One day, not that long ago, a few of us from the India Climate Collaborative sat on a low couch in our office tossing ideas back and forth as we tried to answer a challenging question: what are the ingredients that make a good philanthropist? 

It was a question that was echoed this week at the annual Asian Venture Philanthropy Forum conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. During a packed session, four stalwarts of the philanthropic industry sat on armchairs on stage, throwing ideas back and forth too.  

In a session titled, “Shaping Philanthropy Leaders of the Future”, Kathleen Chew, Jacqueline Novogratz, James Chen, and Robert Rosen shared what they thought made for a successful recipe. Deep trust, cultural conditioning, a strong, purposeful, and intentional ‘why’, the list goes on. Yet one ingredient stood out more than others: the power of honest collaboration.  

Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO and Founder of Acumen, an organisation that bets on social entrepreneurs, detailed this idea through the example of leadership. If people were open to taking more informed risks like they are in the private sector, we’d have a lot more innovation in the social enterprise sector. Philanthropy’s patient nature, its ability to be tied to longer time horizons, and its low requirement for return make it inherently more suited to take risks. And yet, what is embraced in the private sector and has seeded innovation, is an attitude kept at arm’s length in the social enterprise ecosystem.  

But there is strength in numbers. What if philanthropists held each other up to OK collective risk, insuring and assuring each other, then you may have a situation where people could work together to minimize and normalize that risk. It would free social entrepreneurs or non-profit leaders who are courageous enough to imagine new models for climate change to take big leaps, rather than conform to what donors may feel is safe.  

In a panel later that day titled “Emerging Trends on Collaborative Philanthropy” with Joanne Yoong, Kristy Muir, and Shloka Nath, I heard Ruixi Hao of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation articulate what that means in a simple and effective phrase – “we have power with, not power over.” When philanthropists or grant-makers across different interests and with different understanding sit at the same table as grant-receivers, there is a perceptible shift in power.   

Shloka Nath, the CEO of the India Climate Collaborative, where I work, talked about the power of diversity; it is difference and dissent that allow all of us to become smarter. As she joked, “my grandmother often says that if there are two people who agree on everything then that’s one person too many”. Conversation, dialogue, discussion, and embracing the democratic principles of having everyone’s voice heard, can move the entire field of philanthropy forward.  

One of the philanthropists the India Climate Collaborative works with, Mirik Gogri, who’s a part of a programme we have built called the India Climate Leaders Initiative, embodies that idea. Once a traditional investor who focused on technological solutions for climate change, he surrounded himself with a variety of opinions, which he has listened to, to understand why just one kind of approach is not enough. He has evolved his investing and philanthropic ideology because of this, and now works to bring others who are on their respective philanthropic journeys along with him, advocating for them to learn from each other.  

As I now reflect, those ideals which make a good leader – being willing to listen, take risks, question, and coalesce, dissent and dissect – are the same ideals that could make honest collaboration one of the tools this new generation of philanthropic leaders can embrace. It can allow them to take more risks, make bigger bets, help solve some of the world’s most confounding problems – like climate change – and do it together.  

Keya Madhvani Singh is the Head of Engagement, Strategy and Operations at the India Climate Collaborative. The ICC mobilises philanthropy towards climate action.