Civil Collective, Uganda
As noted by Civil Collective’s Founder / Director, Emmanuel Waiswa: “When it comes to measuring the inputs of development work, financial contributions don’t tell the whole story. Sure, we need numbers to track investments, but focusing only on the numbers from cash contributions misses the heart of what matters because other resources that present as in-kind contributions and social connections also contribute to the development process. When people are asked to talk about poverty, they often express their lives as limited by many other issues, and not solely the lack of money. So why then, do we mainly talk about the solutions in terms of only cash we can count? Ignoring these in-kind contributions leads to a system and culture in which the full extent of community non-financial contributions is not counted.”
Over 2024 and 2025, Civil Collective launched a study on how to quantify community contributions. They conducted field visits and interviews in the communities where the organization is active, and organized peer exchanges with other actors on how they value local contributions. The idea is that the study could be a conversation starter with international actors about the need to form more respectful partnerships between local and external actors. In their view: “It’s time to bring various parts of the development systems together to acknowledge the importance of in-kind contributions.”
Since 2018, the GFCF has made six grants to Civil Collective, totaling US $122,400. Read more about their work valuing community contributions in the blog The tyranny of numbers, and the in-kind resources we don’t count on the #ShiftThePower Treehouse.