A sector comes of age, ready to #ShiftThePower – thoughts on the Summit from Gerry Salole

The Global Summit on Community Philanthropy is bringing long overdue recognition to the principles of local ownership of resources, of local governance and community owned solutions to development. These principles are well known and have been for decades, but they not been put into practice by the development community.

It has long been recognized that the traditional approach of international development has failed. Since the 1980’s, we have been exploring notions of participation in development but all too often this only paid lip service as external actors continued to exert control and influence to fulfil their priorities rather than fostering local capacity.

In Africa I remember working in a village in Zimbabwe where seventeen or eighteen different agencies were working, all trying to ‘involve’ the local community and all wanting  their time with the community simply to check that it was bought into their priorities and their ways of working. These time consuming, merely token exercises added the term ‘Taxation of the Beneficiaries’ to our lexicon but while practises have evolved they still fail to truly pass on the levers of power.

Despite the great quantity and richness of existing community led approaches across those areas that interest development actors locally rooted practices have largely remained invisible. Self-help institutions, self-organized women’s and environmental groups, rotating credit and savings associations even community help with burial expenses are long overlooked locally led and owned mechanisms that bring development and progress to many.

But this system is on the cusp of change and just as the ideals of localism and community primacy are gaining widespread traction within the development field, community philanthropy offers a concrete and durable way forward. The Summit has the potential to be revolutionary because afterwards it will hopefully no longer be sufficient to merely pay lip service to the notion of local ownership and agency.

The Summit is already ready exceeding expectations. It is both oversubscribed and pulling in people from over 60 countries in every region of the globe. It is clear that the community philanthropy message resonates widely and that it is bringing people together. The overwhelming interest in the Summit is a great validation that this new sector is really coming of age and stands ready to #ShiftThePower.

Gerry Salole

GFCF Board Chair