As we close the year, we are reminded that real change happens when communities come together. We celebrate the everyday acts of care that hold communities together—long after the season ends. Wishing you Happy Holidays. #StoriesForChange #CommunityPhilanthropy #ShiftThePower #TheStoryIsOurs

22 days to Stories for Change Festival—global community philanthropy celebration! As aid shrinks, communities drive change through funds, skills & resources. Join for authentic stories, discussions & local leadership Register now— stories.shiftthepower.org #StoriesForChange #CommunityPhilanthropy

Community philanthropy works when communities are trusted to lead. Real change happens when power steps back and local wisdom leads the way. As Doel Jaikishen from YUVA reminds us, this is about shifting mindsets and amplifying local voices. #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange #CommunityPhilanthropy

“Meaningful development depends on keeping communities at the centre.” — Robert White, Tilitonse Foundation Too often, development is done for communities, not with them. Impact happens when communities lead and others support. 📖 Read the full blog: stories.shiftthepower.org/blogs/hvfi20...

“When development ignores culture, solutions don’t last.” — Fifi Boateng, WACSI. Development must be rooted in culture and shaped by how communities define their own realities. 📖 Read the full blog stories.shiftthepower.org/blogs/hvfi20... #CommunityPhilanthropy #StoriesForChange #ShiftThePower

28 days to go! Join the Stories for Change Festival on 15 January 2026 — a global celebration of community-led change. Hear inspiring stories and connect with leaders making an impact 🔗 Register here: stories.shiftthepower.org #CommunityPhilanthropy #StoriesForChange #TheStoryIsOurs #TheTimeIsNow

Development is often reduced to money, but African communities have long thrived through shared care. Stories for Change reflects on conversations challenging this narrative, reminding us that philanthropy is about love of humanity. 📖 Read the full blog: stories.shiftthepower.org/blogs/hvfi20...

Every community has a story of people coming together. What’s yours? Share a 1-minute video for the Stories for Change Festival and show how your community led change. 👉 Submit here: upload.vloggi.com/projects/YRR... #StoriesForChange #ShiftThePower #CommunityPhilanthropy #TheStoryIsOurs

“Community philanthropy goes beyond grants — it shifts power to the people who know their struggles best, centring their knowledge, experience, and solutions.” — Magda Pochec, Fundusz Feministyczny @femfund.bsky.social #StoriesForChange #ShiftThePower #CommunityPhilanthropy #TheStoryIsOurs

#CommunityPhilanthropy means communities lead with their own resources, while donors enable rather than direct. Tara Rao of Eddelu Karnataka says: “When support enables, communities lead — and we build an inclusive, human-centred system.” #StoriesForChange #ShiftThePower #TheStoryIsOurs

Join a global celebration of community philanthropy and the power of people creating meaningful change. The #StoriesForChange Festival, rooted in #ShiftThePower, showcases community-led action worldwide. 🔗 Register: stories.shiftthepower.org #CommunityPhilanthropy #TheStoryIsOurs #TheTimeIsNow

Which story from your neighbourhood deserves to be celebrated? Tell us how your community came together. 🤝✨ Record a short video showing how people came together to make a difference. Submit it here: upload.vloggi.com/projects/YRR... #StoriesForChange #ShiftThePower #TheStoryIsOurs #TheTimeIsNow

“Aid systems are shifting, and the impact on community organisations is real. We need to imagine a new future together. It’s time to believe in our collective power to create sustainable change.” — Sam Rye, @monashuniversity.bsky.social #StoriesForChange #ShiftThePower #CommunityPhilanthropy

Do you have a story about community-led development? Who are the everyday changemakers around you? Share how your community is driving change. 👉 Register for the #StoriesForChange Online Festival: stories.shiftthepower.org #TheTimeIsNow #TheStoryIsOurs #ShiftThePower #CommunityPhilanthropy

Community development is driven by local assets — expertise, knowledge, land, labour, and culture, not just external funding As Artémisa Castro Félix of FASOL notes, communities are their own biggest investors What non-financial asset matters most in your community? #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange

For the #StoriesForChange festival, we’re highlighting self-reliance and local agency, the forces driving change How do you support your community through time, skills, money, or other ways? Share a video on how you practise #CommunityPhilanthropy Submit it here: upload.vloggi.com/projects/YRR...

