Shifting power: Innovative approaches to grantmaking

What happens when funders hand decision-making power to the people closest to the challenges they are trying to address?

This episode of the AccountabiliTea Podcast explores how innovative approaches to grantmaking can shift power closer to the people and communities leading change. Hosted by Cheri-Leigh Erasmus, Co-CEO of Accountability Lab, the conversation brings together Carolyn Dallmann, Senior Manager for Peacebuilding & Partnerships at Humanity United, and Lior Ipp, CEO of Proximate Futures Fund, to reflect on participatory grantmaking, proximate leadership, and the value of lived experience as expertise.

Together, they examine how funders can rethink trust, accountability, and perceived risk while building more meaningful partnerships with locally led organizations.

Five ideas from the conversation

1. Proximity leads to better decisions

People rooted in communities understand their local ecosystems, relationships, and challenges in ways that distant funders often cannot. Bringing their knowledge into grantmaking leads to more informed and context-sensitive decisions.

2. Lived experience is expertise

Participatory grantmaking challenges traditional ideas about who is qualified to make funding decisions. It recognizes the knowledge of movement leaders, activists, and community actors as valuable expertise – not simply experience to be consulted.

3. Proximate grantmaking can reduce risk

Funding locally led organizations is often perceived as risky. Yet engaging people who understand an organization’s work, relationships, and reputation can give funders far richer information than a conventional application or due-diligence process alone.

4. Shifting power does not mean stepping away

Funders still have an important role to play as strategic partners. They can provide resources, create access to influential spaces, support connections, and accompany organizations – without assuming that they know what communities need better than the people doing the work.

5. The goal is not simply to make grants

Meaningful philanthropy begins by asking whether the aim is to distribute funding or help solve a problem. Addressing complex challenges requires collaboration, flexibility, and a willingness to work through uncertainty alongside those closest to the issue.

Listen, watch, or read

Explore the full conversation in the format that works best for you: listen here or on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch the episode on YouTube, or read the complete transcript.

Episode produced by Naseera Noor-Mahomed, Global Communications and Marketing Manager at Accountability Lab.