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← Global Fund for Community Foundations

2025-04-01-annual-report

Annual Report

1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Contents

From the GFCF Chair 3
About our work 6
What we mean by community philanthropy 8
Our strategy and purpose 9
Our core objectives 9
Key outcomes in 2024 / 2025 10
1. Grants to community philanthropy organizations 11
the evidence base for people-led development
2.Connectingthefieldandstrengthening		 17
3. Building a global movement to #ShiftThePower 22
Our finances 26
Our legal and administrative information 31
Report of the Directors for the year ended
31 March 2025 34

Cover images courtesy of (clockwise starting from top left): Fondo Acción Solidaria A.C. (FASOL), Mexico The GFCF Measuring What Matters convening in Bali Fundación Territorial Magenta, Colombia Songtaba, Ghana

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Harmony Platform, China

From the GFCF Chair

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

3 Sentrong Pagpapalakas Negritong ng Kultura at Kalikasan (SPNKK), Philippines

From the GFCF Chair

We entered the period covered by this Annual Report with a sense of optimism, still energized by the #ShiftThePower Global Summit held in Bogotá in December 2023.

Despite taking place against a growing global backdrop of anxiety, fear and despair, the Summit offered a powerful reminder that other ways of deciding, resourcing and organizing are not only possible, but already taking shape across the #ShiftThePower movement. The strength of human connection and solidarity across our community was palpable in Bogotá. This was echoed in a post-Summit survey conducted in April 2024, where participants described the gathering as successful precisely because it inspired hope and joy – qualities too often missing from global development conferences, yet essential for sustaining energy, over-coming individual isolation and driving long-term change.

Throughout 2024 we worked with #ShiftThePower allies to advance the different ideas, relationships and initiatives that emerged from the Summit, while also deepening our own work in several areas too. One particularly significant GFCF initiative has been Measuring What Matters, which you can read more about on page 17 of this report. In recent years, within our community we have witnessed not just a growing interest in how to measure value in locallyled development, but also a deepening sense of possibility and of alternative approaches. We convened an action learning group of 22 partners from around the world. Members of the group, which met twice in-person and convened frequently online, were able to build strong, trust-based relationships, to challenge extractive evaluation systems and to test emergent, grounded ways of measuring “what matters”, rooted in shared values of trust, agency, dignity and collective power.

The GFCF Measuring What Matters action learning group in Tangier, and below in Bali.

Early 2025 brought a profound disruption to the system of global development cooperation, with the abrupt and brutal dismantling of USAID and the Inter-American Foundation. While we have long advocated for bilateral funders such as USAID to shift their funding practices in order to ensure the long-term autonomy, self-direction and independence of civil society, we also recognized that the suddenness of the action had harmful impacts across some organizations in our network and the communities that they serve.

In the early days of the USAID cuts, the GFCF convened a series of online drop-in sessions, open to all of our partners. These brought together organizations that had lost considerable amounts of funding with others who had not been directly affected but who nonetheless showed up in solidarity and support. Amid the confusion and uncertainty, what stood out most strongly in these and in subsequent meetings was a shared sense of resolve. The aid freeze has sharpened, beyond dispute, the case for alternative resourcing strategies for civil society, including and especially community philanthropy, which can ward against the changing priorities of external funders and limit the power that they wield. As a colleague from the Philippines stated: “It’s time to channel our anger into action.”

For the GFCF, two priorities are clear. First, to continue accompanying our community philanthropy partners as they undertake the vital work of developing alternative resources, including strategies that recast communities and the public more broadly as co-owners and co-investors in their own development processes. Second, to continue to create spaces for connection, collaboration, reflection and experimentation across our diverse global network, both as a way to sustain human connection and to support the creation of the “new” at an accelerated pace.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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The GFCF began in 2006 as a three-year pilot project made possible through a catalytic grant from the World Bank, matched by two private foundations. Since then, we have undertaken patient, relational work, largely outside of the mainstream aid system, focused on an idea – community philanthropy – that was often dismissed as “nice to have” rather than essential. It is a similar story for many of our partners: trailblazers and innovators whose insistence on local resources and buy-in has often been overlooked or dismissed. Yet year after year, we have quietly but deliberately built new root systems together, including the practices, the networks, and the theory of an alternative system: one that is durable, grounded in trust and powered by collective action.

