It's Not About the Money: Transforming Power Dynamics Between Funders & Locally-Led NGOs
For years, the development and philanthropy sectors have talked about shifting power, localization, and putting more resources directly into the hands of locally-led organizations. But even when funding practices change, an underlying assumption can remain remarkably persistent: funders have the resources, NGOs have the need, and the relationship begins from there.
What if that premise is wrong?
Locally-led organizations are not simply recipients looking for someone to fund their work. They hold relationships, knowledge, trust, experience, ideas, and opportunities that funders need if they are serious about achieving lasting change. The relationship is therefore not one of donor and beneficiary, but of different actors bringing different forms of value to a shared mission.
Yet money has a way of distorting that relationship. When one organization controls the funding, it can also shape whose priorities matter, who sets the terms of the conversation, how risk is distributed, what counts as expertise, and who feels able to challenge whom.
That can prevent exactly the kind of honest exchange that effective partnerships require.
This session will explore what changes when funders and locally-led NGOs stop approaching one another primarily through the lens of financial need and begin treating the relationship as one of mutual value. What would it mean for locally-led organizations to enter conversations not as applicants but as partners with something essential to offer? And what would funders need to change in their own behavior, assumptions, and institutional practices to make that relationship real?
The aim is to move beyond familiar calls to “shift power” and get into the human and institutional dynamics that determine whether power actually shifts.
What to expect
A candid, participatory conversation about the assumptions that sit underneath funder-NGO relationships and how they show up in practice.
Participants will examine the donor-recipient dynamic from both sides: how funding can create dependency and deference, why organizations can struggle to have honest conversations when money is on the table, and what becomes possible when both parties recognize that they need something from the relationship.
The emphasis will be on surfacing experiences, challenging assumptions, and identifying practical ways to build relationships based on shared purpose, mutual accountability, and respect rather than a transactional exchange of money.
Who this is for
This session is for funders, philanthropic leaders, locally-led NGOs, intermediaries, development practitioners, and others trying to build more equitable partnerships between organizations that hold financial resources and those closest to the communities and issues the work is intended to serve.
What you will get out of it
A different way to think about the traditional donor-recipient relationship
Greater understanding of how control of funding shapes behavior, trust, and decision-making
Perspectives from both funders and locally-led organizations on what genuine partnership requires
Practical ideas for creating more honest and mutually valuable relationships
Questions to take back to your own organization about where power actually sits in its partnerships