FUNDING CIVIL SOCIETY FREEDOM

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Specific recommendations for Global North bilateral donors and philanthropic funders

In response to shifts in the funding landscape, many flexible funders absorb risk on behalf of their upstream donors through accompaniment and adapting various processes and reporting for grantees. It also requires flexible funders to bear the burden of advocating upwards to get buy-in on their flexible approach and for some of their donors to remain responsive. As CIVICUS explains:

“It also took a lot of hand-holding and ‘donor- sitting’ to humanise the relationship, for instance through a lot of trips. The trust we manage to build as people and humanising the process, to trust that in my role together with the project coordinator we are fully invested in making this work. […] But also that we refuse to just spend the money so we can comply with the timelines and reporting. So [it was about] finding that code so we know what is important to each other, and then holding informal relationship building.”

This, however, requires a balance to be struck between cultivating personal relationships and building a process that is sufficiently systemic. What this further reinforces is that flexibility is not a goal in itself, but a continuous and dynamic process.

As highlighted throughout the research, ‘traditional’ or mainstream funders – both bilateral government donors and philanthropic actors – play a key role in resourcing many of the flexible funding models presented here. And many flexible funders NEED flexible funding in order to do what they do, without compromising on their ultimate values.

We therefore present the following recommendations specifically for these funders:

  1. Rather than reinventing the wheel, fund those who already have flexible mechanisms set up. These actors have the relationships, infrastructure and organisational culture that support flexible funding.
  2. Flexibility starts with being open to doing things differently and listening to how your processes affect those who are ultimately intended to benefit from your funding. Be curious and find creative ways to let go of control over conditions and restrictions. Re-evaluate your risk appetite so that you are able to create an enabling environment within your organisation that is supportive of funding flexibly.
  3. Engage in mutual accountability processes by participating in initiatives such as the CIVICUS Donor Transformation Challenge,57 the Funder Report Card,58 and the Racial Equity Index.59 Through this, ensure the ethos of flexible funding reaches the most senior levels of your organisation.
  4. Advocate and mobilise your peers to collectively embrace flexible funding. Share your experimentation with flexible funding and the good practices drawn from those examples to normalise risk, adaptation and conversations about power within your sphere of influence.

57 CIVICUS. Donors Transformation Challenge. Available at: https://www.civicus.org/index.php/donor-transformation-challenge

58 To be published in 2026.

59 The Racial Equity Index. Available at: https://www.theracialequityindex.org/ [Accessed: 05 December 2025].

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