Nalini Tarakeshwar: We need to talk more about failure and learn from it

I think about it as sustaining impact across multiple levels, from making a single investment to impacting an organization or entire systems. The key is to sustain impact across multiple levels and domains. The Optimus Foundation prioritizes social and environmental impacts over financial returns, which requires engaging with multiple stakeholders and perspectives.

Part of our responsibility is to ensure that our philanthropists learn on their impact journey—this can entail meeting with our partners, beneficiaries, communities, and even with government officials when possible. Our philanthropists all start from different places of knowledge and experience; you need to meet them where they are, understand where they want to go and help them along the way.

The accountability of philanthropy is not always clear. Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard encouraged philanthropists to ask themselves ‘who are you accountable to?’ They need to determine how best to bring in notions of sustainability, timelines, impact metrics, and what success looks like (and for who) in their giving.

There are three big trends we see, although the importance of each varies slightly in each region.

First, giving remains quite localized. European philanthropists tend to give the most across regions, whilst also giving locally. However, we are seeing more philanthropists wanting to learn from their peers and we can help with that exchange of ideas and approaches.

The second trend is giving as an investment as opposed to a donation. I see this within the Optimus network of foundations, where giving can vary from grants to investment capital. Tangible outcomes matter here; philanthropists want to know, if I give USD 1mn, how many trees will be planted, will planting these trees impact climate and nature, and do I have to wait for 10 years or 20 years to see those results? How do I know it’s working? At the Foundation, we like to bring philanthropists closer to investments so they can learn by observation. We often need to balance ‘quick’ successes with ones that can take longer.

The third trend is collaboration. Investments are often only going to meet a small part of a particular need, which is why philanthropists need to work with peers, to create economies of scale and achieve bigger results through collective giving. The challenge can be that many philanthropists like to enjoy the recognition of their personal giving, and attribution can become problematic with collaboration. But social and environmental change can never be achieved alone.

One is the collectives, which is very exciting. Currently we have three collectives: climate, family-based care, and social finance. We bring between 10 and 15 philanthropists together every quarter, to discuss a topic related to the issue they are supporting and how this can be tackled working collectively. Let’s take the example of the climate collective. Here, we are working with 10 organizations to catalyze the blue carbon market across Asia via nature-based solutions such that we have benefits across climate, biodiversity and for communities. Our collective is focused on conserving and restoring mangroves in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Second, we are also looking at ways to harness the potential of social enterprises to make them investable, so they generate social and environmental impact in addition to financial return. Often, these enterprises take time to grow to the point where they are proven and entirely sustainable, so we come in early and provide concessional capital via impact linked loans and convertible equity. We are also looking into blended finance approaches to bring in other forms of capital, including commercial capital.

The third area is a focus on impact. There is a significant need to standardize impact measurement and reporting and we are working to achieve this in a transparent and robust way across our own portfolio as well as influencing other stakeholders to do the same, and importantly, learn from their efforts.

I think that people don’t talk enough about what has failed or not worked, so we can learn from it. I also think it’s worthwhile to follow up on investments after a decade or so, to find out what happened to the things we tried. Are they still around and working? Right now, most areas are not really tracked beyond three to five years.

If I look to education, for example, I’ve seen things that do not work, such as looking to technology as a silver bullet in addressing learning outcomes. There have been situations where computers in the classrooms are no longer used because they are not working due to maintenance issues, or the staff do not know how to use them; yet they were once seen as a golden solution to improve learning.

What is also often not discussed is the replicability of research. The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences supports efforts to increase research transparency, as generally only a minority of experiments are replicable. We don’t have the equivalent in philanthropy yet, but we should try to ensure that we are transparent about what’s working and not working in our sustainability efforts, and why.

I find it inspiring to see the young generation deeply involved in sustainability, particularly in emerging economies. More recently, while I was at the Skoll Forum, it was inspiring to hear from some of the entrepreneurs supported by the London School of Economics’ 100x Impact Accelerator. We need more of the younger generation to build the technology and solutions, across industries and continents. They are the future, and they are keen to make it a sustainable one.