Today, many NGOs are incentivized to hold their ideas and data close, as it allows for uniqueproposals and better chances to receive funding. The donor model often promotes competition overcooperation. At the same time all actors involved in human rights know that funding is scares, andthat there are more needs than resources. If solving problems and improving development is ourjoint key focus, we need to start cooperating.
Duplication of efforts is both costly and inefficient, and does not help our beneficiaries. We need totransition from a funding-centric organizational model, to a cause-centric one.
The discussions will be framed around three interrelated topics:
- The incentive model for human rights work in the Internet Freedom space;
- Which challenges related to activity incentives could be identified;
- How can civil society work together with progressive donors to find solutions to identifiedchallenges.
This session will explore the above as a whole group, or potentially as three groups ultimately merging into one large group to share results and discuss overlaps and learnings.
This conversation is on-going and we don't expect to solve it in the room, however the aim is to reinvigorate the debate and identify a group dedicated to continuing and deepening the funder-grantee conversation that has been ongoing during previous RightsCon events as well as other conferences and meetups within the Internet Freedom space.
