The Scale Trap: Why Funding Systems Miss the Organisations Communities Trust Most
About the session
Community-led development does not begin when funding arrives, and it does not end when a programme closes.
Across communities responding to climate change, crisis, poverty and shrinking civic space, locally rooted organisations and networks are already mobilising people, building relationships, partnering with local government and finding ways to solve problems with the resources available to them. Their greatest assets may be trust, local knowledge and relationships built over many years.
Yet these are precisely the organisations that can struggle to access meaningful funding.
Philanthropy and development institutions often use organisational size, formal systems, reporting capacity and the ability to scale as signals of effectiveness. Those requirements can make sense from the perspective of managing risk. But they can also make deeply trusted organisations appear less capable than larger institutions that are better equipped to navigate funder processes.
This session will challenge the assumption that bigger necessarily means better. What would funding look like if depth, trust, longevity and locally defined impact carried as much weight as scale? How should due diligence change? And beyond finance, what recognition, relationships, networks and other resources help community-led organisations build lasting power?
Discussion Group Leaders
Ali Carey is Strategic Partnerships and Growth at Independent, advancing resource mobilization and partnerships that strengthen community-led development organizations.
Caroline Pratt is Partnerships Manager at AfriKids, expanding partnerships with foundations and companies to support locally led development and opportunities for children.
Gunjan Veda is Global Secretary at Movement for Community Led Development, advancing community-led development and greater local leadership in decisions that shape communities.
Susan Davis is Board Member & Author at MAMA HOPE, advancing community-driven and locally led approaches to philanthropy and global development.
Vincent Mwangi is Co-Executive Director at MAMA HOPE, advancing community-led innovation and locally driven systems change rooted in dignity, equity, and justice.
Khalid Ali is MD at The Proximate Fund Sudan, advancing investment, reconstruction, and systems change across Africa and fragile contexts, particularly Sudan.
What to expect
A participatory conversation grounded in the experience of locally led organisations and the institutions seeking to support them. Participants will examine where current funding and due diligence practices systematically disadvantage smaller organisations and what more community-centric approaches could look like.
The conversation will also look beyond individual grants to the wider infrastructure communities need: strong civil society, solidarity across networks, partnerships with local government and greater influence over the systems and agendas that affect them.
Who this is for
This session is for community leaders, philanthropists, development organisations, local government partners, civil society networks and funders interested in localisation, community-led adaptation and shifting more resources and decision-making closer to communities.
What you will get out of it
A different way to think about organisational capacity beyond size and sophistication
Insights into why trusted local organisations remain disadvantaged by many funding systems
Practical questions for redesigning due diligence and funding practices around community realities
A broader understanding of resourcing that goes beyond grants alone
Ideas for strengthening the infrastructure and influence of community-led organisations