Transitioning from egosystem to ecosystem.
For decades, global fundraising has been a survival-of-the-fittest competition, with individual organisations fighting for the same pool of donor money. This workshop disrupts that model to introduce a new collective approach.
Organisations in Ethiopia are proving that coalition-based fundraising can outperform isolated efforts. Development Expertise Center (DEC) introduced the Community of Practice model, in which 18-20 civil society actors, including community-based organisations, civil society organisations, and civic associations, unite within a single district. The model doesn’t present a network, but a physical, trust-based engine for collective resource mobilisation that moves beyond donor-driven agendas to build fundraising strategies rooted in community-prioritised needs.
This session will dive into the fundamental trust required to sacrifice individual organisational visibility for collective legitimacy, showing how Communities of Practice unlock local resources and shared power that solo organisations simply cannot reach.
Learning outcomes
- Find out how to move away from competitive, brand-heavy fundraising toward the Community of Practice model that leverages collective power
- Get practical methods for building “sacrificial trust” among diverse local actors to ensure community priorities rather than donor whims
- Learn how to leverage the unified voice of a district-wide coalition to unlock local resources and influence stakeholders