Building Resilience through Transitions: A New Model for Democracy Support

This piece was first published as part of the Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice’s volume Plural Futures for Democracy: Reflections from the Plural Futures for Democracy Workshop, Washington DC, November 2025

The global aid cuts that began in 2025 have exposed deep structural weaknesses in democracy support systems that were never designed for long-term resilience. As funding has contracted, civil society organisations (CSOs) have faced not only financial pressure but also accelerating losses of capacity, knowledge, and trust – revealing how deeply the sector is shaped by donor-driven incentives, risk aversion, and unequal power relations.

This essay argues that these dynamics are not simply a response to crisis but the result of a longstanding political economy in which accountability flows upwards rather than outwards, and where
proximity to donors often matters more than proximity to communities. In this system, structural
fragility is reinforced by rigid funding models, missed opportunities for strategic transitions, and the
invisibility of frontline actors who are closest to civic action.

At the same time, the current disruption creates an opportunity to rethink how democracy support is
organised. It highlights the importance of recognising and resourcing ‘invisible weavers’ who sustain
civic ecosystems, protecting institutional knowledge through strategic transitions such as mergers or
closures, and investing in collaborative infrastructure that strengthens collective resilience.

Ultimately, the essay calls for a shift towards political realism: acknowledging constraints, aligning
ambition with operational reality, and building more flexible, locally grounded systems. The central
argument is that resilience will not emerge from restoring past funding models, but from
fundamentally rethinking how power, knowledge, and support are organised before the narrow
window of opportunity for meaningful change closes.

The Political Economy of Crisis
We, both donors and recipients, have collectively built and sustained a model of centralised grants
wrapped in a bureaucracy that privileges proximity to donors over proximity to communities and rewards upward accountability over impact. While donors involved in democracy support may have designed this architecture, many non-profit organisations and CSOs have adapted to and reinforced it. The result has been a system that has exposed deep structural fragilities rooted in power asymmetries.

When organisations restructure or close down, donors and governance structures frequently regard
this as failure rather than as strategic adaptation, impeding efforts to preserve value. I recently came
across a telling example: two organisations with near-identical missions pursued an internal merger in
an effort to reduce costs and avoid duplication, only to find that their primary obstacles were funders and governance bodies reluctant to be associated with entities that might be struggling and the
possible questions that might accompany the reasons for that struggle.

One important consequence of this kind of risk aversion is that the sector loses important collective
assets – hard-won knowledge and relationships fall away rather than being preserved. This reflects a
shared political economy in which all actors, whether consciously or not, have prioritised donor
mandates and the logic of competing for (ever-scarcer) sources of funding over more strategic and
realistic collective decision-making.

So, for instance, while it might make more political, financial, or practical sense for an organisation to
close or radically transform the way it works by sharing resources and so on, the prevailing objective
remains to follow what donors want, even if the latter are driven by their own incentives and their
overarching concern may not be the overall coherence and sustainability of the organisational
ecosystem. The question is not only whether CSOs can become more resilient, but whether we can
jointly examine our own motivations and needs across donors, partner organisations and
communities to fundamentally reimagine and shift the power structures governing democracy
support.

Impacts of Loss of Funding
Through Accountability Lab’s tracking of US cuts to overseas development assistance, we have
witnessed how funding shocks ripple beyond financial devastation. Other long-term effects include
erosion of trust, loss of institutional knowledge, severely diminished capacity, and isolation when
making critical decisions under pressure.

Organisational contraction has triggered a ‘brain drain’ as experienced staff leave, taking decades of
knowledge and relationship-building with them. This knowledge cannot be replaced quickly, even if
funding returns.

In response to crisis and the need to secure funds at any cost, organisations tend to abandon core
missions for ‘more fundable’ work. This mandate drift leads to de-prioritising critical, longer-term
programmes in favour of those that can show results quickly even if they achieve far less impact, all in
an effort to show people are doing something – anything – irrespective of how relevant or important.
As international support and normative constraints weaken, governments face fewer external checks
on their actions. The resulting reduction in the political and reputational costs of interference creates
opportunities for further restrictions, reinforcing a cycle of shrinking civic space.

Abrupt programme closures undermine community trust. What took years to build evaporates rapidly,
altering the political relationship between civil society and communities.

Making the ‘Doers’ Visible
Critiques of US-funded ‘prime’ partners (organisations that have direct contracts with the US
government) follow a common thread. Such organisations have tended create rigid administrative
systems that prioritise upward accountability over learning and adaptability based on what is
happening in a given context. As such, they avoid taking risks and are disinclined to test, experiment
and correct course because the (perceived) cost of failure may be too high. On the other hand, while
donors value the kind of certainty that this low-risk way of operating provides, such a narrow
managerial approach has considerable limitations.

