Community-based organisations (CBOs) are non-profits operating directly in communities, often with limited financial resources at their disposal. They tend to rely on volunteers, responsive to the unique needs of their community and often best placed to diagnose problems and identify solutions with residents. Many are financially excluded from mainstream grant funding because they operate in rural locations with limited visibility and recognition, and they don’t always have the administrative capacity to provide the financial, monitoring and compliance documents that traditional funders expect. Despite these constraints, they play a crucial role in grassroots development, community empowerment and creating sustainable social change.
This learning brief looks at what the DG Murray Trust (DGMT) and its funding partners, the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP) and The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF), are learning about trust-based funding to support social change practitioners at a community level through their Sukuthula! Unmute & Act initiative.1 This initiative supports CBOs that work to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) while advocating for solutions. For this funding model to work well, funders and CBO partners must actively work to change the inherent power imbalance in funder-grantee relationships and work towards a partnership rooted in trust and focused on learning. This is an ongoing process, and the three funders expect to learn much more about how to do this well as the initiative unfolds.
1 Sukuthula means to ‘do not keep quiet’ in IsiXhosa.
Stop nutritional stunting of young children.
Release systemic chokes that trap us in inequality
TRUST-BASED PHILANTHROPY
VERSUS CONVENTIONAL
PHILANTHROPY
Philanthropy is driven by a desire to address societal challenges, typically through grant-making, charity, impact investing or donations. It takes the form of private foundations, public charities, venture philanthropy or corporate philanthropy. These conventional forms of philanthropy tend to operate in ways that reinforce both power imbalances between funders and grantees and implement top-down decision-making which can result in a misalignment between what is funded and what communities need. Large foundations and wealthy individuals often have outsized influence in the philanthropic space. Their decisions about where and how to allocate funds can shape entire sectors, sometimes without sufficient input from affected communities. In unequal societies, entrenched systems, structures and institutions can reinforce societal inequity instead of transforming it. Likewise, we should consider whether philanthropy, in certain contexts, might reflect historical inequities.
A counterbalance to conventional philanthropy is an approach called trust-based funding, with a core set of values rooted in the desire to advance equity, shift power dynamics and build mutually accountable relationships.2 Trust-based funding ensures that communities and organisations are recognised as best positioned to determine how resources can be effectively utilised to achieve positive outcomes. It is anchored in a set of values that shape an organisation and its approach to grant-making. According to the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, these values are leading with trust, prioritising relationships, collaborating with humility, sharing power and advancing equity. This means that trust-based funding is more than a set of activities but a fundamental shift in mindsets or an organisation’s DNA. Closely related to trust-based funding is participatory grant-making which is an approach to philanthropy that shifts the power to make funding decisions, from traditional funders to the communities or individuals who are directly impacted by a social issue. This model seeks to balance power by involving a broader range of voices, by valuing the input of community members who understand local contexts and experiences and giving them more decision-making control. Trust-based funding and participatory grant-making are intersecting approaches that share similar values and draw from the other’s practices.
2 Trust-based philanthropy project. A trust-based approach. Accessed here: https://www.trustbasedphilanthropy.org/overview
A MODEL FOR TRUST-BASED FUNDING
While trust-based funding is not new – many have interrogated power imbalances for the past decade –some have formed a learning community to support the adoption of this approach more broadly. The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, for instance, was launched in the United States in 2020 to meet the needs of the sector as it makes unprecedented shifts to advance equity. This community of practice offers a useful way to understand how trust-based funding is different to conventional philanthropy by focusing
CULTURE
Your organisation’s “way of being”
• Identify practices that may be misaligned with trust-based values.
• Normalise conversations about power.
• Support continuous learning.
• Create space for reflection and dialogue.
PRACTICES
What you do and how you show up as a partner
• Give multi-year, unrestricted funding.
• Be transparent and responsive (supporting relationships rooted in trust and mutual accountability).
• Simplify and streamline application and reporting processes.
• Solicit feedback and act on it.
• Offer support beyond financial resources.
on four key dimensions of any organisation such as culture, leadership, structures and practices (see the diagram below). This model is used throughout this learning brief to collate and interpret the experiences of three funders piloting a trustbased funding approach in South Africa.
The DG Murray Trust (DGMT), the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP) and The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) are using trust-based funding to both support and learn from community-based organisations (CBOs) involved in gender-based violence interventions in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape. Their grant-making initiative, called Sukuthula! Unmute & Act, began implementation in early 2023.
STRUCTURE
Hierarchies, systems, protocols, policies and technologies
• Decentralise decision-making structures so that it’s not a top-down approach.
• Apply a relational lens to grant management.
• Revisit and revise grant contracts to create conditions for learning and evolving.
• Adopt emergent learning tools.
