The power of philanthropic partnerships: a look at the UBS Collectives
We’re dedicated to finding innovative ways to tackle some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems, and showing how the power of philanthropic partnerships will be critical in achieving systemic change.
Key highlights
Key highlights
- The UBS Collectives shows the power of philanthropic partnerships in helping achieve systemic change.
- We’re dedicated to finding innovative ways to tackle some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems.
- The Collectives’ purpose-driven approach focuses on generating measurable social impact, alongside a financial return that can be recycled into other impactful programs.
For us, connecting people is more than simply about us or our clients: it’s about creating a global ecosystem that links people and businesses to more ideas, partners and opportunities.
Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 means mobilizing an additional USD 2.5 trillion per year. Private markets and commercial capital have generally struggled to address challenges facing the world’s most vulnerable communities. And, while philanthropy and the public sector play important roles, they alone can’t cover this substantial financing gap. A new approach is needed.
While philanthropists can be effective individually, we believe they can be most impactful when working together with organizations and governments as drivers of change. By pooling funds and expertise with fellow philanthropists and delivering aligned outcomes, they can reinforce each other’s efforts, and achieve exponentially more impact. That’s why we’re convinced that connecting people based on their strategic aspirations and collective impact is the future of philanthropic funding.
About the UBS Collectives
About the UBS Collectives
Led by our in-house Philanthropy Services team, UBS has formed three Collectives (groups of clients who engage to pool their funds and drive collective philanthropy). By doing so, we can combine their expertise and capital to fund initiatives that address child protection, climate change, and health- and education-related issues. Each Collective provides investors with a unique opportunity to work alongside peers and expert practitioners to achieve systemic change in some of the most complex social and environmental issues of our time.
Our goal is to mobilize private capital and support effective
programs to address some of the most critical challenges of our
time, which can best be addressed by working together.
The Collectives’ purpose-driven approach focuses on generating measurable social impact, alongside a financial return that can be recycled into other impactful programs. Returns are driven by social outcomes paid for by funders, including the World Bank, UK and US development agencies. Investments will pay out if pre-agreed targets, verified by independent third-party evaluators, are met. These targets are based on science, market incentives and measurable, evidence-based interventions. In this way, they align efforts, incentives and know-how to generate the outcomes that matter most.
“Our goal is to mobilize private capital and support effective programs to address some of the most critical challenges of our time, which can best be addressed by working together,” said Phyllis Costanza, Head of Social Impact and CEO of the UBS Optimus Foundation.
The Accelerate Collective
The Accelerate Collective
Through joint impact partnerships, the Accelerate Collective is focused on improving the health and education of disadvantaged children in West Africa and Southeast Asia. It pilots programs that achieve measurable social outcomes – such as improvements in child health, increased education attendance, retention and learning of disadvantaged and out-of-school children, as well as a reduction in poverty. Targeting a return on the philanthropic contribution helps to unlock more private and commercial capital, and can allow public funding to be used more efficiently to replicate and scale these transformational initiatives globally.
The Climate Collective
The Climate Collective
According to leading scientists, we can avoid the very worst impacts of an overheating planet if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by half over the next 10 years. But every delay and every degree of warming makes the transition more difficult and expensive, which in turn increases human suffering and speeds up the loss of biodiversity.
The Climate Collective provides our clients with an opportunity to work with fellow philanthropists to model, replicate and scale climate solutions that mitigate the effects of climate change, for example, by sequestering carbon emissions using nature-based solutions, supporting local community development and improving biodiversity in Southeast Asia and beyond.
The Transform Collective
The Transform Collective
The Transform Collective looks to transform childcare for vulnerable families, by partnering with peer philanthropists to co-fund a global child protection program. By seeking to create a model of best-practice for programs that strengthen families, communities and child care systems and, in the process, enable a permanent move away from a reliance on institutional care for some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children, the program shows participants what it really takes to change a system.
How a collective effort makes a difference
How a collective effort makes a difference
It’s simple: giving collectively makes funds go further. UBS covers the costs of running the Collectives, matches member funding by 10 percent, and plays an active role in the three-year period of the program. And, while we’re all working together to drive extraordinary results and hone our skills and confidence as philanthropic leaders, the support from the program is making a difference across multiple borders.
