The work across The Omidyar Group takes a long view. We challenge the status quo, which often means taking on problems that are both complex and deeply entrenched in systems and institutions designed to serve a privileged few. Over the years we’ve adopted a routine practice of evolving strategies as context changes and dynamics shift in response. To navigate this, we are always looking to deepen relationships, expand our field of vision, and identify new tools to help us understand our world and do our work more effectively. As we look ahead to the many significant obstacles society is facing, we believe it is critical that we continue to evolve our approach in order to find and fund new solutions, allies, and opportunities.

Evolution, iteration, and experimentation are deeply embedded in our history and culture and evident in our work. This generates an enormous number of lessons learned. We continue to be humbled by what we don’t know, what we get wrong, and delighted when we get things right. We’ve benefitted greatly from those who decades ago welcomed us into philanthropy, and those with whom we’ve worked since across many sectors, geographies, communities, and disciplines. We learned from others who have come before us to draw upon multiple sources of wisdom – Indigenous, scientific, and lived experiences in addition to intellectual, emotional and embodied ways of knowing – and the intersections amongst them.

We’ve had big moments in our TOG history – placing bets on diverse approaches and strategies, with each shift helping move us forward in new and sometimes unexpected ways. TOG organizations are now shifting into even deeper modes of collaboration and diversifying support of our work. We believe this is essential to ensure our work has enduring impact well into the future – a necessary step in our evolution. The Omidyars are deeply committed to the TOG organizations, the teams, and their work – their resolve has not changed. Greater collaboration provides an important means of testing our ideas upstream, increasing the likelihood of success in strategy implementation, strengthening the sectors in which we work, and working even more closely with allies, partners, and key stakeholders.

Collaboration can take many forms. For some TOG teams this will mean partnering with new funders to support mission critical work. For others, collaboration may be more heavily rooted in advocacy campaigns in coalition with trusted partners, community members, and activists. There are many other models we are exploring and dynamic learning conversations around this approach are underway. This exploration will take time. The approaches and outcomes will vary by organization and their strategies, the geographies within which they work, the maturity of the work and/or sector, and other relevant factors. No matter the path, we recognize that successful collaboration and partnership requires a significant investment of time as well as earned trust, and we will continue to prioritize both.

We’re proud of the collaborations our teams have cultivated over the years, from Humanity United’s creation of the Working Capital fund; Democracy Fund’s work to bring new and unexpected donors into the democracy field; Omidyar Network’s Powering a New Economy Fund; Luminate’s launch of Reset; Imaginable Futures’ and Ulupono Initiative’s leveraging of public sector support for grantees’ vital work; and Flourish Ventures and Hopelab’s investments alongside like-minded investors.

We are eager to further explore ways of expanding, diversifying, and deepening support for our work and are excited by the possibilities we see before us and ahead. Ultimately, we believe these changes will promote greater, lasting impact for a flourishing world, creating change that benefits us all.