VALUES
LEADERSHIP
The ability to aspire and align around shared values
• Be self-aware, listen and be transparent.
• A Board that sets values but is not heavily involved in making decisions about grants.
• Leadership can redefine “risk” and “failure”.
• Invite collaborative culture-shaping.
Source and credits: Trust-based Philanthropy Project. [www.trustbasedphilanthropy.org]
The rate of violence against women and girls in South Africa is among the highest in the world. According to Stats SA, one in five women in relationships have experienced physical violence by a partner.3 According to UN Women, grassroots organisations are pivotal in mobilising communities and building trust.4 Yet, these organisations tend to be lowresourced and have limited access to funding. They lack the organisational capacity to compete with established NGOs for funding. Here lies an opportunity for philanthropists to support CBOs that usually sit outside the sphere of traditional funding.
Conventional philanthropy’s inequitable practices have long excluded these organisations, so it makes sense that supporting them should take the form of equitable funding practices. In this regard, the Sukuthula! co-funders are exploring a trust-based funding model that provides long term, flexible funding while also placing more decision-making power in the hands of those who are close to communities and the problems being addressed. The pilot cohort is comprised of 36 CBO partners, and they received their first tranche of funding in early 2024.
GET TO KNOW SOME OF THE SUKUTHULA! BENEFICIARIES
YHAWE CENTRE FOR THE DISABLED, BUFFALO
CITY, EASTERN CAPE
Yhawe is led by Thembisile Nuba who works with young people in her community. She became aware that vulnerable youngsters with disabilities were being locked in their homes during the day and that some were sexually assaulted. She decided to give them shelter in her own home and started a campaign to shed light on sexual violence and educate her community about GBV. She partners with Masimanyane Women’s Rights International5 to provide trauma counselling for young people.
She used the Sukuthula! funds to implement several activities, including an awareness campaign, pay staff, as well as secure transportation, provide food and a stipend for beneficiaries. The project was successful, and the highlight was the creation of a safe zone where survivors of GBV could share their experiences.
Established in 2001, Mapate focuses on three main areas:
1 2 3
Drop-in centre: Where the aim is to increase access to quality facilities and services for vulnerable groups and improve physical and economic outcomes while decreasing poverty.
Community HIV/AIDS services: To improve social, physical, and economic outcomes, conduct and facilitate social behaviour change programmes, and provide knowledge on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. They also provide support to individuals and families through counselling and monthly support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Gender-based violence: Provide community outreach interventions and psychosocial support.
To support the implementation of their initiatives, Mapate used the Sukuthula! funds to buy food during community outreach activities and they provided stipends for community caregivers.
3 Stats SA. 2020. Crimes against women in South Africa, an analysis of the phenomenon of GBV and femicide. https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/1_Stock/Events_ Institutional/2020/womens_charter_2020/docs/30-07-2020/A_Statistical_Overview_R_Maluleke.pdf
4 UN Women. 2023. Ten ways to prevent violence against women and girls https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/explainer/2023/11/ten-ways-to-prevent-violence-againstwomen-and-girls
HOW THE SUKUTHULA! FUNDING MODEL APPLIES
TRUST-BASED FUNDING
PRINCIPLES
CULTURE
• The Sukuthula! co-funders and administrators are committed to creating space for reflection and dialogue to ensure continuous alignment between trust-based funding values and practices. This fosters an environment necessary to support continuous learning.
STRUCTURE
• Participatory grant-making is a key feature of Sukuthula! – a community panel set funding priorities, decided on criteria, and made funding decisions. The composition of the panel intentionally reflected the diversity of experience among those affected by GBV.
• A flexible grant-making process was set up for the Sukuthula! initiative.
• The Sukuthula! administrators apply a relational lens to grant management to allow for optimal learning and flexibility in the way CBO partners report on outcomes.
VALUES
PRACTICES
• From the onset the Sukuthula! administrators aimed to make the application process more accessible and inclusive by conducting inperson information sessions in communities in their local languages. Grant applications were accepted in 11 languages and CBO partners did not require a desktop computer to apply since they could submit their applications on WhatsApp.
• Audited financials were not a requirement. However, CBOs that did not provide audited financials were eligible to receive a maximum of R100 000. Sukuthula! administrators aimed to help CBOs get their required documents to unlock more funds in future.
5 https://www.masimanyane.org/
• Beyond providing financial resources, the Sukuthula! administrators are committed to a multi-year programme of capacity building with CBO partners.
LEADERSHIP
• Sukuthula! administrators are committed to listening and responding to CBO partners.
• There is greater transparency in the grantmaking and approvals process compared to conventional grant-making.
