As we prepare to launch the first initiative of Early Milestones Colorado’s (Milestones) Impact on Equity Fund, the Milestones team has been thinking and talking a lot about Pooled Funds. This kind of collaborative funding is really in our DNA. In fact, Milestones was created thanks to six local funders who pooled their funding and support to bring a concept to life.

Since 2015, Milestones has led collaborative fund initiatives in areas such as early childhood mental health and the early care and learning workforce. We have distributed more than $35 million and supported more than 230 grantees in every Colorado county. These initiatives have allowed us to partner with many funders and hundreds of impactful organizations. It has also allowed us to hone our approach for greater impact.

We’ve learned a lot through these opportunities and partnerships. We are excited to put this learning into action through the Impact on Equity Fund. And we thought we’d start by sharing some of our Lessons Learned here.

Across these initiatives and partnerships, three guideposts emerged for all our work:

• Relationships are at the center of systems change.
• The communities closest to the challenge are the best equipped to help create solutions.
• Systems work takes time and trusted connections, both on the ground and with partners from practitioners to elected officials..

Throughout these initiatives, Milestones actively listened, surveyed, and studied our roles and practices to best support our partners’ success and amplify impact. Several lessons emerged in this, too:

• Milestones’ expert support, tailored to individual grantee needs, is integral to grantee success.
• Advisory committees provide essential perspectives, from grassroots to grasstops.
• Evaluation of projects advances both on-the-ground learning and strategic thinking to advance policy change.
• Impact gets noticed. Many Milestones’ grantee projects are scaled, thanks to new funding partners and policy change.

We can’t wait to put this learning into action in the Impact on Equity Fund. Here are a few of the ways we will implement these learnings through this new Pooled Fund:

• Centering community experience – building grant processes that are equity, inclusion, and trust-driven and prioritize the voices of those closest to the challenges.
• Creating a diverse advisory committee that helps with support and expert guidance.
• Prioritizing efforts with a system-building focus.
• Continuing to embrace the research-practice-policy loop.

We are incredibly grateful to all our funders and grantees for their trust and partnership. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for an announcement of the first initiative of the Impact on Equity Fund!