. So I especially like how you called it “shared vision and values.” And that is a great way to build trust and transparency as partnerships recognize that they still have different objectives.