Funders in the U.S. philanthropic sector have tremendous financial wealth,   resources and power to support social change. They are also mostly risk averse   and their preferred method is to work solo and stick to the standard. But how   might funders interrogate and reimagine risk for greater impact as a field? How   might we transform the mindset, culture, practices and systems for collaboration   and innovation in philanthropy so funders are more adaptive to better meet   both emergent challenges and root problems?    Through literature review, user interviews with funders, analogous research for   inspiration from the field of design, government and technology, and evaluative   research for testing, my research examines the role of collaboration, risk and   innovation (and their intrinsic connection) for funders and the philanthropic   sector working for social justice in the U.S. I propose a human-centered,   participatory-based design thinking approach to enable collaborative innovation   for solutions and impact for the long haul.