For a long time, civil society organisations have relied heavily on donor funding to sustain their work. Grants have enabled organisations to respond to some of society’s most pressing challenges, strengthen communities and deliver programmes that have changed lives. But we can no longer hide from the fact that the development financing landscape is changing. This shift reflects a broader reality in Zambia, where the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that Net Official Development Assistance plummeted by roughly 22% in 2023, alongside recent cuts to donor aid across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Clearly, funding is becoming increasingly uncertain, competition for traditional grants is growing and organisations are having to think more deliberately about how they sustain their work beyond individual projects and funding cycles.
For the Zambian Governance Foundation (ZGF), we're exploring how resource mobilisation could look like if we expand beyond traditional donor funding. This is a question we have been reflectively exploring through the Resource Mobilisation Initiative (RMI), under the Shifting the Power Programme. The initiative is currently in an ideation process to identify and develop approaches that could help civil society organisations and communities mobilise resources differently.
Why ideation matters
Ideation is more than generating a list of interesting ideas. It creates room to challenge some of the assumptions that have shaped the way development has traditionally been resourced. One of those assumptions is that a resource must necessarily mean money.
Through earlier engagements with communities and civil society organisations, the RMI process found that even communities with limited financial resources possess considerable assets. These include land, skills, knowledge, relationships, materials, technology, ideas, volunteer time and the ability to organise collectively. Civil society organisations also hold valuable resources. They have technical expertise, networks, trusted relationships with communities, knowledge of local contexts and years of experience responding to social challenges.
The question, therefore, becomes not only “Where can we find more money?” but also “How can we better recognise, connect and leverage the resources that already exist?”
That is where ideation becomes important. It allows ZGF and its partners to move beyond diagnosing donor dependency and begin exploring practical alternatives.Bringing different perspectives into the conversation.
Resource mobilisation does not happen in isolation. Communities and CSOs exist within a wider ecosystem that includes government, businesses, financial institutions, philanthropy, development partners and many other actors.
For this reason, ZGF's recent RMI Ideation Workshop brought together about 20 representatives from civil society alongside actors from the private and public sectors. This was particularly important because each of these actors sees resources differently.
A CSO may see a community challenge requiring financing. A business may see an opportunity for investment, skills transfer, market development or partnership. Government may see an opportunity that can be connected to an existing public programme, policy or financing mechanism. Communities themselves may already possess assets that could form part of the solution.
Bringing these perspectives into the same room made it possible to ask a different question: What becomes possible when these resources and strengths are connected?
Moving beyond the donor-recipient relationship
One important reflection from the ideation process has been the need to rethink relationships between civil society and other actors. Private sector engagement, for example, does not have to begin and end with asking businesses for Corporate Social Responsibility support. Businesses possess networks, technology, markets, professional expertise, infrastructure and investment capacity. CSOs, meanwhile, bring community relationships, development expertise, local knowledge and social legitimacy.
Ideation creates space to explore where these strengths might complement one another. The same applies to communities. When communities provide land, labour, knowledge, materials, relationships or volunteer time towards an initiative, they are contributing resources. Recognising those contributions changes the way we think about who is funding development and who has ownership over it.
This is particularly important to the idea of shifting power. Communities cannot be recognised as equal partners in development if the resources they bring to the table remain invisible.
From “fund us” to “partner with us”
The RMI ideation process is therefore also about changing the language of resource mobilisation. Instead of civil society approaching other actors primarily with “fund our work,” there is an opportunity to ask: “What do each of us bring, and what can we achieve by combining those resources?”
During the ideation process, participants explored possibilities ranging from co-investment models that recognise communities as contributors alongside formal funders, to strengthening savings groups as vehicles for collective resource mobilisation.
Other discussions considered how CSOs could package their expertise as services, how communities and grassroots organisations could be better connected to formal financing systems, and how businesses could be invited into communities to understand locally led initiatives before partnerships are designed.
These ideas are not finished solutions. That is precisely why ideation matters. They can now be interrogated, combined, refined and eventually prototyped to determine which approaches are feasible, sustainable and capable of addressing the realities identified by communities and CSOs.
Ultimately, the goal is not a future in which civil society no longer works with donors. Development partners will continue to play an important role. Rather, it is a future in which CSOs and communities have more options, stronger relationships and greater agency over how the work that matters to them is resourced.
That is why ZGF is ideating around resource mobilisation, not simply to find new sources of funding, but to expand what we understand a resource to be, who we recognise as a resource holder, and what becomes possible when those resources are brought together.
To contribute to the discussion, please feel free to reach out via info@zgf.org.zm
