Tools & Resources to Shift Power to Communities
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Looking at your role/function within your foundation.
What are listening practices that can shift power?
Assess how you are listening through a set of reflection questions.
Are you involved in global grantmaking?
If you are a funder making grants outside the U.S., you can still listen and shift power directly to impacted communities or indirectly through intermediaries that are trusted by and accountable to impacted communities.
Get going with these tools and resources
Six principles to help your foundation develop strategies that increase accountability, shift power, and center communities in service of advancing justice and equity.
This approach can guide your foundation to partner with and fund community-led efforts that create systemic change by empowering communities as drivers of their own agendas.
This case study shares Equality Fund’s efforts to fund an ecosystem by asking the community to make decisions about how to prioritize limited resources in a non-competitive way. Apply the key learnings to design a funding process that better meets the needs of your grantee partners and the broader community.
FRIDA Fund documents a unique model of participatory grantmaking that you can use to consider ways that a participatory approach can transform power dynamics, create solidarity, and increase your connection to the people and communities at the heart of your work.
Through a participatory research project, GlobalGiving shares what community members define as “community led.” Apply this definition and the learnings to help you identify, support, and strengthen your own community-led approaches.
A longstanding grantee partner, GFCF offers information and guidance to funders interested in building community philanthropy, where the emphasis is on local resources and capabilities, as an essential element of people-led development around the world.
Get inspired by what other funders are doing
With a strong commitment to raising youth voices and ensuring that young people inform its work, Global Fund for Children (GFC) works closely with an active Youth Leadership Council (YLC). Representing different countries and holding unique experiences of activism across sectors, the YLC’s 11 members play an important role in GFC’s strategic planning, program development, and grantmaking processes. The YLC’s chair also sits on GFC’s governing board. A position on the YLC is a volunteer role but members are paid an annual fee and are also compensated for other time commitments. Additionally, they gain access to networking, capacity development, and other career-enhancing opportunities.
Explore this menu to spark the changes you want to see.
Mix and match to find the examples, resources, and reflections best suited to help you and your organization shift power to the people and communities at the heart of your work.
Have questions about the menu or ideas for resources or examples?
Please reach out to our communications manager, Debra Blum.
