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What does it mean to be community‑led? Community leaders’ perspectives on principles, practices and impacts (Part 1)

Publications Community Driven Grantmaking Principles

GFCF and GlobalGiving


GlobalGiving, as part of its mission to make it easier for funders to identify, support, and strengthen community‑led approaches, engaged the GFCF to understand how to define “community‑led” and to develop internal tools that would help their team identify community‑led grantee organizations. Over 2020, the GFCF, along with field partners in six countries, engaged in participatory research with knowledgeable local community leaders to:

  • Explore what community‑led approaches look like in practice;
  • Gather evidence of such approaches and their long‑term impact; and,
  • Discover how funders’ policies and practices promote or inhibit community‑led approaches.

One output of the research is the Community‑Led Assessment Tool, that will help GlobalGiving determine the degree to which organizations are community‑led. The Tool considers nine essential characteristics of community‑led work (considered universally applicable) and 17 important characteristics (applicable depending on context). This report details the research approach and methods, key findings, the tools and options for operationalizing them, and recommendations for how GlobalGiving can increase support for community‑led approaches among funders and other external audiences.

Download Full Report

Download report here
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