The Dutch Relief Alliance (DRA) is a coalition of 14 Dutch aid organisations in partnership with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The DRA partners are: CARE Nederland; Cordaid; Dorcas; Oxfam Novib; Plan International; Help a Child; Save the Children; SOS Children’s Villages The Netherlands; Stichting Vluchteling; Tearfund NL; Terre des Hommes; War Child; World Vision; and ZOA. The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ) partners with the DRA by funding Joint Responses. The DRA was established in 2015 by 10 Dutch humanitarian NGOs, which started cooperating in 2014 on three crises – South Sudan, Ebola and Iraq. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ), which was funding the relief projects, saw an opportunity for a large-scale, lean funding model. The NGOs and MFA have since established a mechanism that goes far beyond a fully operational humanitarian funding modality – which would have been a major achievement in itself. The DRA is not so much about what we are but what we want to achieve. We aim to become a leading example for humanitarian reform, in line with the Grand Bargain Commitments and Core Humanitarian Standards. It is as much an approach as an alliance. At the heart of the DRA is ‘putting the Grand Bargain commitments into practice’. The sector now recognises that the ‘what’ in humanitarian responses is less of an issue than the ‘how’. This is where the DRA is breaking ground. We are committed to a joint vision and finding ways to realise it together as an alliance. The DRA is a continuous global testing ground on the operationalisation of Grand Bargain (GB) and Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) commitments such as localisation, multi-year funding and programming, accountability and community engagement.