CSAs & Communities lead own development agenda

The resilience fund at the Foundation for Civil Society is implemented as part of a regional initiative by the Ford Foundation, namely, the East Africa Financial Resilience Resource Hub(EA FRRH). The hub incorporates FCS and other two partners, Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) in Kenya and CivFund-Africa in Uganda, also managing similar funds.

The hub exists to ensure the Global South plays a leading role in building strong, effective organizations by providing technical and financial resilience resources to advance Civil Society Actors’ (CSAs)capacities in fundraising, resource management, compliance with financial requirements, and diversification of funding sources.

As part of the collaboration, the resilience fund at FCS enables CSAs to be more resilient, sustainable and legitimate by enabling a financing ecosystem for CSAs and empowering CSAs to generate, build resources and manage own resources, sustainably through:

1. Knowledge Creation and Exchange

We aim to support the civil society sector and communities with ground breaking, evidence-based knowledge and conversations on aid sector trends, the need for alternative models and approaches to funding that informs policy and practice.

Aid Localization Strategy

Through our localization agenda strategy, our goal is to make it the norm that Civil Society Actors (CSAs) and communities lead own development agenda for just and sustainable/resilient futures. Our approach seeks to:

• Decolonize & transform (institutional & community) mindsets;
• Deepen citizen conversations, dialogue and local leadership.
• Leverage alterative and local development & resourcing models/solutions/innovations for scale,
• Nurture trust & value-based partnerships for increased funding

Our Research

Our research informs discourse on financial resilience as well as our interventions in building financial resilience.

• Beyond the Buzz: a study we carried out in partnership with the Dar Stock Exchange to assess the alignment between the private sector’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices with CSOs’ work.
• AZAKI SACCOS : a study we commissioned to assess the feasibility of establishing an AZAKI SACCOS (Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization) by understanding the needs, preferences, and expectations of stakeholders and potential members.

2. Grant Making Interventions

We test various financial resilience interventions and their effectiveness in contributing to CSOs’ sustainability. We are particularly interested in seeing whether these models will reduce over reliance on donors and top down-down funding models and promote self-sustenance and community-driven generosity.

Pilot interventions have included:

• Social Enterprise Seed Fund to support CSAs to build social enterprises that would act as an avenue for consistent funding.
• Community Matching Fund to support and encourage CSAs to raise funding from their community by designing projects that solve the communities’ challenges and that
• Local Philanthropy to encourage community members to give back by volunteering or actively solve local challenges. Giving Tuesday Tanzania strengthens this movement by inspiring generosity in all forms from time and skills to resources. Coordinated nationally by FCS, the campaign mobilizes individuals, organizations, and businesses to take action that uplifts communities. Through the My Giving Story initiative that was launched in 2018 , young people across Tanzania are invited to share their personal stories of giving highlighting youth-led generosity and showcasing how young changemakers are driving meaningful impact in their communities.

3. Compliance to sector regulatory requirements

Through training and technical support we support CSAs to meet their legal, financial and technological compliance requirements.