When Local Solutions Aren't Enough: A Strategic Funding Partnership to Restore a Large River System

Abstract

Keywords: Collective impact, watershed restoration, funding partnership, Willamette River, Meyer Memorial Trust, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, watershed council, environmental restorationIntroductionFunders collaborate in many ways to increase the of their grantmaking on complex societal problems. They come together as affinity groups to learn from subject-matter experts and one another. They may also pool resources to address common priorities or co-fund campaigns that are difficult for institutions acting alone to support at a meaningful level.Until recently, however, relatively few grantmakers have entered into formal strategic partnerships with other funders and stakeholders aimed at achieving specific goals and objectives in a defined area of need. Such impact approaches to catalyzing large-scale social change, as described by Mark Kramer and John Kania in the Winter 2011 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review and other publications, have great potential to improve outcomes by aligning stakeholders from philanthropy, nonprofits, business, and government around common priorities, strategies, and measures of success. To date, funder experimentation with the collective model has focused largely on examples from human services, public health, and education, but a modified collective framework may also be suited to tackling complex, large-scale environmental challenges. In Oregon, a network of public and private funders, their grantees, and key partner organizations are experimenting with collective principles in a 10-year collaboration aimed at improving the health of the Wil lamette River system. In 2012, the International River Foundation awarded the Willamette River collaboration with the Thiess International Riverprize for best practices in river management.The goals of this article are to (1) describe the rationale behind the nontraditional funding initiative developed by the Oregon partners, (2) describe the actions and strategies being deployed, and (3) identify key challenges and lessons learned to date, with specific reference to the collective framework. In sharing our approach, we seek feedback that will help us refine and improve our own efforts. We also hope to encourage other funders to experiment with unconventional approaches to addressing complex environmental problems.The ProblemAs ever-greater demands are placed on freshwater resources, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and community groups are pursuing a variety of approaches to protect and restore river systems and the landscapes they drain - usually referred to as watersheds or basins (see Figure 1 for an overview of watershed restoration terms and tools). Top-down policy or regulatory approaches, while desirable for their consistency and enforceability, can be a poor fit for physically, demographically, and jurisdictionally complex watersheds. Such solutions frequently encounter resistance at the local level. Moreover, evidence suggests that locally endorsed, collaborative initiatives may provide one of the best means for addressing restoration and management challenges at the watershed or ecosystem scale (Bonnell and Koontz, 2007; Moseley 1999; Born and Genskow 2001). As a result, governments at all levels and many communities are turning to local solutions to stream and river restoration challenges.It has been estimated that public and private funders invest an average of $1 billion each year on river and stream restoration (Bernhardt et al., 2005), and local efforts have produced thousands of individual restoration projects across the U.S., such as fencing to keep livestock out of streams, removal of small dams, and tree planting in streamside areas. However, as yet there is little evidence that these projects have produced outcomes on the scale needed to reverse hundreds of years of environmental damage. …