For funders curious about funding participatory work, this page explores why and how funders support participatory methods and approaches, and reflects on common tensions, setting out possible solutions.
Thank you to Leslie Wingender, Senior Director, Peacebuilding at Humanity United for offering her contributions, reflecting on her experience of funding participatory work in Colombia and Mali, in addition to work by the Inclusive Rigour Co-Lab.
Thank you to Cathy Stancer, Director at Lankelly Chase for contributing her perspectives from funding participatory work in the United Kingdom.
The power of participatory approaches
Participatory methods can:
- Enable marginalised people and diverse system actors to play an active and influential role in decisions that affect their lives.
- Bring forward a more diverse range of grounded perspectives, offering us a broader viewpoint and patterns of dynamics that reflects reality in systems. Perspectives and experiences are revealed that are not possible through other research methods.
- Include marginalised groups where they may have previously been forgotten, or not considered because of perceived practical barriers. For example, in Mali, participatory methods enabled the perspectives of illiterate community members to be heard.
- Shift processes, from a dynamic of paternalism and othering, to a dynamic which values people as active and equal stakeholders. Participatory approaches have the power to shift systems.
- Improve mechanisms for feedback from programming back to participants for downward accountability as well as articulating grounded experiences of how change happens for upwards accountability.
- Build capacity for action to transform dynamics in systems that hold oppression in place – the deep engagement of participating actors and communities can help the sustainability of positive outcomes. Extractive data collection does not build capacities for action and can lead to fatigue and anger if vulnerable populations are repeatedly researched with no route through to action (see this Lankelly Chase blog for further reflections).
When rubber hits the road: Challenges and mitigation strategies
Some of the real value of participatory approaches can also provide challenges for donors funding this work, especially if they are doing so for the first time.
Adopting a reflective, adaptive and engaged approach to funding participatory work can contribute to the success of current projects, and provide important lessons for funding future work.
“Bringing those reservations to light will help you determine what can be addressed and make you a better partner within the project. This process will also mean you won’t engage in head-on conflict later on, due to the emergent nature of participatory processes.”
Leslie Wingender, Senior Director, Peacebuilding at Humanity United
“This reflection process may lead to some uncomfortable home truths about the role of funders themselves in perpetuating such system dynamics. Funders need to see themselves as part of the systems they are intervening in – as entangled participants – not as observers who are somehow separate from the dynamics of oppression illuminated by research. Work inside donor organisations at board and executive level is needed to move to this standpoint – it is a fundamental shift in perspective that needs to be backed up by an institutional willingness to respond openly (and not defensively) to what is uncovered, even if this is very challenging.”
Cathy Stancer, Director, Lankelly Chase
Across all of these common scenarios listed below (and others), it’s important for donors to invest in the time needed to build open and trusting relationships within projects to be able to have these difficult conversations.
Donors need to properly resource and value the time that participation requires. This can be challenging practically but cannot be avoided. It isn’t possible to have open and trusting relationships and equitable difficult conversations when one party is securely and comfortable resourced and the other is contending with serious material disadvantage.
Honest conversations are needed across the board, to try and align different expectations and also appreciate the strengths of each actor. These conversations can be difficult and confronting, and organisations can be reluctant to open up, especially if donors are not willing to set an example with their own reflexivity to enable a safe space.
Finding the balance between micro-managing and having regular check-ins is crucial. This is beneficial to all involved and donors end up with a more complete and rich understanding of projects, which enables them to be allies when flexibility is called for.
It’s important to acknowledge that upward accountability often falls on the organisations in the middle between donors and communities. Donors do not just have a responsibility to their organisation’s board – there should be downward accountability to communities.
Shifting timelines
The ambition of participatory approaches to work with the most marginalised groups, often in challenging contexts, can mean that projects take longer than anticipated because care is required to follow ethical processes thoroughly. In addition, cultivating trusting relationships from the outset between communities, facilitators, project teams and donors can take more time than expected.
How can funders address this challenge?
It’s important for donors to appreciate shifting timelines as part of a genuine participatory process and not jump to conclusions about the causes of delays. Leslie Wingender reflects that “where there are delays, it’s rarely a case of incompetence. It’s often an important contextual issue, or new information pushing teams to rethink plans.”
In Mali, where Humanity United funded a participatory peacebuilding initiative, the project plan was adapted and timelines needed to be shifted due to coups, shifting conflict dynamics, the need to adapt in response to evidence and insights from participant , and Covid.
In the end, a decision was made to focus on three locations instead of the four that were originally planned, but that meant that there was no compromise on the depth and richness of the project’s work in those three areas.
Valuing the space for learning through participation, over the need to match the initial project commitment, can provide unforeseen benefits. In the end, the approach by IMRAP (the implementing organisation) to documenting their processes was a rich source of learning for Humanity United and others, which may have been compromised if they were stretched across four sites.
Unexpected and evolving findings
One of the benefits of participatory processes is that they bring different perspectives to light. However, these perspectives can be drastically different to what is suggested to, or expected by, the donor during the initial project conceptualisation and contracting stage.
