Madonna Ainembabazi Vicky, CivSource Africa (Uganda)

CivSource Africa - a feminist Pan-African philanthropy support organization occupying the space between philanthropy and civil society - has for the past six years provided advisory services to donors (local and international) who are desirous of supporting civil society organizations in Uganda. While undertaking this work, CivSource has occupied the position of a funder applying feminist principles through its grantmaking arm, CivFund. While occupying these positions, CivSource has been exposed to the issues of structural inequities, biases and racism within the international development aid sector.

Our endeavors around addressing these issues took the form of curated conversations on decolonizing aid that sought to uncover the aspects in the philanthropy sector that advance coloniality, and to explore ways of countering these manifestations of coloniality. Multiple convenings and conversations later, it’s been refreshing to see bursts of hope spring up as more and more organizations and leaders grow their efforts through chartering new and better paths of undertaking philanthropy within and out of the African continent. For some it’s taken the form of community philanthropy. For others, democratizing philanthropy through participatory grantmaking approaches. Knowing how entrenched present philanthropy systems have been, it may be challenging to envision alternatives from within the confines of the current systems in which philanthropy is operating. At CivSource, we are propelling this conversation to critically assess the components of coloniality that we are discarding and those we may unknowingly be carrying forward in new guises - particularly through participatory grantmaking and community philanthropy models.

As a facilitator of these discussions, I have witnessed the enthusiastic reception of this rather challenging topic within the Global South, where I primarily operate. I remain cognizant of the reservations and hesitations that this same conversation can evoke in other spaces within the philanthropy sector, where engaging critical voices and minds remains a challenge. The #ShiftThePower Fellowship and the #ShiftThePower Global Summit both promise a community of learning with practitioners, facilitators that have had and held this conversation in what would be unchartered paths for me, for us. In all optimism, I trust that it will be a Summit that brings with it the collective courage to share what has worked, what hasn’t, what we’re recalibrating and the nuanced aspects of our endeavours to decolonize philanthropy the world over.