Among other things, it is ill-equipped to respond to the changing operating environment, needs and
priorities of frontline organisations that are ‘doing the work’. This helps to highlight an ongoing gap
between localisation rhetoric and practice, whereby power remains concentrated at the top, and
groups building civic engagement, defending rights, and strengthening accountability on the ground
remain by and large invisible. Many of these organisations have suffered from this ‘structural
invisibility’ with the funding cuts that started in 2025 in the US and beyond. Lacking the networks to
mobilise support has resulted in devastating closures.

Still, organisations that are at the forefront of ‘doing the work’ have been through crises before, and
they have proven remarkably resilient. They have often been able to adapt and carry on despite
reduced funding. This resilience is not sufficiently rewarded. Donors and power holders continue to
prioritise organisations that are part of donor circuits over those ‘doers’ that are quietly achieving
results. In response, initiatives have emerged to challenge these dynamics, with the aim to ensure that
those doing the work using proven models don’t disappear simply because they are not ‘household
names’ to distant funders. Civil Society Wayfinder, for example, is a word-of-mouth campaign powered
by the knowledge of local advocates, built to close the widening gap between international institutions
and the communities that are taking action.

Elevating frontline voices is a strategic necessity. Overlooking their know-how limits our vision of the
sector’s future and deprives us of the insights needed to navigate it, at a time when we cannot afford
to waste valuable resources.

What’s Emerging
Despite the ongoing crisis, critical capacities suggest pathways forward if we work with the current
reality in which we find ourselves.

Collaborative infrastructure that supports the existence of an organisation (including, among other
things, governance bodies, policies and procedures, financial systems, back-office functions), both
formal (e.g. fiscal sponsorship, or an arrangement whereby an established, legally registered
charitable organisation provides legal and tax-exempt status to a group, project, or individual) and
informal (e.g. mutual aid), is a consistent request from civil society groups seeking to replace zero-sum
competition for funds with arrangements that build collective resilience. This means two things in
practice. First, reducing duplication by sharing back-office and operational infrastructure. Second,
developing a clearer, more strategic understanding of how organisations within an ecosystem can
resource and sustain each other – shifting from isolated actors to a cohesive, interdependent whole.

The challenge for donor agencies is to move from reactive, ad-hoc support towards intentional,
sustained investment in the backbone infrastructure that holds the sector together.

Making ‘invisible weavers’ – those individuals who quietly sustain and strengthen civic and social
systems by building relationships, connecting actors, translating across sectors, and helping collective
problem-solving continue when formal institutions or funding mechanisms are under strain – making
them more visible and supporting their work more purposefully and explicitly could strengthen the
resilience of the democracy support field. This is because, while their work is often not sufficiently
valued and duly compensated, weavers play an essential role in translating between formal
institutional logics and adaptive needs at the community level. The example of a project coordinator in
Tunisia provides a powerful illustration of this at work. The coordinator helped young people turn
frustration with corruption into civic action by weaving across worlds that usually pull apart: the trust
and belonging of a youth-peers ‘family’, the credibility of a formal non-government organisation (NGO),
pragmatic relationships with public authorities, and the expectations of international donors. The
visible result was youth participation; the invisible work was holding those worlds together by
leveraging a system that relies on ‘someone who knows someone who referred someone’ while using
a series of short-term projects to sustain a longer-term civic strategy.

Strategic transitions emerge as organisations explore possible ways forward, including mergers,
transformations, and closures. When they are properly supported, these transitions can protect
institutional knowledge. This requires shifting narratives from treating difficult organisational choices
as signs of weakness or failure to recognising adaptation as political realism.

Reimagining Support through a Political Lens
The current moment demands approaches grounded in reality. As number organisations in our
community, including Carnegie, Global Democracy Coalition, Humanity United, and Accountability Lab,
have highlighted:

Power asymmetries are structural
Proximity gaps between donors and local practitioners reflect different forms of knowledge
and legitimacy. Translation (or what some might call intermediation) work between donor
mandates and community-based know-how and experience is essential and needs to be
adequately resourced. Part of this needs to start by recognising more fully and explicitly the
essential bridging role that (so far mostly) invisible weavers play to bring together different
actors, align their priorities and expectations, and harness collective action, often behind the
scenes.

