#ShiftThePower: Community giving as a critical consciousness-raising tool

Abstract

Asymmetrical power relations in international aid and development efforts, which favor the funder and cast the recipient as supplicant, are facing renewed challenges. For foundations to assist communities in criticizing this power imbalance and using the insights that result to challenge the system requires the "three-legged stool" of community philanthropy - strengthening capacities, developing assets, and building trust - to become a "chair" by adding a fourth leg - growing community power. This article explores community giving, a norm in communalist societies, as a viable entry point for helping communities explore and understand their own experiences, and presents a tool that calculates the financial value of a community's contribution to its own development, defining it as equity that can be brought to the development table.