As we undertook this work, we came to appreciate the depth of our personal conditioning as well as that of the staff, leadership, and organisations that engaged in these conversations. We became more aware of the extent to which our own personal perspectives and those of others involved in the discussions have been shaped by existing norms and practices of aid.
On 9th May 2023, the Global Fund for Community Foundation hosted a meeting with Deepthy Menon in conversation with Barry Knight on Measuring What Matters. The following are extracts from the meeting repurposed into a written Q&A to extend this conversation to a wider audience.
A diverse, multifaceted movement aiming to promote greater visibility of the agendas and practices of community and social justice philanthropy in Brazil.
Given its nature of being an interpersonal endeavour, the human-centred mentorship process is a complex array of responsibilities that requires continuous symbiotic collaboration between mentor and mentee. It also requires a deeper holistic focus on the individual with mentee development (personal and professional) being the outcome.
Are you involved in exciting, trailblazing and experimental grassroots or community-led work? Are you interested in being part of broader efforts to shift power and build the (civil) society we want by helping to connect the dots between innovative and emergent practices around the world? Do you want to dig into questions of “systems change” in international philanthropy and development aid with other like-minded peers? Are you interested in connecting with others like you around the world, both to learn and share, but also to strengthen the collective voice and muscle of local actors? If this sounds like you, then read on!
At the Centre for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) in The Philippines, we have always dreamed of contributing to system change in development. But we were also conscious that persuading and encouraging those in the status quo will always be difficult as they wittingly or unwittingly contribute to perpetuating the system we seek to transform.
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.
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.
Local organizations receiving funding are, by default, expected to transparently share intimate details about themselves (When were you founded? Who is on your board? Who are your donors? What do your policies look like?… For fear of seeming difficult to work with, local organizations will not risk asking equally pertinent questions about the potential partners that they intend to collaborate with.
Systems thinkers are notoriously bad at describing what it is they do, and what they mean. So I am going to try and give the simplest possible explanation that was taught to me recently. A system is a group of things (people, organizations, networks etc.) that are seen by someone as interacting together to do something.
