Reflections From the #ShiftThePower Global Summit: What Can Funders Do Differently?

For the first time in four years, activists from the #Shift­The­P­ow­er move­ment gath­ered togeth­er in Bogotá this past Decem­ber for a Glob­al Sum­mit. The aim was to inject new ener­gy into the move­ment through deep­en­ing con­nec­tions and rela­tion­ships, forg­ing a stronger and more uni­fied action agen­da for change.

Many from the RINGO team and wider RINGO com­mu­ni­ty were present as allies to help influ­ence fun­ders and INGOs alike to ensure they active­ly and rapid­ly shift pow­er and resources to nation­al and local civ­il soci­eties. RINGO host­ed a Fun­der Action Pod meet­ing in the week fol­low­ing the Sum­mit to share key take­aways and some ini­tial thoughts on what this mile­stone con­ven­ing might mean for the fund­ing com­mu­ni­ty going for­ward.

What was the #ShiftThePower Global Summit?

From the 3–5th Decem­ber 2023, more than sev­en hun­dred activists, local civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions (CSOs), INGOs, fun­ders, researchers and oth­er allies from across the world met in Bogotá under the ban­ner of #Shift­The­P­ow­er. The Glob­al Fund for Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tions is the con­venor and stew­ard of the move­ment, pre­vi­ous­ly host­ing sim­i­lar (albeit small­er) events in Johan­nes­burg (2016) and Lon­don (2019).

The fun­ders present in Bogotá were a sig­nif­i­cant minor­i­ty and were there to lis­ten and learn. The pow­er bal­ance at this Sum­mit from the start was not busi­ness as usu­al. The organ­i­sa­tion of the event embod­ied local­ly-led devel­op­ment in prac­tice: the nar­ra­tive was led ful­ly by local and nation­al peo­ple, who are doing the work on the ground, and who led the work at the sum­mit, too.

“Of course, as fun­ders, we always try to be in touch with those we fund. But in Bogotá it was them set­ting the agen­da, them unit­ing, them mak­ing clear that they will con­tin­ue their amaz­ing work with or with­out us. It was a hum­bling but nec­es­sary expe­ri­ence for fun­ders.” Patrick Stein­er-Hirth, Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH

Anoth­er fun­der said: “The Sum­mit was a hope­ful, respect­ful and cre­ative space. It didn’t seem like this same old thing. It felt dif­fer­ent [to oth­er con­fer­ences] and helped us all to see things dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Over the three days, a peer-based space formed using move­ment build­ing approach­es rather than the usu­al pan­el style. Fun­ders and activists took an equal foot­ing in break­out ses­sions. We heard from long-stand­ing activists in the #Shift­The­P­ow­er move­ment about what sol­i­dar­i­ty looked like and why it need­ed to be in the fore­ground of think­ing and action in glob­al devel­op­ment.

What did we learn?

The move­ment for #Shift­The­P­ow­er is no longer on the fringes. It is large and estab­lished and con­tin­ues to build momen­tum. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly vis­i­ble at the local lev­el, where the ener­gy is most felt. This was clear­ly indi­cat­ed by the strong turnout of 700+ peo­ple at the event in Bogotá, many from small, local CSOs.

But whilst there was a con­tin­gent of fun­ders present, they’re not, for the most part, in the same place as the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. In spite of com­mit­ments made by fun­ders in 2016 to deep­en local­iza­tion and shift pow­er, resources have not nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­lowed the ener­gy of those at the local lev­el. Par­tic­i­pants felt that fun­ders and INGOs con­tin­ue to try to be in the driver’s seat for change, rather than sup­port­ing what local com­mu­ni­ties already know they need. A well-informed fun­der or INGO strat­e­gy does not nec­es­sar­i­ly equal sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Mean­while, mea­sure­ment approach­es are also still top-down, dom­i­nat­ed by old-style met­rics. These are under­pinned by ongo­ing pow­er imbal­ances between those with the finan­cial resources and those with­out. Con­verse­ly, we learned that com­mu­ni­ty resourc­ing can demon­strate how account­abil­i­ty mod­els are rad­i­cal­ly trans­formed when invest­ed along­side those of exter­nal fun­ders.

