Championing community-led decision-making processes
Final grantmaking decision-making is through a series of collaborative workshops between the Peer Panelists and the Advisory Board.
Final selection of proposals for funding is done through a series of collaborative, community-led grantmaking workshops. The workshops include members of the Peer Panel, the Resilience Fund Advisory Board and Fund Operations team members.
These workshops are collectively facilitated and final proposals are chosen using participatory decision making tools.
Our approach to grantmaking champions local decision-making and women's leadership to make key decisions on resource allocation collaboratively.
In addition to our collaboration with accessibility support partners & peer panelists for the grantmaking cycle in Southeast Asia, the Fund shifted to a 2-stage application process in 2022.
The Fund learned in its first grantmaking cycle in South Asia that many organizations submitted full applications, despite not meeting the eligibility criteria. We did not want organizations to waste their precious time and resources on applying if they did not meet the eligibility criteria. The Fund reorganized it’s grant application process to minimize this burden on potential applicants.
What does Participatory Grantmaking look like?
The Fund shifted to a 2-stage grantmaking process in 2022 to minimize applicants’ time investment and effort.
In Phase 1, applicants submit a simplified, short proposal which the fund’s operations team screens for eligibility. All eligible proposals are invited to submit a more detailed proposal in Phase 2.
In Phase 2, detailed proposals are screened and scored by a group of ‘Peer Panelists’. Peer Panelists are a group of local gender and labor activists, value chain experts and representatives from factory management. This diverse group ensures proposals are evaluated through a holistic lens and selected proposals are representative of the local movements’ needs.
The participatory grantmaking process is intrinsically connected to the Learning Hub Approach - the Fund actively learning on how to improve future cycles.
We gather learnings from each stage of the process, hold brave spaces for open reflection between local activists, Peer Panelists, and the Advisory Board and actively invests in strengthening our processes for future cycles.
We hold special spaces for reflection and learning among the Fund’s Peer Panelists, Advisory Board members, and wider Funder network.