Recently, from a couple of different sources, we heard various forms of this (paraphrased):
“Rainmatter Foundation is all ideas, no action”.
(Like everything else) This got us thinking.
One way of looking at this is that it’s heartening that many out there are expecting more than just funding from the foundation, and the statement is an expression of frustration in situations that expectation was not met. We’ve striven to be partners and a part of the informal network that represents various pushes to address the climate crisis, and it’s in a way good to see we’re being considered that.
On the situations themselves, there were a few we could think of.
The most straightforward one was where our current understanding or thinking, or approach/belief was not aligned to what a particular effort was attempting. Of course we’re nobody to sit in judgement over what might work, and honestly, a whole variety of things are indeed necessary to solve at every level for this large a problem. However, at any point of time for any org or even coalition an approach becomes important, and there’s a sense of what is/isn’t a lever from our pov. It might change, but for coherence and to avoid paralysis, you end up with these biases. Not always right, but it’s what it is. This can feel like and has felt like “inaction” in a few cases.
Another situation is where a conversation starts and doesn’t develop further. We’re super-cognizant that we’re neither on-ground actors, not primary drivers unless that gets identified as a role explicitly with partners in a context. So we defer to partners orgs for the most part and don’t want ideas and efforts to become Rainmatter-driven.
Of course, there are instances where some of us genuinely, honestly and enthusiastically end up biting more than we can chew, and slip on following up. We’re forever checking for this and trying to figure out ways to fix this. This is on us and we will continue to try and fix it. We will also try communicate better and clearly when there’s an experimental “let’s see where this goes” attempt, so that expectations are set and yet, we allow for experimentation - some amazing things have come off that!
A request we have is to bring it to our attention easily and freely. We’re more imperfect than most orgs given the magnitude and vastness of the problem we’re attempting to deal with, and given the ever larger network of partners, coalitions and networks we’re trying to work with to make this happen,esp with just a dozen people at our end. But we’re happy to listen, ack the issue and try fix it. In fact our best relationships are where our partners and us are on regular calls for mutual updates, where we get homework assigned to us as well, and where have been called out one on one when partners felt something was amiss or needed improvment.
Indeed, at the other end of the spectrum, folks have also mentioned sometimes that there was too much action from our end creating some confusion, and we’ve backed off. So the whole spectrum of engagements happens 
Finally, we’re NOT the on ground actors, or the key nodes in action networks. Where things move ahead well, we have solid partners who proactively raise their hands to define/lead/anchor things and we’re happy to follow.
We’re always up for a free and open discussion and debate on how to organize things, how to pace them and who needs to pick up what responsibilities. Do reach out anytime you think we need to be more action, or fewer words - both as Rainmatter and as individuals who play roles as part of it!