Cuts to international aid budgets came as a “shock” to the voluntary sector but could become a “blessing”, fundraisers have been told.
At the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s annual convention this week, delegates were urged to view the cuts as an opportunity to explore new funding avenues, boost collaboration and localise fundraising.
Keith Kibirango, chief executive of the fundraising consulting firm New Global Markets, said: “We went through the shock of the cuts. Now we are referring to it as a blessing.
“It’s forcing us to think differently. It’s forcing us to take up different opportunities.”
He added: “You can no longer just rely on income that is donated to you. Sell your services, sell your consultancy. Get into a relationship with a company where both of you are making money.”
Willeke van Rijn, chief executive of the social change charity the Resource Alliance, said recent cuts to international development funding were a “symptom” of a “shrinking civic space”.
Laurence Lepetit, chief executive of the union for not-for-profit organisations and foundations France Générosités, added that the shrinking civic space had an effect on all types of not-for-profit organisations, because it was “eroding trust within organisations”.
She said: “Organisations are starting to be more cautious, to censor themselves – and that’s something we should take into consideration.”
Van Rijn said that in crisis moments, the sector needed to “reflect upon our own role in it”, adding: “That £80bn to £100bn is very likely not to come back. With that funding not coming back, we need to transform the sector. We need to think about new opportunities.”
She added: “I think it also really questions what we do as leaders in the sector. Are we keeping our mouth shut at the moment, or are we bold? Are we brave? Do we act?”
Van Rijn said there was little innovation within the international NGO sector in Europe and the US at present, but “much more innovation happening in Asia and African countries”.
She said: “If we are raising funds for India or somewhere in Asia, we should ask if we should raise the funds there. Because the return on investment is actually much higher and we are strengthening local civil society organisations.”
Kibirango said INGOs were “struggling to respond to the challenges of 2025 onwards”, adding: “We need to ask ourselves what the role of INGOs is right now, when that space is being really shrunk.
“We need to continuously ask ourselves: why would a global organisation continue to deliver programmes in the global south when there are people closer to the problem who live in those communities?”
Kibirango said that in the communities that were receiving support from INGOs that had been hit by the cuts, many of the services have been replaced or subsidised with government funding that has materialised.
“So we really need to think about our role and relevance as a sector. Once we do that, then fundraising will flow, because we will be responding to needs that no one else can meet.
“But right now, we have been replicating; we’ve been duplicating; we’ve been competing, not collaborating,” Kibirango said.
“Most of our INGOs have a big, big brand and they can speak truth to power, which smaller, global south organisations cannot do,” he added.
“So why don’t we focus on what we do very well – we can do a lot of that with fewer resources.”