While funder collaboratives often make it possible for foundations to magnify their impact and facilitate learning, they require shared goals, adaptability and flexibility, careful monitoring and evaluation, and a realistic understanding of partners' objectives and challenges, a report from the Bridgespan Group finds. Commissioned by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the report, Lessons in Funder Collaboration (34 pages, PDF), examined sixty-five funder collaboratives the foundation has engaged in across five program areas and found that they ranged from the lower end of the "integration model" — exchanging knowledge and coordinating funding — to "high stakes donor collaboration," which includes co-investing in existing entities, joining forces to create new entities, and funding other funders with expertise in a specific field. According to the report, Packard both led collaborations and followed others' leads, depending on a variety of factors, including its perceived expertise in an issue area, availability of staff resources, and its interest in driving strategy around a specific issue. The report also points out that the staff resources required by an effective collaborative is less a function of dollars invested than the collective capacity of other funders and the funded entity, the degree to which funders have worked together in the past, and transition points over the course of a collaboration.