If you want to embrace localization, listen to someone else!

The International Education Funders Group (IEFG) convened at our annual meeting last month. As is the current trend anyplace where there’s a collection of philanthropists, there were sessions dedicated to the topics of “localization” and “trust-based philanthropy”.

However, unlike previous sessions I attended at other events which left me underwhelmed this group gave their time, stage, and ears to some powerful voices that shared some hard truths about causal responsibility when there is a lack of democratic legitimacy. Arbie Baguios and Atti Worku did an incredible job peeling back the pleasantries of localized philanthropy and made us all think about the ways in which power imbalances serving the privileged are being reinforced and protected by our funding strategies, operational structures, and underlying assumptions around what outcomes we seek.

The discussion had me reflecting on how IDP Foundation, Inc. stacks up, in light of the fact that only 5.2% of US foundation’s Africa-focused giving goes to African-led organizations. I believe we’re a mixed bag – which isn’t bad but could be better. In terms of funding, I am proud to say our work in Africa is currently delivered entirely through local organizations, without any international intermediaries involved, and we have a preference for local suppliers for research. This approach to financing local businesses, supporting local government, or funding local NGOs directly is engrained in our way of working.

Our board and senior leadership have strong female representation but are also mostly white Westerners. We are headquartered in the US, where our founders live, but our biggest single office is in Ghana, staffed entirely by our exceptional Ghanaian team representing 50% of our global presence.

Beyond who we fund, I think I am most proud of how our funding is led by local priorities. Empowering local changemakers who are striving to make a difference in their communities is at the heart of what drives the IDP Foundation. We believe in the critical role of education to break the cycle of poverty but nothing we do has a top-down approach. The 1,000+ community-created schools we support are an organic, local response to an overwhelmed system. Where possible, we support market-based solutions driven by local community demand, not by our ideas. We focus on communities where incomes are modest, and resources are scarce. When these communities have chosen to invest in schools as a priority, this gives us confidence they are the appropriate focus of additional grant support. Responding to buzzwords of localization or trust-based philanthropy is not our motivation, our journey began by listening to the community and the market for direction.

One of the best indicators of how we embed being locally led into our systems thinking is our Theory of Change. Specifically, our advocacy pathway. Instead of deciding what we believe the specific policy or legislative outcome should be for the communities we support, we focus our efforts on an outcome that empowers and creates capabilities for groups in those communities to advocate for themselves.

This community-led approach to propriety setting underpins our values as a philanthropic funder of education in the developing world. We might not always get it right, but we are always willing to listen and learn. So, a big thank you to all the speakers and participants in the IEFG community, and the wonderful IEFG team for organizing such an open and valuable event. I look forward to continuing these conversations and my proverbial door is always open to collaborators and thought provokers who also want to learn and disrupt!