(Illustration by Peter Grant)
Philanthropic collaboratives are growing in popularity in Africa and share many similarities with their global peers, but they also have their own distinguishing traits.
For one thing, African collaboratives tend to be underfunded relative to collaboratives in other parts of the world. Though they have a strong record of impact and capacity to accomplish more with higher levels of support, 60 percent of African collaborations have annual budgets below $10 million, while 70 percent of global collaborations have annual budgets above $10 million.
For another, African collaboratives are more likely than their global peers to establish independent entities to implement their programs. This keeps their brands front and center and eliminates potential funder recognition battles.
In addition, 6 out of 10 African collaboratives work only within the countries where they are located, reflecting both the diversity in social, economic, and political environments within the continent and the pragmatic challenges of transferring money across borders.
This data comes from a 2024 report from The Bridgespan Group, which found a “robust and complex” trend of greater philanthropic collaboration in Africa. The report identified 131 philanthropic collaborations in Africa, of which 73 are focused solely on the continent. (The rest worked in multiple regions.) Nearly 80 percent of the African collaborations were created since 2010.
What can other funders learn from Africa’s collaborative movement, particularly its focus on funding organizations close or “proximate” to the communities they are trying to help? The following conversation between David Bowermaster, founder of Fireside Strategy, and leaders of two collaborative funds focused on Africa—Atti Worku, a native of Ethiopia and co-CEO of African Collaborative (formerly the African Visionary Fund) and Degan Ali of Somalia, executive director of Adeso and creator of the Proximate Fund—articulates the power of this approach.
David Bowermaster: African Collaborative was created in 2020 with a mission to increase the share of international funding that flows directly to locally led organizations on the continent. It is one of several collaboratives that have emerged as powerful and popular mechanisms—for African and non-African funders alike—to transfer more money and decision-making to organizations close to communities and thus closer to solutions. What are the benefits of this approach?
Atti Worku: One benefit is agility and resilience in times of rapid change, which are becoming more rule than exception. When the US government abruptly halted $8 billion of aid to Africa in early 2025, I received lots of questions from funders wondering how to respond. It took me back to the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. People were asking a lot of the same questions. “The world is falling apart, what can I do?” In both instances, my advice was the same: Support proximate organizations that work each day to meet the needs of their communities, and trust they know best how to deploy the resources.
Bowermaster: That sounds like a role model for trust-based principles, creating community-driven funds designed by Africans to meet the needs of Africans. In the process, you are remedying longstanding power imbalances in how philanthropic resources are distributed and controlled. Has it been hard to convince funders that this is the best approach?
Worku: It certainly hasn’t been easy. The challenge is reflected in the Bridgespan data that reveals that African collaboratives operate with smaller budgets than their global counterparts. But there are many funders who care about solutions to Africa’s challenges in areas such as education, health care, and economic development. African Collaborative has a strong track record of raising money from philanthropic foundations, directing it to vibrant local organizations, and partnering with them to achieve their goals. Since 2020, African Collaborative has distributed $8.4 million in unrestricted funding grants to 35 African-led organizations in 13 countries. Our partners have provided everything from emergency flood-response in Kenya and Burundi to palliative care for children with cancer in Uganda, and STEM education and technology job training for women and girls.
Bowermaster: Turning to Degan, for several years there has been an active and organized campaign to reduce the extent to which Global North funders dominate the flow of capital to the developing world, what it supports, and who receives it. Is [Adeso’s] Proximate Fund a part of this trend?
Degan Ali: The Proximate Fund, a new African philanthropic collaborative, draws inspiration from the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and the launch of the Grand Bargain [platform] to reform humanitarian aid by, among other things, channeling 25 percent of aid to local organizations as a key milestone in the movement to “decolonize aid,” as we say.
Bowermaster: Despite those aspirations, according to African Collaborative, as recently as 2021, only 1.2 percent of total international humanitarian assistance directly funded local and national partners, and only 13 percent of US grant dollars funded local organizations between 2016 and 2019. How can Proximate Fund shift the norm?
Ali: We are launching the Proximate Fund in partnership with the African Philanthropy Forum and NEAR (Network for Empowered Aid Response) because collaborative funds are especially well suited to getting more money flowing to local organizations in Africa, provided they are designed with considerable local input and with the needs of African communities top of mind. What the Proximate Fund is trying to do is create strong mechanisms within each African country for donors to move their funds to local groups, particularly in vulnerable and underserved countries enduring conflicts, such as Sudan, Congo, and Somalia.
Bowermaster: So will the Proximate Fund focus on geographies underserved by NGOs?
Ali: It will! The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan demonstrates the need for locally focused collaboratives, as relatively few international NGOs currently engage directly in conflict zones. (We estimate they serve 6 percent of on-the-ground needs in Sudan.) So, small nonprofits and civilian-led mutual aid groups are handling 80 to 90 percent of the crisis response.
Despite their vital role, mutual aid groups face devastating financial impact from the USAID freeze. For example, a community kitchen network that feeds millions of displaced people in Sudan is reliant on USAID funding for 75 percent of its budget. The freeze is threatening the infrastructure of grassroots support systems like this when they're needed most, but philanthropists can help. Proximate Fund and African Collaborative help donors act in solidarity with proximate organizations by funding their life-saving work.
The Proximate Fund has been moving quickly to conduct feasibility studies and meet with local partners as it prepares to launch a Sudan-based intermediary. The intermediary will be able to receive funds and direct them to small Sudanese nonprofits, which otherwise would never get on the radar of large global donors.
The fund will follow with a collaborative catered to one of the French-speaking African countries, which non-francophone international funders also tend to overlook, and a third collaborative focused on a country with high development needs.
Bowermaster: Back to African Collaborative, a concern sometimes raised about philanthropic collaboratives is that they could become an excess layer between donors and nonprofits, drawing funding away from local organizations. How are you avoiding this?
Worku: Actually, the bigger challenge in Africa is surmounting the multiple structural barriers that local organizations face in raising funds from even the most well-intentioned global funders.
Likewise, many funders that want to support local organizations can’t get around the infrastructure and logistical challenges to do it directly. African Collaborative’s role as a collaborative is valued by both the nonprofits it supports and the donors that fund it—and a major focus of our work is to make connections between them so that funding can flow directly.
Bowermaster: How do you select the organizations that African Collaborative supports?
Worku: To maximize our local focus, African Collaborative invites an annually rotating participatory grantmaking committee—composed of our co-CEOs, board members, and African social impact leaders, including our grantee partners—to help decide who will receive its future grants. We are always looking for leaders with local knowledge and expertise, and we want our partners to have real decision-making power. They understand what we’re trying to do and the local contexts we’re working in.
Bowermaster: The collaborative movement in Africa is still relatively nascent, but the model is increasing in popularity among local and global funders. Some attribute the growth to the continent’s increasing prosperity, as well as donors’ growing awareness that they need to work together to find innovative and sustainable solutions. What do you think will fuel future growth?
Worku: Strategic sense and a radical reimaging of the philanthropic and development ecosystem. The US government’s stop-work order re-emphasized why funding local organizations is so critical. Local organizations continue to be on the frontlines as they always have and always will. They will keep on delivering vital services like health care and education. As funders, our role is to do more to ensure that these organizations do not lose momentum due to the loss of funding.
Read more stories by Atti Worku, Degan Ali & David Bowermaster.