New report and tools from Firelight give donors practical tools to #shiftthepower in their grantmaking

In partnership with community-based organizations across eastern and southern Africa, Firelight is delighted to launch a new framework for grantmaking strategies that create effective, sustainable change with communities leading the way.

The report, Community-Driven Systems Change: The Power of Grassroots-Led Change for Long Term Impact and How Funders Can Nurture It, provides foundations, philanthropists and other donors with practical actions they can take and questions they can ask themselves to move away from Global-North directed programming towards a model that centers the leadership and expertise of communities and community-based organizations in social change.

“The future of international development philanthropy must be rooted in the knowledge and experience of the people who are best positioned to bring about meaningful change — community members themselves. In this report, we have laid the groundwork to help philanthropic institutions understand where existing practices are falling short and how they can rise to this historic moment and refocus on funding lasting, systemic change led by community-based organizations.” Dr. Sadaf Shallwani, Director of Learning and Evaluation at the Firelight Foundation

Firelight’s report was created over a three-year period across nine countries, beginning in 2017. The Firelight Foundation undertook a process of inquiry, learning, co-creation, and validation with community-based organizations (CBOs) that produced these recommendations for philanthropic reform.

The report provides a robust outline for how funders can center CBOs in their philanthropic work by moving through the “what, why, and how” of community-driven systems change. The report highlights the gap between how the global development sector and CBOs from eastern and southern Africa conceptualize success, effectiveness, and sustainability, while providing tools for donors to bring their work more into alignment with CBOs on the ground in communities.

See more at www.firelightfoundation.org/cdsc