Seven years have passed since the Global Summit on Community Philanthropy in Johannesburg where the hashtag #ShiftThePower emerged as a rallying cry for change, and four since the Pathways to Power Symposiumin London.
First responders and the contributions made by other Malawians had been “erased” from the narratives on humanitarian response to cyclone Freddy.
One of the things I struggled with early on when I started to understand the #ShiftThePower movement was the concept of “trust”. The idea was strange to me; during discussions around the concept, I asked if it was genuinely possible to trust that an organization could do the work independently without being held to so many checks and due diligence processes.
Carrying on in the middle of violent conflict requires skill, resilience, and nous. For the Palestinians, the last 100 years have brought colonisation, expulsion, and military occupation, followed by a long and difficult search for self-determination and for coexistence with the nation they hold responsible for their suffering and loss.
Although collaboration is an old practice among philanthropic organizations, the idea of “collaborative philanthropy” in Brazil is relatively new and is a concept still under construction. Here in Brazil, collaboration is creating new relationships in the field of philanthropy for social justice. It all started in 2021.
The #ShiftThePower movement is picking up momentum, gathering strength and moving at an amazing pace. Communities and donors have started to talk about it. We are seeing the energy, motion, relationships, reach, connections, direction, trends and facilitation being done. The new look at development, changing mind-sets, trying new alternatives for enduring communities is in the works.
External resources are only a modest contribution to the gigantic efforts and contribution that the communities make daily. They are the “starting point.” Without it, there is no possible development project.
Canoes working together are better than boats with just one captain. The various canoes distribute power and decision-making influence in a way that creates income at scale and inclusive development. When a few people want to cross a river they might use a canoe, but if the people are many, one canoe is not enough. Community philanthropy happens when the canoe that is being used ceases to be enough. To cross the river with more people, you need connected canoes moving together and looking out for each other. This has been our guiding philosophy in Baixada Maranhense.
From a distance the development sector looks well. Get interested. Establish a local community organization and try your luck in the “do good” sector. Write proposals. Get regrets, rejections and finally get picked. Meet all the due diligence requirements. Sign the contract. Get a few dollars. Start implementing. Write reports. Monitor. Audit. Evaluate. Write reports. Repeat.
We were unhappy with the current system, which is extractive and reductive in terms of capturing the complexity of our work. Moreover, it was also unaffordable to us: there is an entire industry of monitoring and evaluation that has a standard of payment that we would never be able to meet. But we also did not want to simply do a cheaper version of the conventional model. We needed to develop a new paradigm.
