We all know there are aid donors and international funding partners out there that want to change “business as usual” in development (or at least people inside those institutions that do). We also all know that for various reasons, they’re not moving quick enough for those working on the ground.
New donors could come in and fill the gaps. But more importantly, we need a new kind of donor, whether they are recent to the scene or not.
The organizations that I see doing the most important and exciting work out there these days most often do not fit into current donors’ way of doing business. Donors who rely on lengthy proposals, onerous reporting, and heavy-handed funding mechanisms frankly cannot offer useful capital to organizations that don’t fit the mold.
To change this, this new kind of donors will do four things better than donors still stuck in the old ways of moving money around:
1) They are patient. They invest not just today’s services or activities delivered, but allow for uncertainty and potentially lower short-term results in favor of long-term outcomes.
2) Their money follows ideas and people, rather than activities. Project may be the modus operandi, but they do not allow them define or confine relationships.
3) They demonstrate a tolerance for risk, rather than failure. They help keep a focus on results, yet offer flexibility and responsiveness to changing conditions.
4) They are able and willing to look within and examine how their own policies and practices exclude and/or inhibit some of the most innovative and effective organizations.
Aid financing can no longer be disconnected from people and place, flowing into a community based on a donor’s imperatives. A new kind of aid donor is courageous enough to put their partners’ needs first and is adaptive to arising needs, inherent complexities, and local realities.
A new kind of aid donor knows that serving their partners’ interests first is what will ultimately fulfill their own.
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Donations are compulsory for any organizations whether church, NGOS,GOVT,CBS,and others.Always in life or organization, others have more than another,therefore there must be helping hand to make others move.That is why one has to donate.As it has been said, Dona rs have to fill the gap.
So we need A new kind of aid donor
This is the perfect situation which would create an evalasting change, a win-win situation for both donors,benefiting governments, communities and implementing partners. Unfortunately, donors are sometimes driven by idealogies which are sometimes not realistic and outdated in terms of meeting the needs and vulnerabilities of governments and their people on the ground. I would suggest setting up a complaint mechanism for donors who compromise these four points.
On #3 – I think this is the primary reason multi-national development conglomerates fail to achieve the kind of impact they claim, relative to the oodles of cash they throw around.
Risk tolerance is a learned practice, not an innate one, and large decision-making groups demonstrate even lower tolerance for risky paths than do smaller organizations.
Interesting to note that all businesses start small and risky, yet governments never start agencies this way.
But this is also very very important to keep the track of the donations what exactly happening to them. Also check the out come of the any type of donations or investment. So next time the donors don’t invest at the wrong place.
I believe that is how donors used to be till a couple of decades ago. We see plenty of examples of organisations that were supported, long term partnerships and how the partnership was supportive based on mutual trust.
I believe that such partnerships also suffered abuse and that led to (and there were other reasons behind the shift well) a shift to ‘results based management’. However, what I see is that the management structures and processes are systems heavy, borrowed from corporate management and often inadequate for the development sector or activism. Grassroots organisations are either replaced by management intermediaries, social workers and activists are bullied by managers. Interestingly, within the development sector, international aid agencies require managers to follow and uphold the system and the salary differentials between managers in support agencies and programmers in field organisations often reflect the same widening income differentials of many developed or developing nations.
So, yes – the need for new ways of partnership and management between funding partners and implementing partners is undeniable, and none too soon.
A great blog post. At Peace Direct we’re exploring precisely this issue – how to be the sort of aid donor that is genuinely supportive to innovative peacebuilding organisations. Our answer is to take the lead from local peacebuilders – let them define the solution that will best help their own communities, instead of defining it from New York or London. And we’ve found this works. It’s effective, sustainable and empowering.
How aid agencies handle their funding partners was surveyed last year in the independent Keystone Survey ( http://www.peacedirect.org/aid-agencies-challenged-by-international-survey/ ), which sought the views of 1,067 local organisations in the developing world. The findings made it clear that people in the developing world no longer want to be passive recipients of Western aid – they want to lead their own development programmes and find their own solutions to their problems.
I would suggest one practical corollary to your point 2. Donors should try to increase support for core costs for organisations, allowing them the breathing space and flexibility to define their interventions for themselves. Core funding opportunities remain all too rare for local organisations.
That kind of Donor is what most well minded human being is looking for. That’s why in Belgium we see the arising of a fourth pilllar of aid. which is direct interactions between real people who know each other. Responding to the local needs and based on trust. Caveats is that those are really small scale questioning their ability to leverage change, with often high opportunity costs. see http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/the-emergence-of-a-fourth-pillar-in-development-aid-131039
aid should be based on the interests of the grass-roots level, the community. it should be demand driven, bottom-up approach, not donor driven, supply based and top down, because the present approach is prone to corruption, delay, and cannot achieve intended results. the community should come first, donors should not trade in the name of communities. third world poor are the victims of this evils.
I endorse the views expressed in this blog. Merely wish to add that an implied attribute of this new kind of donor is the humility and respect to understand and accept that partners do have valuable and insightful ideas to contribute to the resolution of their situation.
Frankly speaking, “if only wishes were horses, beggars could ride”. While it is true that the whole concept of donor aid versus serving the interests of those who exclusively deserve those aid packages has been a non-streamlined enterprise for a considerable length of time, but now that arguments that sincerely and intellectually emerge about who really deserves what, and how they should get it, I believe some level of impact in the project implementation paradigm will have to shift for the better at least in argument.
It is possible that the best ideas might originate within the community/organisation seeking funding. But the people may not have the necessary skills to bring this to the attention of donors. Facilitators should be available to assist people with an idea develop it into a project for which funding can be requested. But the facilitation is not to be to adapt the idea to suit the funder, but to simply ensure that it is clear to the donors to understand. This is about training in communication, making information available at the community level, encouraging people to stand united in order to negotiate for what they want, and helping them to manage their lives.
I so like bt how do we do advocacy for this? Or is it a case of rats discussing cat bt in end none to fit the warning bell!
Rodgers, here what a friend of mine in Palestine is proposing to advocate for these changes: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/oct/18/should-palestinians-boycott-international-aid
Tori Hogan, author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Journey into the Reality of International Aid, has these 12 suggestions on how to be a better donor, for individuals and institutions alike: http://www.beyondgoodintentions.com/resources/donorguide/