How fundraising can be a strategic lever to shift how civil society operates.
Shifting power isn’t just about fundraising and directing resources to local organisations; how you fundraise matters.
This session will reveal how two nonprofits – international peacebuilder Safeworld and civil society entity MARS Organisation – have developed ways to collaborate to build partnerships that are more equitable, sharing practical learning from their experience working together.
You’ll find out how Saferworld is evolving its fundraising ways of working, sharing overheads, advocating to change donor policies, cocreating proposals with partners at the forefront, and more. And you’ll learn how their team worked with MARS Organisation on programme design that is driven by community priorities – not donor demands.
If you want to learn how fundraisers at lead organisations can step back from control into a supportive, facilitative role, providing donor intelligence, technical guidance, and compliance support without overshadowing partner leadership, this is the workshop for you! You’ll be challenged to think big about how you could use fundraising to shift the power at your own organisation and you’ll leave with practical ideas for balancing accountability, trust, and partner agency. This includes across shared strategy development and co-created strategic vision, theories of change, programme design, and funding proposals.
Engage with practical, real world examples and reflect on ow your organisation’s fundraising policies, incentives, and behaviours could be adapted to support more equitable, trust-based partnerships. You’ll learn to see fundraising not just as a technical function, but as a strategic lever for shifting power and rebuilding how civil society works.
Learning outcomes
- Learn how to implement concrete fundraising and resourcing practices that can support more equitable INGO-CSO partnerships and assess which could be applied in your own organisation
- Understand practical ways to engage and influence donors to enable more flexible, partner-led funding, including where fundraisers have room to negotiate, test, or challenge existing donor policies
- Gain practical tips for cocreating funding proposals with partners, including how to support partners to act as lead applicants and how fundraisers can step back without withdrawing support