"With external funding shrinking, it's time we value our own resources" Prekkshya Bimali @AccountabilityLab Nepal says #CommunityPhilanthropy is a mindset shift: learn from community-led models, adapt to our contexts, root development in our realities #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange #TheStoryIsOurs

International aid often misses the mark because funders are too far from community realities. #CommunityPhilanthropy shifts power locally — using community knowledge and resources to create solutions that truly fit and last. #TheTimeIsNow #TheStoryIsOurs #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange

“The World That Is Hatching” brings to life a powerful vision imagined by activists worldwide. #StoriesForChange is about championing communities to shape their own narratives and lead their development. Watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaWD... #TheTimeIsNow #ShiftThePower #CommunityPhilanthropy

#CommunityPhilanthropy shows up in many ways — like Ubuntu and Ujamaa in East Africa. What does it look like in your community? Share your story! Record a short video and submit it via the QR code or this link: upload.vloggi.com/projects/YRR... #TheStoryIsOurs #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange

With USAID gone and European donors pulling back, funding for essential services is drying up. #CommunityPhilanthropy offers a sustainable way forward. By pooling resources, communities are creating solutions that endure beyond external aid. #TheStoryIsOurs #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange

"Giving is part of daily life in the Global South — through churches, mosques, temples, and traditions. With trust in #CommunityPhilanthropy, this generosity can strengthen livelihoods and expand opportunities." — Kaushalya Ariyathilaka #TheTimeIsNow #TheStoryIsOurs #ShiftThePower #StoriesForChange

Berhanu Demissie of DEC challenges us to look beyond traditional donors. The true path to sustainable development isn't just external aid, he says—it's harnessing local resources to drive lasting, sustainable change. We must break the cycle of dependency. It’s time to #ShiftThePower. #TheTimeIsNow

Community philanthropy builds assets, capacities, and trust — helping communities grow through shared resources. From schools to youth programmes, local people are driving their own development Watch how local giving shifts power back to communities: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K04s...

Today we launch #StoriesForChange — a global campaign celebrating #CommunityPhilanthropy and people-led solutions. Communities are stepping up to drive their own development, and we’re here to spotlight their stories and the changemakers leading the way. #TheTimeIsNow #TheStoryIsOurs #ShiftThePower

What's possible when we stop seeing resources as charity & start seeing them as solidarity: grounded in dignity, local ties, collective imagination? Join us for a conversation on 30 Oct about alternative models of funding, organizing & mutual care. globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/news/buildin...

As the Ikhala Trust winds up its more than two decades of work in South Africa's Eastern Cape, Bernie Dolley & Sarah Hugow reflect on how supporting the dreams/vision of individuals & small groups can lead to transformative change. #ShiftThePower globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/blog/the-but...

Feeling dissatisfied with a measurement tool that ignored the non-linear path of children learning art, FacesUp set out to create an alternative measurement tool to define success by the richness of learning art, and not a "defined set target." shiftthepower.org/2025/08/13/a... #ShiftThePower

When Shila & Nish of Freedom Studio (Nepal) visited the Nebraska Community Foundation, they saw big differences & surprising similarities. Nebraska’s community philanthropy models offered new inspiration for Nepal, especially as global aid shrinks shiftthepower.org/2025/08/20/f... #ShiftThePower

Funders assume 💰 is what movements need most but movements have always found ways to self-resource. So how should funders engage with things that can exist with or without their support? Here is the case for messy/vital movement building as real power shiftthepower.org/2025/08/22/a... #ShiftThePower

Save the date for the next #ShiftThePower Summit! Johannesburg in 2016, London in 2019 & Bogotá in 2023…#ShiftThePower is heading to Asia next! Mark your calendars for 2 - 4 December 2026 in Kathmandu, Nepal. globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/news/save-th...

For anyone working in shrinking civic space, navigating tensions between funding, power & place - what can be learned from Hungary? “Those working every day for community, dignity & democracy deserve support systems that match their courage.” globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/blog/hungary...

