Blog: How do I envisage a resilient and impactful global majority organisation in 2030?

This blog by Janet Mawiy­oo (Gal­va­niz­ing Africa Con­sult / RINGO) was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Alliance Mag­a­zine.

At the 9th East African Phil­an­thropy Con­fer­ence, which took place in Kigali between 10–14 June 2025, over 400 par­tic­i­pants were buzzing with laugh­ter, excite­ment, eager­ness, hope­ful­ness, and antic­i­pa­tion as they nav­i­gat­ed their way through the diverse ses­sions curat­ed by the EAPN team.

In my view, although EAPN is an East African net­work, the mix of par­tic­i­pants and speak­ers was, strict­ly speak­ing, not just pan-African, but tru­ly glob­al. There were not only 32 dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties rep­re­sent­ed, but also large and mid-sized phil­an­thropic organ­i­sa­tions, cor­po­rate actors, ven­ture cap­i­tal types, and some front­line grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions. We were there­fore hon­oured to gain a full per­spec­tive on what is hap­pen­ing in dif­fer­ent spaces and, cru­cial­ly, what needs to change.

Right from the Mas­ter­class I attend­ed on Day 1, I noticed a thread of con­ver­sa­tion that seemed to address some reflec­tive ques­tions form­ing in my mind: What do we need to do as a sec­tor not just to sur­vive, but to thrive as impact­ful actors in these extreme­ly volatile times? How can our sec­tor ensure our voic­es are heard at the tables where the aid indus­try is shaped and curat­ed? In oth­er words, what must change – indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly- for us to remain impact­ful and true to our call­ing? It was tru­ly a week of reawak­en­ing!

It became clear to me that we could no longer sit on the fence. We must rise and reclaim our space—as long-term res­i­dents of the African con­ti­nent and of the world. As I sat in dif­fer­ent ses­sions and lis­tened, I became con­vinced, beyond any rea­son­able doubt, that the train reshap­ing the future of phil­an­thropic organ­i­sa­tions had already left the sta­tion!

My mind con­tin­ued to bub­ble with ques­tions as the days went by… and grad­u­al­ly, I began to build my own the­o­ry of change: If we, as indi­vid­u­als and phil­an­thropic organ­i­sa­tions in our dif­fer­ent spaces, took time to re-engi­neer our­selves and imple­ment­ed the key actions we were com­mit­ting to, what would be the marks of the emerg­ing, resilient, and impact­ful glob­al major­i­ty organ­i­sa­tions five years from now?

As the week came to a close, my reflec­tions solid­i­fied around the fol­low­ing four clus­ters, which I believe will be key mark­ers of effec­tive organ­i­sa­tions capa­ble of thriv­ing in the com­plex­i­ties of our times, espe­cial­ly by the long-await­ed 2030:

1. Engaging local constituencies

Organ­i­sa­tions will no longer pri­mar­i­ly prac­tise a North­ern-focused account­abil­i­ty to their fun­ders. Going for­ward, they will embrace their local con­stituen­cies and view them not as mere ben­e­fi­cia­ries, but as crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers – hold­ers of pow­er, knowl­edge, and diverse resources that must be val­ued appro­pri­ate­ly. As organ­i­sa­tions con­sid­er what has been received exter­nal­ly, they will also count both finan­cial and non-finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions from com­mu­ni­ties.

A key mark­er will be the pres­ence of robust report­ing mech­a­nisms that reflect these local con­tri­bu­tions, with at least 15–20 per cent of total fund­ing com­ing from such sources. These may include local com­mu­ni­ties active­ly involved in shap­ing inter­ven­tions, teach­ers, com­mu­ni­ty work­ers, retirees, shop­keep­ers, SMEs, and corporates—all eager to part­ner with and sup­port impact­ful local organ­i­sa­tions.

2. A diversified and balanced funding portfolio

Future organ­i­sa­tions will have more bal­anced fund­ing ratios, ide­al­ly no one source con­tribut­ing more than 20–35% of the total. Any devi­a­tions will be short-term, with the board and man­age­ment active­ly work­ing to cor­rect them. This approach ensures organ­i­sa­tions remain true to their mis­sion and are not over­ly influ­enced by pow­er­ful donors push­ing exter­nal agen­das.

3. Prominence of coalitions and partnerships in policy influence

The organ­i­sa­tion of the future will lead and par­tic­i­pate active­ly in key coali­tions and part­ner­ships focused on influ­enc­ing gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in rel­e­vant areas. One clear take­away from Kigali was that suc­cess­ful organ­i­sa­tions will recog­nise they can­not achieve mean­ing­ful change alone. The future will favour sys­tem-lev­el approach­es over iso­lat­ed, high-pro­file pilots.

These organ­i­sa­tions will pri­ori­tise last­ing, sys­temic change over brand­ing or vis­i­bil­i­ty. Like­wise, their fun­ders will sup­port ground­ed, com­mu­ni­ty-informed pro­grammes rather than impos­ing their own pri­or­i­ties. Giv­en the grow­ing dis­par­i­ties in many coun­tries, it is vital that gov­ern­ments become more effec­tive in ser­vice deliv­ery, with NGOs both sup­port­ing and hold­ing them account­able.

Invest­ing more staff time in part­ner­ships, coali­tion work, and pol­i­cy engage­ment will be a key mark­er of a thriv­ing future organ­i­sa­tion.

4. Internal health and communications

Suc­cess­ful organ­i­sa­tions of the future will be smart about inter­nal gov­er­nance, start­ing with vision­ary board mem­bers who under­stand their crit­i­cal role and pri­ori­tise trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion. These boards will lead by exam­ple, ensure capa­ble man­age­ment, over­see staff well­be­ing holis­ti­cal­ly, and pre­pare for smooth lead­er­ship tran­si­tions.

A healthy organ­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture will be non-nego­tiable. Future phil­an­thropic organ­i­sa­tions will oper­ate fru­gal­ly, aim­ing to keep costs low rather than impress­ing with lav­ish donor-fund­ed over­heads. Many will move into sim­ple, owned offices ear­ly on, free­ing up resources for their core work.

They will update their struc­tures, embrace tech­nol­o­gy and AI, and adopt reserve poli­cies to build resilience. Social enter­pris­es, run by skilled pro­fes­sion­als, will emerge to gen­er­ate flex­i­ble, unre­strict­ed fund­ing. Pro­gres­sive fun­ders will sup­port these efforts with flex­i­ble mech­a­nisms, recog­nis­ing that less stressed, inter­nal­ly healthy teams are more resilient and mis­sion-dri­ven.

In con­clu­sion, the organ­i­sa­tion of the future will be less vul­ner­a­ble to fund­ing shifts because it will be root­ed in the com­mu­ni­ties it serves and oper­ate cost-effec­tive­ly. Such organ­i­sa­tions will have a seat at inter­na­tion­al fund­ing tables as scarci­ty per­sists and fun­ders become more strate­gic.

I remain hope­ful that we will wit­ness real trans­for­ma­tion in our sec­tor, because that is the only way to remain rel­e­vant in the years ahead.

Pho­to by Markus Win­kler on Unsplash