Building the new: Reimagining civil society resourcing in times of global transformation
07 May 2026
2025 was a year that laid bare the fragility of the global funding ecosystem as we have known it. Yet this moment is not entirely new. For years, traditional funding models and NGO structures have proven inadequate, extractive and disconnected from grassroots realities. In response, organizations and movements across the world working in pursuit of more just, equitable and peaceful societies have been reimagining how social change is resourced — shifting the focus from money alone to questions of power, voice and agency. Many of us are looking within communities, drawing on creativity and long-held traditions of solidarity to understand how we endure, resist and thrive in a time of profound global challenge.
On 30 October 2025, Bridging Dialogues, the Dalia Association and the GFCF hosted the online session “Building the New: Reimagining Civil Society Resourcing in Times of Global Transformation.” This was created as a space to explore these alternatives — to listen deeply to activists, grassroots foundations and community organizers who are already reshaping civil society in fundamental ways. Rather than looking to international systems for legitimacy or rescue, their work is instead grounded in community sovereignty, collective agency and everyday acts of solidarity.
The session was not designed to provide definitive answers, but to begin a conversation about what comes next. Together, we asked: What are the alternatives? What becomes possible when we shift our attention away from the dominant logics of big aid and big grants? What emerges when we stop seeing resources as charity and instead understand them as solidarity — rooted in dignity, interdependence and the imagination of communities themselves? You can read the full report / transcript of the session here, or read the individual contributions from the four speakers, below.
How traditions of solidarity can rebuild community agency eroded through aid dependency
Nour Nusseibeh, Dalia Association (Palestine)
Nour Nusseibeh shares her perspective from the midst of an ongoing genocide and from years of community-rooted work at the Dalia Association in Palestine. Nour’s reflections illuminate how aid has reshaped Palestinian civil society, leading to fragmentation and dependency, and why returning to cultural practices of solidarity offer a meaningful alternative.
“We need to go back to our roots, to our culture, our norms, and the ways that we have historically worked collectively for change. One expression of this in Palestine is Al Ouneh, which means philanthropy, giving, solidarity and support, and which rests on trust and accountability. This is the model through which we imagine change.”
How everyday acts of mutual support can form the real infrastructure of civic life
Marko Aksentijević, Ministry of Space (Serbia)
Serbia’s recent youth-led uprising reveals both the limits of donor-driven systems and the strength of everyday solidarity. Marko Aksentijević from the Ministry of Space in Belgrade describes how trust, solidarity, and self-organizing are offering a new paradigm for the future of Serbian civil society.
“I hope that there is no return of the development aid system as it was, because in many ways it derailed genuine democratic processes, at least in terms of countries on the periphery like Serbia. Instead, we really need to rebuild from the resources that are in our communities. And there are indeed enough resources.”
How courage and political clarity can sustain struggles in contexts of repression
Martin Macwan, Navsarjan (India)
Martin Macwan’s reflections from India remind us that resistance is sustained not by money, but by the courage and agency of ordinary people. In a context where the State seeks to silence dissent, Martin shares how community-rooted organizing is proving both more resilient and more transformative than donor-driven systems.
“So, we asked ourselves the question: why, 75 years after Indian independence, does the practice of ‘untouchability’ continue to exist in India? Why, when there has been so much ‘development work’ and so much money, is poverty increasing, and the gap between the rich and the poor widening? These are the basic questions that we must confront.”
How a new economic imagination may help movements reclaim agency and construct more just and solidarity-based alternatives
Kamala Chandrakirana, Indonesia for Humanity (Indonesia)
At a moment when Indonesia faces the return of authoritarian and nationalist forces, Kamala Chandrakirana reflects on what it takes to “begin again” for Indonesia for Humanity, even after 30 years of work. She reminds us that when old systems fail, beginnings become political acts — shaping who holds power, how we organize, the allies we seek and the futures we imagine.
“When we understand the economy as culture, we feel empowered. It triggers a memory of how local communities have engaged in economic activities within their respective traditions and customs and in their local contexts. The economy is not just to be owned and controlled by economists. We can build confidence to culturally build our own economic practices based on the belief that economy is culture.”