Flexible funding is strategic
Core funding and multi-year commitments recognise that meaningful change requires
sustained investment in relationships, trust-building, and iterative learning.

Transitions are political opportunities
Strategic evolution can preserve institutional knowledge if it is properly supported. This
requires protecting knowledge, preserving institutional memory, maintaining relationships, and
continuing to cultivate trust.

Local insight enhances the wisdom of resource allocation
Current systems tend to privilege those adept at navigating donor circuits over actors who are
at the forefront of harnessing change at the local level. When local actors influence allocation
and decision-making, not just implementation, funding is better equipped to navigate political
complexities and avoid unintentional harm.

However, none of the aspirations outlined above can be realised without addressing the gap between
vision and reality. Major aid cuts and the broader retreat of funding for civil society have
fundamentally altered the operating environment, creating significant challenges for organisations and
communities alike. While numerous reimagining and reflection processes – both formal and informal –
have generated thoughtful recommendations from all over the world about the future of the aid
sector, a critical challenge remains: translating these ambitions into practical strategies that are both
realistic and sustainable within current political, economic, and social realities.

Civil society needs to work collaboratively with funders and other partners to better understand
operational constraints, regulations, and the specific environment in which they are working. Only by
overlaying these realities with our own vision is it possible to create incremental but meaningful
change and lay out concrete steps to get from where we are to where we need to be. This does not
mean abandoning ambition but rather building systems that are ‘good enough’ for now, and that can
ultimately serve as a foundation for more radical transformation. Expecting systemic change within
current constraints risks creating either overly idealistic expectations that disappoint all parties or
simply replicating existing flawed approaches.

The path ahead requires political realism: acknowledging where we are, understanding the constraints
within which we operate, and strategically navigating towards change that is feasible, meaningful and
sustainable. Without this honest reckoning, parts of the ecosystem may weaken or fail, leading to
disappointment, frustration, and tension among the very stakeholders who need to work together to
build a more resilient sector.

However, none of the aspirations outlined above can be realised without addressing the gap between
vision and reality. Major aid cuts and the broader retreat of funding for civil society have
fundamentally altered the operating environment, creating significant challenges for organisations and
communities alike. While numerous reimagining and reflection processes – both formal and informal –
have generated thoughtful recommendations from all over the world about the future of the aid
sector, a critical challenge remains: translating these ambitions into practical strategies that are both
realistic and sustainable within current political, economic, and social realities.

Civil society needs to work collaboratively with funders and other partners to better understand
operational constraints, regulations, and the specific environment in which they are working. Only by
overlaying these realities with our own vision is it possible to create incremental but meaningful
change and lay out concrete steps to get from where we are to where we need to be. This does not
mean abandoning ambition but rather building systems that are ‘good enough’ for now, and that can
ultimately serve as a foundation for more radical transformation. Expecting systemic change within
current constraints risks creating either overly idealistic expectations that disappoint all parties or
simply replicating existing flawed approaches.

The path ahead requires political realism: acknowledging where we are, understanding the constraints
within which we operate, and strategically navigating towards change that is feasible, meaningful and
sustainable. Without this honest reckoning, parts of the ecosystem may weaken or fail, leading to
disappointment, frustration, and tension among the very stakeholders who need to work together to
build a more resilient sector.

The Window for Change
Our ways of thinking and working can be very hard to adapt especially during times of what seems like
seismic change. The choices we make now will determine whether civil society emerges as smaller and
more fragile, or robust and capable of recovery. Restoring project-based funding alone will not
address the deeper and ongoing damage, nor will it match the realities of the current context.
Capacity loss, once eroded, cannot be quickly rebuilt.

As we confront the question of what the future of international support to democracy may hold, we
need to think very seriously about how we build differently to fit the current context. This means
embracing more flexible, people-centred approaches that are grounded in political reality rather than
on idealised assumptions about how change should happen. It also means elevating the voices and
perspectives of local actors who understand their own contexts by ensuring that they are meaningfully
included in decision-making spaces and that they are adequately prepared to engage. It calls for
creating stronger coalitions that connect global purpose with local knowledge.

Most importantly, it requires a shift in how resilience is understood: not as endurance alone, but as
adaptive, politically informed action guided by purpose. The expertise, relationships, and adaptive
capacity already exist. The question is whether the international community is willing to recognise and
invest in them, and to build the necessary collaborative infrastructure to sustain them.
The challenge isn’t about agreeing on what needs to change. Rather, it is about aligning on how to
make that change happen – and doing so before the narrow window closes.