The standard practice for securing resources by local civil society organisations is that funders and INGOs issue large funding calls asking civil society to respond to their requests, priorities and meet their criteria. INGOs are the dominant civil society partner in most funding relationships, so tend to hold most of the power in relationships with local actors, and in turn may issue their own direct in-country call for partners. As a consequence, local actors respond to internationally-driven priorities and frameworks in order to sustain themselves, rather than what they may actually want or need for their communities. They end up being ‘subcontractors’ or implementing partners to INGOs with little agency or ownership.
The ‘Reverse Call for Proposals’ puts local civil society in control. Local organisations involved in the prototype will issue a ‘call for proposals’ to international actors to provide support for locally-determined endeavours. Local organisations (through networks) would vet the potential of international actors – funders and INGOs — to support them and meet their local needs. This could be in the form of financial or in-kind support: technical, administrative, expertise, knowledge, advocacy or more. It could be a short-term relationship or building a longer-term partnership.
Click here to read a summary of learnings from the prototyping process (February 2025).
Cliquez ici pour lire un résumé des enseignements tirés du processus de prototypage (février 2025)
Haga clic aquí para leer un resumen de lo aprendido en el proceso de prototipado (febrero de 2025)
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[Photo of Jack Kalipenta from ZGF holding a meeting to discuss a partnership with Plan International Zambia (PIZ) team and the Nyankanga Community Foundation in the Nyankanga community, Chisamba district, Zambia]
This is a very good approach as it responds to the actual community needs and it is a co-creation of innovations that work. As the African Coalition of Communities Responsive to Climate Change (www.accrcc.org) , we look forward to working with you to create innovations around addressing climate-induced mental health issues in Africa.
Our organisation Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch (CAMGEW) will like to be part of this process. It is very interesting and represent our challenges as a grassroot organisation. We are presently developing our new strategic plan 2026 — 2030 and it should be ready in December 2025. We will be glad to have this activities and other budget lines budgeted year by year and presented to donors to call for their support. This will be amazing. It will be a learning process for our team and for other organisations around us. It will shift the mindset and start preparing us for change. We will be happy to learn about this so we serve as a model for others to learn, share and demonstrate. This will promote participation, accountability and transparency as it will need to be shown in audited reports.
We will be happy to learn more. We will read the notes or guide and case study today and tomorrow and get back to you. I am happy I see this well develop as I was one of those who were consulted to give his views on Shifting the Power by WASCI through Jimm. I did admire this as I could see someone or institution feeling our pain and frustration and trying to address it. We have been suffering because when we build our staff to stay they move to INGO because of better pay as the field is not level in terms of funding and we can not pay our team nor fund our activities like the INGOs. Thanks RINGO for this initiative.
Thanks so much
Thanks for the Case study on Reverse Funding. I did read and learned much from it. I will share among our team members. We hope to test as indicated above.
Our regards