IHRFG recently held a two-day conference to find new approaches to combating ongoing human rights violations. Following the event, the IHRFG blog shares reflections from grantmakers who came together to explore this topic through various lenses. Click here to read more lessons and join the conversation!
Catherine Hyde Townsend, Senior Program Officer, Wellspring Advisors, LLC on increasing involvement of communities in decision-making:
Participatory grantmaking percolated at almost every session, whether participants were talking about measurement and evaluation systems or about free and informed prior consent. The San Francisco meeting also marked the launch of a new Participatory Grantmaking Working Group focused on how donors effectively involve affected communities in decision-making. A report released last year by the Lafayette Practice entitled Who Decides: How participatory grantmaking benefits donors, communities and movements catalysed the collaboration by bringing together donors that were already using participatory models. Yet, what surprised me was the unity around the moral imperative to better involve affected communities in all grantmaking models.