GAC Member Talking Points for December 7 + December 8 Convening

Barriers to receiving funding:

● Lack of trust. We have so much to bring to the table. We are only asking for the same trust and
flexibility funders offer international organizations. CBOS are closest to the issues we work in and it’s
critical that funders recognize local organizations as experts.
● Personal relationships often dictate where funding goes.
○ It’s more difficult to get funding when we don’t have a personal connection to the donor
organization. We’ve had experiences where we submit proposals with large organizations, but
someone else will get the grant even if it’s not as well done as ours. This can be frustrating
because even if we have a really strong proposal, and put the time into writing it, there’s often
little to no chance of winning grants because of our lack of personal relationships with donor
organizations.
○ Funders often want to provide grants to organizations and people who they have worked with
before, but this means that grassroots organizations like mine are often blocked out of the
grantmaking process.
○ We don’t always have the right contacts at foundations who can provide sustainable funding.
○ Organizations without websites or an established presence are left out.
● It can be difficult to implement our projects because of funder expectations and the constantly
changing funding space.
○ Our projects are based on our local knowledge of what works in our communities. However,
we sometimes do not get funding unless we tailor our project according to the funder’s ideas
who isn’t on the ground. Staffing is one of the most important costs for our organizations.
However, funders do not like funding staffing costs, despite the fact our programs depend on
our staff to run. We get around this by sometimes hiring consultants but it is limiting. When
we get unrestricted funding without needing to shift our work, we can make a greater impact at
the local level.
○ We have to shift our own focus depending on the interest of the funders. For example, my
organization was previously working on projects with youth and women, but then climate
became the most pressing focus for funders and they started to redirect all of their money to
climate work. We had to immediately shift our focus even though the work we were doing to
support women was critical for our community. We had to shift our strategy to match with
their approach.
● There’s not a lot of transparency about how grant-making decisions are made. When we’re
rejected for a grant, it’s difficult to move forward when we do not get feedback. A lot of times we don’t
hear back from donors to know if there was something wrong with our approach to the grant
application. If we received some form of feedback, we would be able to learn and adjust our approach
for future grants.
● Funders are often overly focused on advocacy issues, rather than work on the ground. For
example, my organization works on agriculture issues and trains communities how to farm. We also
 provide environmental education to children. We host sessions on fishing and gardening and on tree
planting. These are direct actions that communities need in order to sustainably produce food and
protect local environments, but funders have recently only been focused on advocacy efforts around
fossil fuels and extraction. Of course these issues are critical for long-term sustainability, but we can’t
lose funding for more direct community actions.
● There are deeply rooted stereotypes and biases that infiltrate grantmaking. From over a decade
of experience applying for grants, we’ve heard many of the same excuses for why community-based
organizations can’t handle large donations. We’ve heard that CBOs lack the structure to receive larger
grants. This is far from the truth and there are harmful stereotypes that affect the amount of funding we
are given. Providing community-based organizations with larger grants allows us to actually build
capacity to do the work.
● Complex grant application processes with strict parameters.
○ It’s difficult when funders ask grassroots organizations for a lot of documentation that we
simply don’t have, so we need to work with larger organizations who have the right
documentation. It’s important for funders to meaningfully look at what documentation
they’re requiring and find ways to reduce certain requirements that are difficult for local
organizations to meet.
○ Our teams are made up of very local people, who have minimal experience presenting at a
forum or to grant-makers. When we are in meetings with donors, we are making the case for
funding in the wrong culture, and using the wrong etiquette because it is always their way of
doing things. Donors seem to want to pull CBOs into their own culture, which often forces us
to face an identity crisis.
○ Cultural differences also surface in grant requirements, where things like accountability,
reporting requirements, and trust are different to us because CBOs often come from political
structures that are still forming and evolving. The few organizations connecting with donors
are able to connect and adapt, but get all the money.
○ Funders look at how long your organization has been working, can be very difficult for
young/up and coming organizations .
○ It’s hard to know the language of grants and donors, and hard to understand what they want
from CBOs.
● Intense rigorous reporting mechanisms.
○ The more extensive and rigorous the requirements, the more time we have to spend on
administration and jumping through hoops rather than delivering impact in our work for
young people in our community.
○ Strenuous reporting requirements don’t serve our needs.
● Funding goes towards only pilot projects. It takes time to do the work we do.
● Sub-contracting and partnering with more well-known organizations.
○ We’ve often worked with funders as subcontractors to much larger NGOs, and do not get the
same protections or benefits. For instance, the funding the NGO receives covers staff
 allowances and insurance, but not for us as a CBO. Yet as the CBO the whole burden is on us,
in terms of reporting and accountability and delivering the work and transformation in the
community.
● CBO staffing expectations. Donors are looking for influential people, skilled people on the board
which is harder for a smaller organization to build and create. For example donors are looking for
someone to have several years of experience working in accounting. We know that we can train someone
to handle accounting, but this often does not satisfy grant-makers
● The mindset that funding is a gift to communities. Funding is solidarity with communities. This
is not a begging bowl – this is beyond a moral obligation, this is a structural obligation.
Actions funders can take:
● Offer more unrestricted funding. Grants that can cover staffing costs, allow us to make decisions
about what will work best for our communities and don’t need a lot of unnecessary reporting
requirements can help us make a greater impact locally.
● Share “winning” or successful proposals with notes on why they won. Ideally we’d receive
specific feedback on why our proposal was unsuccessful but know this may not be possible when
funders receive thousands of applications for grants. Sharing or publishing successful proposals will
offer community based organizations opportunities to learn.
● Let local organizations lead. It’s also critical that community-based organizations receive substantial
funding for longevity so we can do the work we know needs to be done to make change. Instead of
funders parachuting into our communities, moving from issue to issue and dictating what we need, we
need donors to provide adequate funding and meet us with genuine trust so that we are able to keep
the work going after grant programs have ended.
● Funders need to acknowledge the cultural differences that exist between grant-makers and
leaders of community-based organizations.
○ Donors can do more by meeting us closer to the middle – and bringing in individuals who
have more understanding of our culture, and also individuals who can help us better
understand etiquette and norms of their culture.
○ SHOFCO is a great example because they have staff that understand the norms of local
communities and also staff that understands the norms and expectations of donors and
philanthropists. When you look at others who are able to connect and speak the language of
the donors and the muscles, they have a real chance. Through this alliance and networking we
are able to work with SHOFCO who has more resources.
○ Learn the cultural needs and the community dynamics that local organizations understand.
● Let local organizations build their own board and staff teams that the community trusts. It is
more important to have staff that the community trusts than to have staff with a master’s degree – but
grant-makers do not see this and want the master’s degree. As a solution, CBOs need to be trusted to
build their own board and staff teams. CBOs can have an advisory board of consultants who can help
with grant-writing, proposals, and specialized projects. But donors must recognize that the people who
implement the work will not always be highly trained.
 ○ Establish power structures that inform strategies and program delivery.
● Philanthropic organizations must begin to champion alternative models that can be scaled up
and taken on by other foundations and bilaterals and multilaterals. We need to move towards
funding at the intersection of issues instead of focusing on siloing issues. We also need to shift the
emphasis to focus more on community-led funds. It’s time to focus on solutions that address the
underlying causes, and this requires significant investment in community-led organizations who can
design these solutions.

Questions:
● How can we convince large donors that direct funding to a small organization will bring a much greater
impact than indirect funding?
● Looking at organizations like SHOFCO and what they are doing – can we use them to close the gap
since they are more understanding of the struggles that grassroots organizations are going through?