It feels both embarrassingly obvious and profoundly necessary to start by acknowledging what a year it’s been – not just for international development or civil society or the social sector writ large, but for the people whose collective hopes, work, and sacrifice have found ways to do good in the world. Each of us were, long before we were professionals, people who cared about contributing to something bigger than ourselves, and the last six months have brutally (and often, illegally) threatened to undo so much of what we’ve achieved, learned, and built. 

The work we do now to build a future for public interest work, and infrastructures to preserve its past, will be the difference between losing everything and building a foundation for whatever comes next. There’s an extraordinary amount of valuable work to be done – and it all starts by professionally operationalizing something we already know personally: we are better when we work together, through systems of mutual support and aid. 

That’s why we – Accountability Lab, Development Gateway, and Digital Public – have come together to launch Civic Strength Partners, an initiative focused on providing resources, professional services support, and infrastructure to civil society organizations navigating major transitions. We started Civic Strength Partners before we had any plan or support, because it’s how we know how to help. 

It started when Accountability Lab, in response to actions and announcements by the US and UK governments, put out a pulse survey to international development organizations, trying to get a sense of exactly what kind of financial and operational impact cuts would have on the organizations that implement international development work. The results are bleak – more than 60% of 1,000+ respondents said that their organizations had 6 months or less of runway. 30% of respondents weren’t sure.

The effects of recent cuts hit close to home for most of our team members. Everyone we know has close friends, neighbors, and family who are out of good, public interest jobs. While it doesn’t fix the hurt, there has at least, thankfully, been good coverage of the impact on the people involved – both those who worked in international development and those served by it.

What we’ve seen less of, though, is acknowledgement of all the work, culture, research, software, data, and cumulative knowledge that each of those organizations have built – and what, if anything, those organizations were able to do to build a future for them in a very different operating environment. As Geoffrey MacDougall wrote recently, “Protect your work, not your job.” That is where, we think, Civic Strength Partners can contribute – and where we think we can help build independent, resilient, sustainable foundations for public interest work going forward. 

Accountability Lab and Development Gateway rolled up their sleeves right away, and built an opt-in matchmaking service for organizations that are considering mergers and strategic partnerships, in response to the moment. Although this effort is bootstrapped, the response has been incredible – we’ve already had more than 160 organizations contribute to the database, which has led to a number of recommendations and a very real pipeline of potential partnerships. 

The process of running that matchmaking service has already taught us three, very important lessons that led us to Civic Strength Partners:

• No one teaches this – organizations of all sizes benefit from dedicated capacity, expertise, and professional support, during a big transition;
• We won’t save everything – lots of organizations that have done valuable work don’t have an obvious way forward. The best way to support those organizations (who are most of the sector) is to help find mission-aligned infrastructures and approaches to carry forward the value of their work; and
• We’re going to need a much, much bigger boat – ultimately, there are lots of individuals, organizations, and networks working to support civil society resilience, safety, and independence. Our work is most successful when we’re able to connect, activate, and resource those experts to support civil society’s evolution and adaptation. 

Each of the founding partner organizations in Civic Strength Partners brings a unique and complementary set of expertise to this work: Accountability Lab has the translocal networks and relationships to drive data and learning in this space, as well as the shared experience of designing and fiscally sponsoring complex organizations and initiatives for many years. Development Gateway also has a global footprint, substantial operating infrastructure – including the OpenGovHub and a range of fiscally sponsored initiatives – and significant experience building, sustaining, and transitioning public interest digital and data systems. And Digital Public has been building public interest digital governance systems, products, and institutions, using a range of legal, technical, and organizational tools for almost a decade. 

Our theory is that, together, we can help organizations navigate the moment – from finding the best-fit funding support, to directly providing triage and professional services to manage a transition, to working with archivists and security experts to safely and securely wind-down digital products and data assets. 

But we need your help. We’ve raised just enough resources to get started (from philanthropies), now we’re gearing up to mobilize our community to leverage them:  

• If you’re a civil society organization planning for a transition that might benefit from support, whether based on short-term circumstances or long-standing plans, reach out! We’d love to figure out whether there are ways we can help your work succeed. 
• If you’re an organization providing transition support resources, services, or other forms of support to civil society – reach out! We’re already referring good candidates to partner networks and service providers, for both paid and pro bono work. 
• If you’re an archive, fiscal sponsor, community of practice/professional governance institutions, and/or infrastructure that takes on projects, products, and/or other digital assets in order to preserve them for public interest use – please reach out. We are also trying to help route organizations that are winding down and “exiting to open,” find the best-fit place to contribute their work. 

And while we are all experienced in the mechanics of this work, we’re forming Civic Strength Partners in order to be something bigger than the sum of our parts. This work is dynamic, iterating in real-time, and growing faster than any organization can (or should) try to meet alone – so we hope you’ll get involved. 

Just as our communities are growing and growingly dependent on local, mutual aid – our professional communities will increasingly rely on streamlined services for independence, sustainability, and resilience. That kind of aid is never more important than when we’re navigating instability, insecurity, and transition, regardless of whether the way forward is mergers, strategic partnerships, or wind-downs.

That’s why we created Civic Strength Partners and why we’re excited to provide professional infrastructure, support, and services – and why we hope you’ll join us. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.

Deborah Ingersoll and Sean McDonald