Collaborative Fund: Closing a Chapter and Charting a New Path

The Collaborative Fund: Closing a Chapter and Charting a New Path

Author: Dr Harris Lygidakis, WONCA CEO

In 2023, WONCA introduced the Collaborative Fund with a simple yet ambitious goal: to take bright ideas and give them the spark they needed to become reality. It was a bold experiment. We invited our Working Parties (WPs) and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to share their ideas and collaborate on solutions to some of the most pressing issues in family medicine.

And in many ways, the Collaborative Fund succeeded. It sparked creativity and turned abstract discussions into something tangible. From across our community, we received eleven proposals—each thoughtful, each rooted in the desire to make a difference. Two of these stood out:

• The Family Violence Project, a Train-the-Trainer initiative designed to equip family doctors with the skills and resources needed to address and prevent family violence.
• The Digital Health Project, aimed at identifying a core digital health curriculum and embedding training into family medicine education to better prepare healthcare professionals for the future.

But as much as the Collaborative Fund achieved, it also taught us some tough lessons. Crowdfunding, as it turns out, is a steep hill to climb. Raising enough money from small individual donors to fund even small-scale projects proved difficult. And we learned something crucial along the way: for big ideas to truly take flight, they need more than a spark—they need structure and sustained support.

As a result, we’ve made the decision to sunset the Collaborative Fund. That doesn’t mean its story is over; its legacy continues. Over the past year, we developed the two selected projects into comprehensive proposals.

The Family Violence and Digital Health projects have now become bold, ambitious plans with the potential to reshape family medicine. But to bring them to life, we’re now seeking sponsors—philanthropic organizations, governments, private partners, and others who share our vision of a healthier world.

A Thank You to Our Community

None of this would have been possible without you—our members, Working Parties, and Special Interest Groups. You believed in the Collaborative Fund and contributed your ideas, your energy, and your faith. You helped turn ideas into something real, laying the foundation for the next phase of our work.

A special thanks goes to the teams behind the two selected projects, whose work and trust have laid the foundation for the next phase of this journey:

• The Working Party on eHealth, the Working Party on Research, and the Special Interest Group on Policy Advocacy for the Digital Health project.
• The Special Interest Group on Family Violence, the Special Interest Group on Emergencies, the Young Doctors Movements, and the Working Party on Women in Family Medicine for the Family Violence project.

The Road Ahead

Generating ideas is just the beginning. To turn those ideas into real-world solutions, we need to provide deeper support for project development. This insight is guiding our next steps.

In December, we’ll be announcing a new initiative that builds on these lessons, taking the best of the Collaborative Fund and shaping it into something impactful. We can’t wait to share what’s coming.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Together, we’re creating meaningful change—not just for family medicine, but for the patients and communities we serve around the world.