PARTICIPATORY GRANT-MAKING
A key part of the Sukuthula! initiative has been to identify and appoint a multi-stakeholder community panel to drive strategy and make funding decisions. This community panel included a diverse and skilled group with representatives from law enforcement, academia, GBV survivors, mental health practitioners, young people, government officials and GBV activists. They set the criteria for funding and assessing applications. The panel also identified the Eastern Cape and Limpopo as GBV hotspots with low levels of funding and decided that Sukuthula! should focus on resourcing CBOs in four districts with an urban and rural dimension: Buffalo City and OR Tambo in the Eastern Cape, and Seshego and Vhembe in Limpopo. The community panel developed a proposal assessment rubric and, through a multi-month process, chose the first cohort of CBO partners. It is also important to note that members of the community panel were compensated for providing their valuable time, energy, and expertise in this process from strategy to application review and grant decision-making.
CAPACITY STRENGTHENING IS NOT A ONCE-OFF EVENT
One of the objectives of the Sukuthula! initiative is to strengthen the organisational capacity of CBOs so that they will be better positioned to apply for funding from different sources in future. The Sukuthula! administration team conducted two intensive workshops in May 2024 for the first cohort of CBO partners. These workshops focused on introducing the building blocks necessary to create a strong CBO and covered important topics such as governance, fundraising, leadership, self-awareness, financial policies and fraud awareness. CBO partners also attend monthly virtual mentorship and coaching sessions with a development expert. These capacity building workshops are not once-off events but are a continuous feature of their multi-year grant.
SIMPLIFIED REPORTING THAT MEETS THE NEEDS OF COMMUNITIES
Conventional philanthropy often requires overly frequent reporting on indicators (often determined by funders) that may be difficult to capture or meaningless to the community, Trust-based funding is not a no-strings-attached approach— it centres CBO partners and communities in deciding what outcomes and metrics are most valuable. They decide what success looks like, not the funder. The funder’s role is to listen, understand, provide investment for them to obtain the data they need to evaluate progress, and be a learning partner to them instead of a barrier to focusing on the community work. This is why the Sukuthula! administrators worked with a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) expert to develop a streamlined reporting framework for the CBO partners.
At the end of 2024, the CBO partners are expected to submit quantitative and qualitative data. “It is as much about the metrics as it is about what you are seeing and learning. As funders, we are collecting data that is important to the partner, meaningful to them, so we can identify any challenges and come up with solutions together,” explains Zandile Mqwathi, DGMT Project Manager: GBV Initiatives.
RIGOUR AND FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT
Even though the Sukuthula! initiative provides unrestricted funding, the administrators help CBO partners keep track of how they spend their funds to avoid potential fraud or mismanagement of funds. This is done in the best interest of CBO partners and the communities they serve. Unlike in conventional philanthropy, Sukuthula! administrators are more likely to engage in a dialogue with CBO partners about their spending if receipts are not forthcoming or don’t add up because the assumption is that it may not be intentional. This approach builds trust and allows CBO partners the opportunity to explain how they’ve spent their funds and share any challenges they may be experiencing. In addition, the Sukuthula! administrators held a fraud awareness workshop with CBO partners to help them better understand what good financial management looks like. For example, in the workshop, CBO partners learned that transferring funds out of a non-profit’s bank account into a personal bank account, or borrowing funds from the non-profit, even for a short period, constitutes fraud. There was one instance where this situation occurred, and criminal charges have been laid where funds have not been repaid after engagement with the individuals concerned.
LESSONS ON TRUSTBASED FUNDING FROM THE SUKUTHULA! INITIATIVE
1
INTERNAL GRANT-MAKING SYSTEMS MUST SUPPORT TRUST-BASED FUNDING PRACTICES
One of the emerging lessons from the Sukuthula! initiative is the need to align the administrators’ internal grantmaking systems with the principles of trust-based funding. As mentioned earlier in this brief, trust-based funding in its purest form requires various components of an organisation to be rooted in certain values such as advancing equity. When all parts of an organisation are not geared towards operating with these values in mind, it can lead to misalignment and stumbling blocks. Trust-based grant-making requires flexible grant-making, open and transparent dialogue, and reduced administrative burdens for CBO partners. To effectively implement these practices funders must ensure adequate operational support from departments such as Human Resources (HR) and Finance from the outset. Without this internal alignment, the organisational flexibility needed for unrestricted funding, simplified and relevant reporting processes, and ongoing open communication cannot be fully realised.
