Scaling peace and reconciliation work occurs via a “ripple effect,” in the words of Northern Ireland civil society activist Seamus McAleavey, whereby more and more people are brought on board as the organization grows. In Northern Ireland, many civil society organizations focused on community development as a framework for bringing people together around a common cause. They felt that bringing people together to work on community development could also foster reconciliation from the ground up. However, this kind of work takes time, and in an environment that generally provides short-term funding predicated on immediate results, ensuring long-term sustainability of such efforts can be challenging. It is therefore important to look for sustainable funding sources that allow for longer-term projects, as well as to develop monitoring and evaluation tools to show the impacts of projects over time.

Hasan of the Bedouin Women’s Network also notes the significance of fundraising for sustainability, particularly “to support the organization, to do professional work and evaluation to develop the project [...]so the organization will be more strong.” While funders provide support for specific projects, they do not always provide support for administrative, operational, and overhead costs. Longer-term funding, however, provides some flexibility, both in terms of reducing pressure to be constantly focused on fund-raising, and sometimes also in terms of how finances are used. One of the most commonly referenced sources of longer-term funding was the coordination of fundraising campaigns and events. 

Grassroots fundraising campaigns are most successful when they are paired with strong messaging. Multiple Black Lives Matter activists spoke of the importance of raising funds via social media. As one shares:

Like, I know a lot of kids are on social media so, like I’ll post stuff that’s for them, like if we are doing an event that’s for them then they’ll see it through social media. Right? And also, for fundraising. That’s the number one way. Like, so because we are so grassroots we don’t get money through anywhere else but through people power. That’s the only way that we reach people, by using social media to get people to see what we are doing so that they feel comfortable and willing enough to donate to our cause.

Another Black Lives Matter activist notes that social media is used for both publicity and fundraising, saying, “Social media is a space to demonstrate that you know what you are doing. You don't have to pitch your idea at the office.” She explains that this space lets sponsors make decisions,  saying that in the context of one initiative, “the initial offer of nonprofit funding doubled then increased ten-fold” as a result of social media messaging. 

The strength of grassroots-sourced funding is that it is earned income, and therefore comes with fewer strings attached in terms of grant reporting or restricted usage. These funds can go directly to overhead and operations costs while grant and government funding can continue to support one-off or programmatic initiatives.

A challenge with fundraising is that there are individuals and organizations who are engaged in social change work out of a desire to gain access to money or power rather than out of a genuine desire to create change. Organizational leaders can address this challenge by bringing these situations to light and ensuring the core aims and goals of the organization are not being lost in the funding game.

In Northern Ireland, multiple activists cite the example of former political prisoners who, with the influx of EU (PEACE) funding into Northern Ireland, “literally walked out of jail…and became community development workers” in the words of community development workers Neil Robinson and Charmaine Jones. Manipulation of peacebuilding funding for personal gain has become more prevalent as the sources of community development have shifted from voluntary agencies to local government. This also points to the way that local politics can shape funding opportunities. 

Challenges you may encounter using this tool

• Funders can interfere with networked approaches to coalition building by imposing structure and focus in a way that doesn't help create broad coalitions or even restricts collaboration between organizations.

• Funder priorities can shift over time. If a funder is no longer interested in the kind of work an organization is doing, the resulting funding deficit can actually undermine sustainability. The systems and structures developed to support and manage funding are themselves a costly investment for any organization to maintain without funder support.

• Developing and maintaining a funding pipeline requires a business development or sales background that some activist and community based organizations may not yet have if they are new to the work. 

• Fundraising through social media may not work for community based organizations in contexts with poor internet connectivity or limited access to internet facilities.