Born out of a powerful weaving of Global South orgs, the #GlobalSouthHouse is a space by & for the South's political articulation, mobilization, & knowledge production for dev't The weaving has already begun. Join us on 🗓️ 30th July to be part of it shiftthepower.org/event/offici... #ShiftThePower

"We do not want to create a culture of fear or compliance over genuine commitment to the communities that are underserved." Reflections on 25 years of the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust & its ambition to be "more than just a grantmaker." #ShiftThePower globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/blog/the-bal...

Dear funders, not everything needs your ruler, highlighter or template. Movements are colouring outside the colouring book & making magic, & doing the work they need to do in complexity & messy organising. They are only be supported, not controlled shiftthepower.org/2025/07/03/c... #ShiftThePower

"Philanthropy’s most important contribution is not to patch holes – but to support those who are imagining what a better system could look like." #ShiftThePower #PossibleNow www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/we-need...

Dumi Gatsha (they/them) is the first ever gender diverse parliamentary candidate in Botswana, a former facilitator of the #ShiftThePower UK Funders Collective and founder of Success Capital. Their new piece in @shiftthepower.bsky.social reckons with the future of philanthropy.

🚨 Gov'ts are weaponizing climate crises to ban protests, militarize resources, & criminalizing environmental defenders, but communities are pushing back with the local resources they have. 🌍 Join us for a critical 3-part series👇 🗓 June 9, 18 & 25. 🔗: climasolutions.org/climate-auth... #ShiftThePower

Writing in Alliance, Rebecca Hanshaw & Barry Knight make the case for supporting grassroots people power: "If social change is the goal, answers will not be found in a professionalized body that seeks permission to act from its donors." #ShiftThePower www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/resist-...

Great piece from Daria Rybalchenko of the National Network of Local Philanthropy Development on why we need to #MeasureWhatMatters locally, rather than simply measuring to meet the requirements of international donors. #ShiftThePower globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/blog/numbers...

How are communities in #Ukraine moving beyond aid & co-governing shared resources? Join us on 12 June to hear of the creative models developed by the Moloda Gromada Foundation, even amidst disruption & war. #ShiftThePower globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/news/upcomin...

"Despite the uncertainty, Mic remains grounded in something deeper than funding cycles: community, creativity & a belief in people’s ability to rebuild from w/in." Spot on from Mic (Center for Disaster Preparedness) speaking w/ @globalgiving.bsky.social. www.globalgiving.org/learn/storie...

Writing in Humentum's "A bridge to the future: Essays on a new era for global development" the GFCF's Jenny Hodgson and @eshbankwesiga.bsky.social point to community philanthropy as the way forward. #ShiftThePower globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/blog/light-i...

Civil society around the world is reimagining & building new systems. It's also saying "we don’t want to go back to what we had before the cuts, because that wasn’t a system designed by us or for us." Sign this to stand with CSOs www.standwithcivilsociety.org #ShiftThePower @peacedirect.bsky.social

🌍 Funding cuts are hitting hard, but local orgs are also building a new system rooted in mutual aid, community philanthropy and solidarity saying, "what we need now is not rescue, but recognition." ✍🏽 Sign this open letter to #StandWithCivilSociety #ShiftThePower standwithcivilsociety.org

After attending the recent Humanitarian Leadership Conference in Doha, @themrise.bsky.social lays out a set of core principles that could ground the quest of working towards a more equitable system of development and humanitarianism. globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/blog/alterna...

"No one ever claims to hold power within philanthropy...From directors to project officers, trustees to backdoor funders: all of them refer to some other power over and above them. This is how systems work." A powerful read from Dumi Gatsha. #ShiftThePower shiftthepower.org/2025/04/28/c...

What if the future of civil society lies not in aid but in solidarity? Join the #GivingForChange alliance & Alliance Magazine on 13 May for a conversation on rebuilding civil society resilience through community philanthropy. #ShiftThePower globalfundcommunityfoundations.org/news/allianc...

This reflection on alternative measurement gets into why the log frame often feels like an attempt to nail spaghetti to a wall — to force complex, relational, adaptive work into a linear accountability framework shiftthepower.org/2025/04/14/r... #ShiftThePower #MeasuringWhatMatters

Philanthropy didn’t understand what it was trying to fix shiftthepower.org/2025/04/02/p... They mistook what was unfamiliar for something broken... they encountered something mess and unpredictable, they assumed managing it was the same as improving it. So they built bureaucracies. #ShiftThePower