Amongst the many chal­lenges pre­sent­ed, there was a strong call for fun­ders to help respect the idea of local assets that exist, to help build them, and to not over­look them or under­mine and dis­place them through fun­der-led strate­gies.

Per­haps unsur­pris­ing for this con­tin­gent, it was agreed that Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tions and com­mu­ni­ty phil­an­thropy more broad­ly demon­strate how local resources can not only have a huge impact in and of them­selves, but can also lever sig­nif­i­cant addi­tion­al resources to sup­ple­ment com­mu­ni­ty resources.

With fun­ders in lis­ten­ing mode, it was a chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence in some ways, but this also led to some sur­pris­ing reac­tions: One dis­cus­sant referred to it as: “the plea­sure of dis­com­fort.”

What were some of the main opportunities arising from the Summit for funders?

1. Spaces, time, coor­di­na­tion. Con­nec­tions and coor­di­na­tion between ini­tia­tives that are dri­ving for change in the sys­tem could be improved and deep­ened. There is a con­tin­u­ing need for safe and open spaces for qual­i­ty reflec­tion and con­ver­sa­tions. In addi­tion, time for well-being and care need to be con­sid­ered, as this is part of sys­tems change over­all.
   • ACTION: Fun­ders should look to invest in fund­ing spaces : con­ven­ings, con­ver­sa­tions, reflec­tion and learn­ing – so that activists, lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ties can do their best think­ing and plan­ning. Build in well-being and care as part of this.
2. Sol­i­dar­i­ty for fun­ders means lis­ten­ing and fol­low­ing. The tra­di­tion­al and lin­ear process­es of fund­ing and mon­i­tor­ing are out­dat­ed and not a good fit for local­ly led change.
   • ACTION : Fun­ders should lis­ten to com­mu­ni­ties and activists on what they are doing, what change looks and feels like, and wait to be invit­ed in to accom­pa­ny change process­es. This means invest­ing funds as request­ed by the com­mu­ni­ty, not expect­ing local­ly-led activ­i­ties to squeeze and morph to fit with fun­der inten­tions. Shift to gen­uine part­ner­ship.
   • ACTION: Role mod­el the account­abil­i­ty you have to com­mu­ni­ties and activists.
3. Be part of the move­ment with your peers, and sim­pli­fy process­es. Fun­ders come in very dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes and with var­ied pri­or­i­ties and focal areas. There is a need for strong col­lab­o­ra­tion on the fund­ing side in order to reduce dupli­ca­tion and the bureau­crat­ic bur­den.
   • ACTION: Make sure you are join­ing up with one anoth­er as fun­ders: shar­ing data, info, forms, process­es, so that CSOs aren’t all pulled in dif­fer­ent direc­tions and away from the work you want to sup­port.

About the RINGO Funder Action Pod:

The RINGO Fun­der Action Pod, co-con­vened with the Coun­cil on Foun­da­tions, is made up of fun­ders who want to help and invest in ‘reimag­in­ing’ the sys­tem of inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion and phil­an­thropy, and to find bet­ter ways of demon­strat­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty and part­ner­ship inter­na­tion­al­ly. The group con­venes every two months and focus­es its time on an area of inno­va­tion and provo­ca­tion that has emerged from the RINGO Project or from else­where in the sec­tor. We also look at new areas of col­lab­o­ra­tion and influ­ence between fund­ing sec­tors, such as pri­vate phil­an­thropy and bilat­er­al fun­ders.

Inter­est­ed in join­ing this com­mu­ni­ty? Con­tact info@ringoproject.org

***

Pho­to by John­ny Brig­gs on Unsplash