Examining Funder Accountability to Movements and Communities

Edouard Morena, GEL advisor and Lecturer in French and European politics at University of London Institute in Paris, shares some thoughts around the EDGE Webinar “Examining Funder Accountability to Movements and Communities”. During this first webinar of the series curated by GEL (Global Engagement Lab) participants, we investigated how funders can be more accountable to movements and civil society.

While the effects of foundations’ efforts are public, most philanthropic decision-making remains a largely private and discretionary affair. As Curtis White explains, “like the system of patronage that served the arts and charity from the Renaissance through the eighteenth century, private foundations have the rarest privilege of all: they do not have to explain themselves. They do not have to justify the origins of their wealth, or how they use that wealth, or what the real benefit of their largesse is.” For many, this lack of accountability is problematic as it produces and sustains power imbalances between funders and grantees: whereas grantees are regularly held to account by their funders and target constituencies, the same cannot be said of funders. They do not need to justify their choices to either their grantees or society as a whole.

Some within philanthropy have sought to justify this by arguing, as has done James Joseph, that foundations’ relative exemption from public scrutiny enables them “to fund innovative programs and work on the frontlines of social problems without concern for popular opinion or building political mandates.” They can take risks and support projects that are either politically controversial or economically risky. For Sonia Medina of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), foundations are ideally positioned to “test innovative approaches, take risks, be nimble and react quickly to windows of opportunity” as well as act “as honest broker[s] that [are] not politically driven.”

The ‘Examining Funder Accountability to Movements and Communities’ webinar provided a welcome occasion to address these and other related issues through a systemic change funders’ lens. Indeed, and contrary to many in the philanthropic space, most systemic change funders openly acknowledge philanthropy’s inherent unaccountability. They are conscious of the fact that their very status as foundations produces a power imbalance with their grantees. The priority then becomes less of attempting to justify philanthropy’s unique status than of exploring concrete ways of re-balancing grantee/funder relations, while harbouring no illusions about philanthropy’s ability to become entirely accountable. By combining both funder and movement perspectives, the webinar offered invaluable insights into possible ways forward.

Throughout the different interventions, one key issue came up repeatedly: the need to build trust and mutual understanding between funders and movements. Language and communication were repeatedly referred to as essential means of achieving this. Speaking the same language, in both a literal and metaphorical sense, appears as key to attain a more balanced grantee/funder relationship. Drawing on her experience at the ICRC’s Humanitarian Innovation Lab working with hearing impaired individuals, Sanjana explained how the learning of sign languages was a vital first step to the construction of trust-based working relationships. For Katherine Zavala (ThousandCurrents), learning Portuguese was a big part of developing close working relations with grantee partners in Brazil. As Sanjana explained, building “mutual thinking” sometimes requires investing a significant amount of time and effort.

Drawing on her own experience as community activist, Yolotsin also insisted on the importance of communication. How you communicate is just as important as what you communicate. Beyond the formal agreements and processes, honesty and reciprocity are key. This idea was further highlighted by Katherine when she discussed the importance of relationship building in her work. Accountability, she explained, could not be separated from “mutual learning and mutual trust”. This, as she highlighted, often requires learning directly from the field – which in turn, implies physically going there.

What was also implicit throughout the discussion was the fact that discussions on accountability should not be limited to foundation/grantee relations. The issue cuts across all levels of philanthropic and movement organisations and activities, from the grant manager who is accountable to his board to the programme officer who is accountable to the frontline communities he serves in the field. It is therefore vital to develop and deploy trust-based accountability mechanisms both between and within organisations. This point was highlighted by Milvian Aspuac (AFEDES) when she explained that, for her, accountability was not simply financial reporting or impact reports to funders, but also being accountable to others within the organisation, to women, and to the planet. As she explains, it is fundamentally about “practicing accountability to each other.”