Practical ways to rethink power, legitimacy, and cost in fundraising.
Global fundraising is in a period of uncertainty and change. For much of its formalised existence, funding as well as philanthropy and fundraising learning and practice has been flowing from Global Minority countries to the Global Majority. In today’s context, however, shifting geopolitics, changing national priorities, and volatile institutional funding are reshaping where resources come from, how and where they flow, and how reliable they are – and models that rely heavily on predictable flows from the Global Minority are increasingly under strain.
At the same time, grassroots organisations, often with minimal budgets and without dedicated fundraising teams, continue to mobilise resources through trust, proximity, community legitimacy, and tried-and-tested models. These low-cost, high-trust approaches are not marginal; they offer important lessons for how fundraising can become more resilient in uncertain times and are, in real time, building knowledge and systems of fundraising as a discipline in the Global Majority.
This interactive workshop invites you to learn from these grassroots practices, drawing on Global Majority expertise and experience while exploring insights that travel across contexts. You will explore and come to understand fundraising models that, when invested upon or scaled and adapted, can actually build resilient institutions anywhere in the world. Through small-group exercises, peer discussion, case-studies, and practical tools, you will examine real fundraising examples, identify what makes these approaches work under constraint, and test how similar principles could strengthen resilience in your own fundraising strategies.
Rather than simply presenting models or case studies as best practice, the session will focus on shared learning and application to explore new a fundraising knowledge-base located away from the centre. You will leave with practical ways to rethink power, legitimacy, and cost in fundraising, as well as with concrete templates you can apply immediately to design more resilient, adaptable approaches for an uncertain future.
Learning outcomes
- Identify the elements that make the low-cost, high-trust fundraising models used by grassroots organisations effective and resilient despite limited resources
- Assess your current fundraising strategies through a resilience lens to identify practical adjustments to reduce dependency, strengthen trust, and better safeguard against uncertainty
- Apply practical principles from grassroots fundraising to strengthen resilience in your own strategies, including at least one concrete change you can test to reduce cost, increase trust, or diversify funding