What does it mean to be a social justice funder? Nearly a decade ago, the Ford Foundation set out on a journey to answer this question from a new angle, interrogating not only what it was funding but also how it was funding. When Darren Walker became President in 2013, he sought to shine a brighter light on the corrosive effects that traditional approaches to project funding can have on the sustainability of organizations that raise revenue from private foundations and other grantmaking entities. He began commissioning research and mobilizing staff to engage grantee partners to understand the extent of the problem – how chronic underpayment of indirect costs was depriving civil society organizations of the resources they need for institutional growth, development, and long-term resilience.

Twaweza is an inspiring case in that from the outset it did not wait for doors to be opened, for funders to reform harmful practices. Its innovative funding model emerged from the refusal of the organization’s founder, Rakesh Rajani, and founding Board members to become yet another casualty of the nonprofit starvation cycle. They knew from experience that they would face an uphill battle in the philanthropy ecosystem. Traditional funders tend to place an outsized and unrealistic value on short-term and quantifiable outcomes and, thus, prioritize funding nonprofits that can report them as such. The negative impacts of scarce funding would be further compounded by the significant threats and constraints they would face due to the political nature of their work.

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