2
ENSURE REPORTING FRAMEWORKS ARE AUTHENTIC AND RELEVANT
Traditional written reports may not always capture the richness of CBO partners’ experiences, particularly when oral traditions or other non-traditional forms of communication are more natural and culturally meaningful to them. To honour how CBO partners capture and communicate their stories, funders must be willing to adopt flexible reporting frameworks that reflect the most authentic means of expression for each CBO partner. This could mean accepting oral reports, visual storytelling, or reports in local languages, rather than imposing rigid, written formats that may not resonate with or fully reflect the CBO partners' work. However, for this to be successful, funders must also have the internal capacity to process and value these diverse forms of data. This requires shifts in internal systems, including monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks so that CBO partners’ voices are heard and respected in their own terms. While this approach demands more time, resources and operational flexibility on the part of the funder, it fosters more meaningful and equitable partnerships, allowing for richer insights and a deeper connection to the work being done on the ground.
3
REDEFINE RISK AND FAILURE
As the Sukuthula! initiative unfolds, the co-funders have had to grapple with how they define “risk” and “failure” within the context of trust-based funding. In conventional fundergrantee relationships, a lack of trust can limit flexibility, as funders may be reluctant to allow grantees to pivot for fear of losing money or not meeting predefined outcomes. However, the real risk lies in wasting resources on strategies that aren’t working and continuously repeating them. In a trust-based funding model, failure is reframed not as a lack of success, but as an opportunity to learn and adjust approaches. It means acknowledging when things are not working, rather than penalising grantees for the inevitable uncertainties and challenges that arise. This requires funders to distinguish between risks that are inherent in experimentation and growth versus risks that are a result of structural issues within an inequitable funding system itself. Ultimately, trust-based funding is about creating an environment that does not punish but supports adaptation and thriving. By embracing this mindset, funders can move towards a model of risk tolerance that allows for genuine innovation and impact, rather than reinforcing a system in which fear of failure stifles potential.
That said, it’s also important to recognise that no single approach is without limitations. Some people may argue that trust-based funding doesn’t fully address power imbalances or makes incorrect or limiting assumptions about what constitutes a given community and who speaks for that community. Acknowledging these limitations and continuously working to ensure practices do not exacerbate harm is part of the journey of trust-based funding, demanding self-reflection and honesty.
4
CAPACITY BUILDING MUST BE PART OF THE DESIGN
Supporting CBO partners in developing the skills and knowledge needed to succeed should not be an afterthought but a priority from the outset. It’s clear that a short-term, oneyear intervention is insufficient for CBO partners to absorb and fully integrate new skills – this process takes time, often over the course of a few years. As the Sukuthula! initiative evolved so did the need to create a structured capacity-building initiative alongside the funding process. The Sukuthula! administration team identified 13 key areas of capacity development with new components continuously being added as the initiative progresses. This adaptive approach to capacity building allows the initiative to remain relevant and responsive to the needs of CBO partners. By building capacity in tandem with the funding process, the project not only strengthens CBO partners’ operational capabilities but also fosters longterm sustainability.
HONEST AND TRANSPARENT
COMMUNICATION SUPPORTS
RELATIONSHIPS ROOTED IN TRUST AND MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY
The Sukuthula! administrators have embraced local languages to foster authentic connections with CBO partners and make funding more accessible. By accepting applications and stories in all languages, the initiative is demonstrating a commitment to inclusivity and respect for the CBO partners' cultural contexts. This is not just about language, but about ensuring that the tone of engagement remains respectful and aligned with the CBO partners' realities.
Moreover, trust is not built from one direction – it is a reciprocal process. When CBO partners feel seen, listened to, and know that the funder is available for real dialogue, they are more likely to come forward with their challenges, mistakes, or needs for support without fear of judgment or repercussions. This level of openness is critical to fostering a relationship where both parties are accountable, not just for outcomes, but for building a supportive and adaptive partnership. In this regard, the Sukuthula! administrators are soliciting feedback at various touchpoints. Going forward they will ask CBO partners to complete an anonymous survey to better understand how the funders are fulfilling their role as partners in a mutually accountable relationship. Acting on this feedback will allow for continuous improvement in how funders engage and support the CBO partners.
WHAT’S NEXT?
To enhance support, the Sukuthula! initiative will need to increase staff capacity, as one person managing three dozen CBO partner relationships is not sustainable in a relational approach. Additional staff will help ensure that each partnership receives the attention and support it requires. Another focus will be exploring opportunities for CBO partners to connect and build a strong network, particularly among organisations working in proximity to one another, fostering collaboration and shared learning. Continued investment in capacity strengthening will further empower CBO partners and support their long-term success. And finally, sharing the lessons learned from this initiative with other grant-makers will be key to reshaping the broader sector, encouraging more trust-based and equitable funding models. These lessons include what the funders and administrators learn from the anonymous survey (mentioned earlier) and will form part of a future learning brief.
Research for this learning brief was provided by Daniella Horwitz with contributions from Zandile Mqwathi and Onesisa Mtwa. It was edited by Rahima Essop, Lorrie Fair and Jessie Chiliza.
