No Agenda, and Other Lessons from Global Fund for Children

Global Fund for Children supports local community-based organizations around the world. They take partnership seriously, and in recent years have examined what true collaboration looks like not only in their grantmaking, but in the myriad of ways that funders can provide additional support. We sat down with Vice President of Programs Corey Oser to hear more.

Your work is focused on children and youth. How does a youth-centered perspective play out in your approach?

Because our work is child- and youth-centered, it’s inherently about power. We have a very real opportunity to use our position and influence to shift power dynamics—to say, we recognize that the systems we’re working within include oppression and injustice, and we have the chance to step back and make space for community leaders to share their voices, experiences, and solutions. In a youth context, making sure that leaders have a seat at the table also means being intentional about building in opportunities to support youth leadership. For example, we recently brought on a young leader to be part of the decision-making body for an annual award. This leader will now have direct influence on resource allocation, but they will also be supported in their personal leadership journey.

Global Fund for Children also works internationally. What opportunities or challenges come from working across different geographies and cultures?

Having an international focus certainly affects how we work. Our partners are based around the world, with our main office located in Washington, D.C. These are geographic differences, but often they are also power differences. It’s important to name that elephant in the room for other international organizations whose headquarters are located closer to seats of power. With many of our partners working on remote issues, our DC staff (most of whom originally come from the regions they support) is able to elevate their work.

Over time, we’ve also seen the positive difference that it makes having team members based closer to regional partners. When we’re thinking about supporting networks and helping partners establish relationships, local context and understanding matters even more.

Beyond funding, how do you see your role in supporting grantees?

Funding is, in many ways, the defining characteristic of our relationship with grantee partners. But it’s also so much more than that. Funding is helpful, obviously, but we’ve heard from partners that our other supports have played an even bigger role—from making connections to other funders, to helping partners define their work for external audiences, to bringing like-minded groups together who are committed to the same mission but who were not yet connected. Every organization is at their own stage in the process, and we really aim to support rather than direct them as they discover, strengthen, and adapt their approaches.

How do you encourage authentic relationships and vulnerability with grantee partners?

Building trust is about listening and not coming in with a set agenda. For a funder to establish a real relationship with a grantee or partner, it means taking the time to be with the organization and their staff—and not talking only to the ED. It means getting to know who they are and how they work and what’s important to them. It means seeing them through more than one angle.

The other side of that coin is, as funders we have to be willing to be more open and vulnerable. I’ve tried to be more transparent about our evolution as an organization—mistakes we’ve make, and things we’re trying to get better at. When I’m included in partner convenings, I share about what’s going on at Global Fund for Children, and recent reflections we’re having internally. This has to be a shared dialogue.

I think it’s important to mention—there are also spaces we can help create where funders are not included. I think we’ve become better over time at recognizing the importance of bringing partners together for convenings based on what’s important to them and giving them a chance to share expertise, challenges, reflections, with each other.

What are some areas you’re wrestling with, or things you still want to improve in your trust-based journey?

There are a few!

Flexible funding is a key part of a trust-based approach for us. We’re not coming with a specific set of activities that we want funded. That’s always been really clear—to us. But what we mean by “flexible funding” hasn’t always been as clear to our partners, especially when they first come into contact with us. We have a lot of conversations with partners about what this means, and those are important, but we could also be providing more clarity through materials and resources to get everyone on the same page.

Another challenge is that an intermediary funder, we find ourselves in a unique place—with a commitment to our partners to practice from a trust-based place, but also navigating some funding relationships (with foundations who fund us) that are not aligned. We’re working to more intentionally help funders understand the implications this has for the organizations we support.

Lastly, because we work with a broad range of organizations and coalitions, we have a vantage point that allows us to see trends, evidence, research findings. It’s a question for us of how much to share these observations and standards, which, on the one hand might usefully inform some of our partners’ work and potentially their impact, but on the other hand, which they may feel is directive and restrictive coming from a funder.

What’s the benefit of doing trust-based philanthropy “out loud”?

As a funder collective, Global Fund for Children was created with and has always operated with trust-based values. We didn’t call it that, but we discussed how to embody this work and put it into practice as part of a collective effort. With more (values-aligned) voices comes more synergy, and whether that’s through the Trust-Based Philanthropy Network or other efforts, you start to see the ripple effects that are only made possible by sharing these reflections and practices with others.

What’s one way that Global Fund for Children has changed its grantmaking in response to grantee input (that other that funders can consider doing)?

There’s a role each of us can play in moving the center of action and power, and you can start small! One relatively easy step we’ve taken is to make available small capacity grants for areas like - staff wellbeing, internal policy development, adapting programming to new contexts, things that grantees have identified as being valuable for their own growth. As organizations become more in tune with how they define capacity and areas they want to strengthen, it’s important for funders to be able to support that growth and not dictate it. We have a process where, within two weeks of getting a short proposal—a few paragraphs—the capacity grant gets approval by the regional director.