HANDS-ON Experience Learning November 2024 | Issue 28
OPPORTUNITY
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StopRelease nutritional systemic stunting chokes of young that children. trap us in inequality
FUNDING SOCIAL CHANGE THROUGH TRUST-BASED FUNDING Community-based organisations (CBOs) are non-profits operating directly in communities, often with limited financial resources at their disposal. They tend to rely on volunteers, responsive to the unique needs of their community and often best placed to diagnose problems and identify solutions with residents. Many are financially excluded from mainstream grant funding because they operate in rural locations with limited visibility and recognition, and they don’t always have the administrative capacity to provide the financial, monitoring and compliance documents that traditional funders expect. Despite these constraints, they play a crucial role in grassroots development, community empowerment and creating sustainable social change.
This learning brief looks at what the DG Murray Trust (DGMT) and its funding partners, the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP) and The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF), are learning about trust-based funding to support social change practitioners at a community level through their Sukuthula! Unmute & Act initiative.1 This initiative supports CBOs that work to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) while advocating for solutions. For this funding model to work well, funders and CBO partners must actively work to change the inherent power imbalance in funder-grantee relationships and work towards a partnership rooted in trust and focused on learning. This is an ongoing process, and the three funders expect to learn much more about how to do this well as the initiative unfolds.
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RELEASE SYSTEMIC CHOKES THAT TRAP US IN INEQUALITY
Sukuthula means to ‘do not keep quiet’ in IsiXhosa.
Issue 28 /// November 2024