In Colombia, where Humanity United has been funding a systemic action research (SAR) process since 2021 engaging social leaders and government representatives in peacebuilding initiatives, emerging findings were not necessarily aligned with the donor’s original programme priorities. Communication challenges and staff turnover meant there was a risk that this could come across as an issue of “donor priorities vs the community’s priorities”.
How can funders address this challenge?
Time and space should be made for careful reflection from donors, at the outset, on the boundaries of the project. This should be clearly communicated to organisations to avoid conflict further down the line. To avoid performativity, this should include difficult preparatory work to look squarely at donor’s own assumptions about whose voice and experience is valued and heard, and the extent to which donors are willing and able to shift power.
On this occasion, Humanity United returned to the principles of the project’s approach to reflect on why they valued the project. While the findings did not align with expectations, the conversation contributed to Humanity United’s broader strategy of interrogating donor relationships. Leslie reflects “I had to really sit with that personally, and think, when does a donor really want specific outcomes and when can we be more flexible?”
Changing budgetary needs
Similarly, as findings emerge, and timelines shift, projects using participatory approaches consequently require more flexibility with how budgets are spent. As an example, in recruiting participants for workshops, project teams may realise they need to change the budget to make sure people with disabilities are enabled to participate equally.
This can clash with restrictions imposed by donors, for example, the need to submit financial and legal records to regulators at fixed times. These obligations will differ depending on the country where the donor is situated, as well as the source of their funds (for example, whether they are funded by philanthropy or receive government funding).
How can funders address this challenge?
When a request to change (or increase) budgets comes to a donor, it is prudent to carefully consider and separate what is required to comply with legal obligations, and what is perceived as preferable (for example, sticking to original plans to avoid causing further difficult work). Where it is the latter, donors can and should refer back to the strategy for reflection, or to the direction of the organization. Donors should return to the principles of their work to consider whether flexibility is possible.
In the case of work funded by Humanity United in Mali, on further interrogation of the required vs the ideal, there was space for more budgetary flexibility, due to the philanthropic nature of the funder.
It’s advised that donors are transparent about any rigid boundaries from the start of a project, to avoid running into frustrations or miscommunications further down the line.
“Sometimes it sounds like donors are requiring something impossible… we want to demystify our role. We do have influence in the donor space to elevate community voices and participation. It’s important for us to be open and transparent about our own restrictions as well as our commitment to learning.”
Leslie Wingender, Senior Director – Peacebuilding, Humanity United
Extensions and increases to the budget can also arise in scenarios where participation generates enthusiasm to continue the work. Honest and transparent conversations are needed in order to end projects ethically and positively, and to avoid compromising how implementing organisations are seen within communities (which can be a danger if they are misled on next steps).
Participatory approaches can help us address the big challenges of our time, and donors play a crucial role in drawing out their potential. Donors are a key player in this and they are also one of several important stakeholders who must collaborate strategically to move this forward.
“Donors have unequal and unearned power. There is learning/unlearning to do inside funders about how to come into these processes with an awareness of that power, and a willingness to put it on the table for discussion.”
Cathy Stancer, Director, Lankelly Chase
“The richness of what comes from participatory processes is really one that we, as donors, should continue to invest in and explore.”
Leslie Wingender, Senior Director – Peacebuilding, Humanity United
What evidence do we have of how participatory approaches contribute to achieving social change?
While there is a wide-ranging and long-standing literature on participatory approaches and methods which theorises and shows in practice how and why participation works, we are also contributing to a growing body of evaluation research that explores if, how, why and for whom participatory programmes generate outcomes. Large scale systemic action research programmes have been evaluated through theory-based and participatory approaches producing robust and credible evidence:
- When marginalised people (such as children in the worst forms of child labour) are engaged in causal analysis of their own experiences to uncover the systemic dynamics at play, and undertake their own inquiry with peers, their critical consciousness is raised, and this builds ownership of the process and the issue being addressed;
- With critical consciousness built, and, ownership over the process a greater appreciation for the power dynamics that influence their experiences within a system is achieved. Marginalised people are then able to map out what actions are needed to shift the dynamics that perpetuate exploitation;
- Ongoing trust building throughout all phases of a participatory process is crucial to any outcomes. Without power aware facilitation participation will not work. Building trust can be more than instrumental, however, it can model the change sought in a system – in particular in the context of peacebuilding interventions where repairing social bonds is central to achieving everyday peace – and prefigure the change itself;
- A combination of trust, critical consciousness, ownership and collective identity are participatory process outcomes that can pave the way for broader and deeper change through collection action which includes advocating for change and influencing decision makers;
- Participatory systemic approaches to tackling wicked problems (such as the worst forms of child labour or building peace in conflict affected communities) are well placed to shift relational dynamics in systems – by reconfiguring relationships between marginalised groups and others, and creating now forms of collective power to seek solutions that catalyse broader change.
See the following resources for the extensive evidence base:
