‘We’re here to serve, we’re not here to demand’ 

Last month, AVPN hosted their 2023 Global Conference in the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in partnership with Yayasan Hasanah. Alliance polled our audience to find out which session they’d most like to read about. ‘Best practices to build strong funder-grantee relationships’ was the second place poll winner. We’ve also covered the first place poll winner, which you can read about here.  

Another packed room for this session, with a strong panel profiling an equal split of speakers on both the funder and grantee side. Moderated by Shonali Banerjee from the Centre of Strategic Philanthropy, panelists included Sumitra Visvanathan from Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO), Emilita Monville-Oro from the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), and Reshma Anand from the Ford Foundation.  

Sumitra began by describing the strong multi-year partnership her organisation benefits from with their funder Yayasan Sime Darby. Their support has meant she can focus on her main mission, which is to make Malaysia a better place for women and girls. As well as providing services for women who have experienced violence, WAO collects data and uses this to advocate for change, working closely with government to implement legislative and policy changes that supports the rights of women.  

All of this is made possible by a funding relationship Sumitra describes as ‘mutually trustful, mutually respectful…a feminist partnership.’ During COVID, WAO were also supported by AVPN with unrestricted funding. As a result they were able to shift services to support 15,000 women and children facing domestic violence. 

Reshma Anand followed up from the funder’s perspective, suggesting that a lot of existing power inequity is down to who decides how problems are solved. For true partnerships to blossom, that process must be participatory. Funders should invite their grantees to be active players in funding strategies, which creates shared-ownership of solutions.  

She encouraged funders to listen to the lived experience of the organisations they’re supporting, and actively take feedback from partners. ‘We’re here to serve, we’re not here to demand,’ she stated. And while giving up control may be hard, it’s also very liberating. ‘Why is it important for funders to move from this control/reporting-driven context to trust and accountability? You can have effective outcomes if your work is embedded in trust and accountability.’  

Emilita, representing a grantee organisation based in the Philippines, stated that they need resources to support the long-term interventions that support the community. It’s hard to put a timeline on creating impact, and in many cases restrictive funding can create problems as it may not be relevant to the current challenges and situations affecting the community, which are best understood by those working on the ground.  

With so many NGOs in the Philippines competing against each other for shrinking development funding, it’s a tough market. Emilita’s organisation diversifies their funding sources for the best chance of survival, however the flexible funding they’ve received from AVPN has really helped them to ‘utilise the resources that were most needed, when they were most needed.’  

In answer to a question from Shonali about what legacy practices she would like funders and grantees to move away from, Emilita stated: ‘we’re at the mercy of funders.’ She recalls a time when she had to return funding because it wasn’t used in time, and how disheartening that was. Things such as a climate disasters and seasonality play a role in when programmes and projects can be implemented (there are 24 typhoons a year in Philippines, often creating a demand for crisis relief funding in their wake). Moreover, sometimes programmes change over time to adapt to new circumstances, which is why flexible funding is so important. While many funders may want quick turnarounds, real change takes time, from designing correct models to scaling them up.  

Emilita wants to bring funders into the field to educate them on this and show them the transformational change that is happening with their support. By seeing firsthand the impact their money is making, rather than just looking at data alone, she hopes to foster better relationships being funders and grantees.  

In answer to the same question, Sumitra wants funders to abandon ‘flavour of the month’ funding, which is often what’s good for the funder’s PR and publicity team. She also called on funders to stop deprioritizing gender equality, and to treat their grantees as equal partners working towards a mutually shared outcome.  

Reshma spoke about how Ford Foundation is implementing this, by benchmarking themselves every 2 years on how they’re doing and using it ‘as mirror to hold ourselves accountable’ as well as understand emerging trends. ‘How do you fund not for projects, but for ideas, for individuals, for change-makers? Fund in a way to reach the ultimate outcome.’ 

She stated that opening up to feedback helps her organisation understand how effectively they’re supporting their grantees. When it comes to building a better relationship with grantees, it’s important to figure out a starting point for making change. For example, this could be reducing the reporting burden on grantees.  

Her top advice for other funders? ‘Have a conversation with your grantee and ask them ‘how am I doing?’ Her advice for grantees is similar: ‘call up your funder and ask them for advice on a challenge you’re dealing with.’ Funder-grantee relationships don’t have to be only transactional.  

Annmarie McQueen is subscriptions manager at Alliance