SIX X – Grant Multiplier

The bottleneck in social change isn’t strategy. It’s the person expected to hold it all together.

Foundations invest a great deal of time and money into their grants programmes because they want the organisations they support to succeed. But the leaders running those organisations – the people with the greatest influence over whether that investment actually pays off – rarely get any targeted support of their own.

Compare that to tech startups. As well as funding, they get coaching because accelerator programmes know coached founders make better decisions, build stronger teams and scale more effectively. The evidence backs it up: studies consistently show a 5-7x return on investment. But the social impact sector hasn’t yet caught up. The people carrying the world’s most complex, under-resourced, high-stakes work are routinely left to figure it out alone.

We think that gap – not a shortage of talent or vision – is what quietly limits how far great programmes can go.

Our approach

SIX X is a nine-month leadership cohort programme for 6-8 pioneering CEOs and founders leading social innovation organisations.

Rather than skills training, we create conditions for transformative peer learning and reorientation toward distributed leadership.

The design

    • 6-8 participants from organisations in different sectors, geographies, and stages

    • 6 in-person sessions across 9 months (early sessions build relationships; later ones focus on follow-through and accountability)

    • Peer support infrastructure between sessions (WhatsApp network, 1:1 peer partnerships)

    • Pre-programme 1:1 diagnostics to understand each leader’s specific challenges

    • Executive coaching grounded in established approaches to reflective, values-led leadership

    • Post-programme alumni fellowship to sustain the peer network and practice

What we’re really doing

We’re not teaching leadership skills. We’re creating a container for unlearning — a space where leaders can:

  • Share power, not just hold onto it — testing what it looks like to lead by enabling others, rather than controlling every decision
  • Be honest about what isn’t working — bringing real problems and mistakes into the conversation, instead of only sharing what’s going well
  • Think in systems, not just about their own organisation — seeing their work as one part of a bigger, connected picture, rather than something to manage in isolation
  • Build teams that can think for themselves — developing the skills to let good judgment happen across a team, not just from the top ⬇️

What leaders take away

  • A group of peers they’ll keep turning to long after the programme ends
  • Practical ways of leading through pressure and uncertainty
  • A clearer view of what needs to change in how their own organisation is run
  • A shared standard of success that values the health of the whole group, not just individual wins

Why this matters now

Leadership programmes built for calmer, more predictable times don’t hold up well against what these leaders are actually facing today. What they need is a room of peers who understand the same pressures, permission to say “I don’t have this figured out,” and practical support in building organisations that can adapt rather than just hold the line.

SIX X is designed for the world these leaders are working in now – not the one leadership training was originally built for.

The bottom line

You’ve already done the hard work of finding the right organisations and the right leaders. SIX X protects that investment. It’s the missing piece between a strong grant and a grant that fulfils its full potential – support for the one variable every foundation depends on, but few actually resource: the person at the helm.

Interested in what a cohort designed around your grantees could look like? [Get in touch]

Testimonial

“We brought SIX into our Resilience Fund grant programme because we wanted to invest in the leaders, not just the projects. What we didn’t expect was how much it would change the quality of conversation – between the individual leaders themselves, and between us and our charity partners. The senior voluntary sector leaders came back from each session with sharper thinking, more honest about what they didn’t know, and more connected to peers navigating the same complexity. We continued into the second cohort because the evidence was in front of us: stronger leaders, and organisations that were stronger as a result.”

Berkeley Foundation

From related readings

Explore further readings from our friends and partners.

Social innovation in a changing world – EdelGive with SIX Roundtable Discussion

On 9-10 October 2025, we gathered 18 friends of SIX for a roundtable discussion on the role of social innovation in the world today. We wanted to understand how other organisations from different sectors in Europe are navigating this challenging moment and how they are responding. By understanding where the gaps are, we can direct … Social innovation in a changing world – EdelGive with SIX Roundtable Discussion