Cohere’s position paper calls for a fundamental rethinking of how humanitarian financing and due diligence are practised. Current systems, designed largely by and for donors in the global North, rely on institutional paperwork as a proxy for trust. These systems often exclude the very organisations closest to communities affected by displacement.
In November of 2010 eight young feminists from Africa, Asia, The Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, The United States, and Eastern Europe gathered in Beirut, Lebanon to envision what would become FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund.
There is something about this term “self-published” that downplays the local funding provided by communities in supporting the literary arts.
At NTT, we have always wanted to set ourselves apart from the western INGO model of grantmaking.
A funder recently told me how they do not work on ”identity politics.” I was confused by this because we both acknowledged that civil society …
In these challenging times, we need these home-grown, home-owned initiatives focused on fostering both financial support and solidarity. In my opinion, and guided by the wisdom of our ancestors, both are essential.
The reliance – even dependency – of large sections of southern civil society on international donor funding has long been an uncomfortable truth in our sector. A truth that has been easy to bat away, a can kicked down the road, tomorrow’s business. All of it perilously resting on the assumption of the current funding paradigm.
No one ever claims to hold power within philanthropy. I have met countless people who are well paid, who hold positions of power and/or are backed by endowments. Many of these always refer to another unknown power. From directors to project officers, trustees to backdoor funders; all of them referred to some other power over and above them. This is how systems work. They lie in nuance and ambiguity whilst explicit through tools and controls. Invisible, but always void of any of the accountability it demands of others. When it dies, it tends to implode in and of itself, rather than be dismantled externally.
It’s striking how enduring the logframe has been. Perhaps because many organisations were smaller and more centralised then, adoption was easier. Or perhaps once embedded in donor systems, it was too difficult to dislodge. It often feels like an attempt to nail spaghetti to a wall — to force complex, relational, adaptive work into a linear accountability framework.
Here’s what I’ve observed: the things we try to reform are rarely the ones that matter most. Reform tends to fixate on what can be measured, managed, and credited—where reformers still believe control is within reach—while quietly avoiding what they don’t understand, where control is harder to find. And nothing, I’d argue, is more misunderstood—or more resistant to control—than the gift.
