This work is the result of partnership between Collaborate, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch) and the Big Lottery Fund. It is based on UK-wide research with 40 structured interviews, a number of group sessions and informal conversations with a wide range of leaders within the independent funding sector (including a workshop held at the Association of Charitable Funders annual conference). It draws on Collaborate's wider work across public services, and reflects expertise and analysis from a number of organisations and commentators looking at the sector from the outside in. The purpose was to substantiate the initial thinking developed in a first paper, work with a wider range of funders, and develop lines of inquiry and practical solutions using the framework which had been set about the funding ecology
