Putting principles into practice – participatory grant making in action
“I’m now spending my time using my mind to come up with a plan I love. This way of doing things costs me something, I got no money for the time I spent working on it but I prefer to work this way where we’re both investing something. I have to be serious in the decisions I'm making because I have something to lose. They’re my ideas and I want them to work.”
Edith, project participant and member of Kithima CBO
At the heart of Transform Trade’s work is the belief that everything we do must be led by the communities we work alongside. In order to put this belief into practice, we’ve been changing how we do things – and since 2021, have piloted a project in Meru County, Kenya, where we’ve trailed new ways of working.
In October, our CEO, Charlotte Timson, spoke at an event hosted by RINGO - sharing the learnings and progress made putting our principles into action. Together with our partners, NORSACC, we’ve produced a comprehensive toolkit, which explores the concept of participatory grantmaking and discusses how southern NGOs and northern INGOs can put these principles into action.
Grant making traditionally comes with a lot of control – the grant maker sets clear parameters as to how money will be spent, demands detailed reports, and sets the metrics by which project success will be measured. Participatory grant making challenges these assumptions, and offers a new way of doing things – working with communities to jointly decide things like spending priorities, reporting mechanisms and overall project aims. From the beginning, building the understanding, trust, and capacities of the collectives and groups within a community is prioritised.
“(Participatory Grant making is) ceding decision-making power about funding — including the strategy and criteria behind those decisions—to the very communities that we aim to serve”
Member, Kenya Support Group
Transform Trade, in partnership with NORSACC and farmers collectives in Meru, Kenya, came up with ten core principles of participatory grant making:
Through the project in Meru, we’ve been putting these principles into action. Although the Meru project has been running for just two years, already we are seeing evidence of substantial impact. So far, farmers report a greater sense of ownership over the interventions, because they actively designed, prioritised and implemented interventions aligned with their needs.
Alongside this, they report greater self confidence and self reliance, with participants more willing to challenge injustice within the agricultural value chain, for example by negotiating prices and contracts. One of the biggest changes has been participants engaged in active planning for the future, with collectives driving change within the wider community, initiating new projects, and taking climate action together, such as planting trees or using climate resilient farming practices.
But the most transformative, sustainable changes do not happen in a three-year project period – it is the internal change in people and group mindsets which, once established, can stand the test of time and help communities – and NGOs like Transform Trade - tackle new challenges as they emerge.