As the 2018 BridgeBuilder Challenge comes to a close, we reflect on how the Challenge—like the ideas it funds—has continued to evolve based on community input, benefitting from its open innovation approach.
 
What was new about the Challenge this year:
 
Principles-based evaluation. For the 2018 Challenge, GHR Foundation deployed a principles-based evaluation of idea submissions that increased transparency. To improve and evolve the Challenge, GHR worked with the 2017 Top Ideas to identify and develop principles that would inform the evaluation they used in the 2018 cycle. Rather than focus on metrics and outcomes, a principles-based approach focuses on how an innovation addresses a problem.
 
“Using principles-based evaluation allowed us to focus on the question of ‘How do you work?’ more than the question of ‘What do you do?’ said Mark Guy, GHR Foundation senior program officer. “It’s the difference between cooking with a ‘season-to-taste’ approach and following a recipe. It allows for adaptability, which is important for projects that are operating in complex, dynamic environments.”
 
Increased global engagement. Building on its first year, the 2018 Challenge saw more than 675 ideas and participants from 195 countries and territories engage in the open innovation process, with a total of more than 6,000 comments on the platform, increased from 2,500 in 2017.
 
Translated materials and diverse experts. In 2018, the BridgeBuilder Challenge enhanced inclusion and accessibility by translating materials into seven languages and adding diverse experts to the process—nine volunteer OpenIDEO coaches from around the world were assigned to work with the group of 55 Shortlisted ideas as they advanced to the Refinement phase, helping them improve their concepts.
 
“The broad response to BridgeBuilder in just its first year was truly inspiring, but we recognize a need for resources to reach even deeper into communities around the world,” said Chris Berger, GHR Foundation director of communications. “Guided by the engagement principles we developed with the BridgeBuilder community, we’re striving to ‘meet people where they are,’ so that every individual feels included and supported. That’s why we translated our social posts, brief and criteria into seven languages and expanded our global support team.”
 
Not winning doesn’t mean losing. While one 2018 Top Idea is a returning challenge participant, teams who weren’t selected describe value in the process itself. Several participants who ultimately did not win the Challenge said the open innovation process attracted them to BridgeBuilder, where they’ve made new connections, received feedback from experts and beneficiaries and improved their idea for consideration by other funders.

The 2018 BridgeBuilder Challenge Top Ideas will be announced on Oct. 1, 2018. Learn more about the Challenge here.

GHR Foundation's Children in Families funding supports child protection interventions that strengthen families, respond to children without family care and drive further evidence of innovative approaches. ​An important part of this effort is supporting institutions making the transition from institutional care to family-based care, and a new partnership with the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) is widening the scope of this support.
 
CAFO, an organization composed of more than 190 organizations and more than 650 church members, recently launched the ‘Expanding Family Solutions Grant Challenge,’ which aims to support creative programs enabling more children to grow up within nurturing families. Through $50,000 in grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, the challenge will help organizations implement family care in innovative ways.
 
Potential projects will:

• Develop more robust gatekeeping and family tracing services
• Initiate an important element of an effective foster care program—from recruitment to certification to support
• Implement an advocacy campaign that helps donors understand and embrace family-based care
• Create a kinship care training program and support network
• Re-purpose current resources–such as medical care, psycho-social support, or schooling–in ways that help enable local children to remain with their biological families
• Create a daytime schooling or care program that permits parents to work, while still allowing them to raise their children
• Implement a critical element of a domestic adoption recruitment, placement and/or support program

 
Research shows children are healthiest when raised in families and family-like environments. By offering support for organizations beginning the transition to family care, CAFO and GHR are helping move the needle toward a world where all children are living in a stable, positive, long-term family or family-like environment. The deadline to apply for the Expanding Family Solutions Grant Challenge is September 30—if you are a CAFO member with a project that fits this challenge, we encourage you to apply! To learn more about how GHR is working with CAFO and other organizations to support child protection interventions​, contact us.