Thubutu Africa Initiatives, Tanzania

Now, those roots are beginning to emerge. The groundwork nurtured over nearly two decades are showing green shoots, growing into a visible garden of alternatives. In a world of growing uncertainty and instability, these shoots are more necessary than ever – proof that patient, relational work not only matters, but can sustain change from the ground up.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ian Bird, who presided as GFCF Chair over the period covered by this report. Ian left big shoes to fill, as he did a great job in steering us through many critically important issues with sensitivity, patience and understanding. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the GFCF’s donors, partners, board and staff, and to the many colleagues across the wider #ShiftThePower movement with whom we collaborate. The road ahead will demand continued collective organizing to defend and advance the values we hold dear – but it is a road we are better equipped to walk together.

Keystone Foundation, India

Bharat Mehta

Chair, GFCF (Appointed 1 July 2025)

Songtaba, Ghana

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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About our work

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Fundación Territorial Paisano, Colombia

About our work

For almost twenty years, the GFCF has worked to advance community philanthropy as both a development theory and a practice that builds, shares and shifts power. At its core, community philanthropy strengthens communities’ abilities to express and defend their rights by mobilizing local resources, leadership and collective agency.

Community philanthropy has emerged as an alternative practice partly in response to the failures of an international aid system that has too often centralized power and resources, treating people as passive beneficiaries rather than as active citizens with knowledge, assets and aspirations of their own. In contrast, community philanthropy starts from the simple but radical belief that without local resources, local leadership and local buy-in, development efforts will continue to land like fireworks: highly visible, though short-lived and ultimately unsustainable.

Princes-Benefactors Ostrozky Foundation, Ukraine

Today, amid profound shifts in the global funding landscape – accelerated in 2025 by the dismantling of USAID – the relevance of community philanthropy and other approaches that reimagine how social change is organized and resourced has never been greater.

Since 2006, the GFCF has partnered with more than 300 organizations in over 80 countries, accompanying them at different stages of their journey to explore, experiment with and refine strategies that recognize local resources as a central driver of community-led change. Our support combines small grants, technical accompaniment and peer learning, alongside deliberate investments in relationship-building across our global network. Through online and in-person convenings, joint research initiatives and action learning groups, we have continued to nurture a sense of shared purpose and collective inquiry among practitioners working in vastly different contexts but grappling with common structural challenges.

Tewa, Nepal

Our emphasis on emergent practice, systems consciousness and movement energy has helped fuel the broader #ShiftThePower movement, of which community philanthropy is a vital part, and which first emerged at the Global Summit on Community Philanthropy in Johannesburg in 2016. While calls to “shift power” have since entered mainstream development and philanthropic discourse, the GFCF’s role remains distinct: to continue creating spaces and opportunities where new thinking, and new ways of “deciding and doing” can be tested and emerge with confidence and coherence.

Songtaba, Ghana

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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What we mean by community philanthropy

At the GFCF, we define community philanthropy as a form of, and a force for, locally-driven development. It strengthens local agency, builds trust and, crucially, mobilizes and grows local resources – both financial and non-financial – which are pooled and stewarded to build resilient, connected and self-determining communities.

Community philanthropy draws on many traditions and ideas: long-standing practices of mutual aid, solidarity and local giving, as well as more recent thinking on collective action, networked power and the solidarity economy. It is part of a broader tapestry of alternative approaches being shaped by people and communities around the world who, without waiting for permission or external coordination, are building new forms of resilience, innovation and social cohesion.

FemFund, Poland

Across our global network, community philanthropy takes many forms. We see it in approaches that make visible and organize community assets in ways that translate into negotiating power and a meaningful seat at the table. We see it in local funds that pool community contributions and redistribute them to grassroots groups in ways that build trust and collective ownership. We see it in experiments with solidarity economies, alternative currencies and mutual aid platforms.

Our partners understand “community” in diverse and overlapping ways – as place, identity and shared struggle. As a result, our network is deliberately broad. It includes place-based community foundations, as well as women’s funds, LGBTQI funds, socio-environmental funds and other civil society actors working through specific issue-based or identity-based lenses. Many operate at the intersections of multiple forms of inequality, responding to complex and evolving local realities.

Norsaac, Ghana

Fundación Territorial Paisano, Colombia

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Our strategy and purpose

The GFCF is a grassroots grantmaker working to promote and support institutions of community philanthropy around the world. Our long-term goal is to embed the practice and paradigm of community philanthropy as a cornerstone of a new architecture for effective, locally-owned and locally-driven development that shifts power and voice to communities.

We work directly with individual organizations – including local funds, foundations, grassroots grantmakers and other civil society actors – around the world that seek to harness the practice and power of community philanthropy in their work. Through small grants, technical support and networking, we help these local institutions to strengthen and grow so that they can fulfil their potential as vehicles for local development and as part of the infrastructure for sustainable development, poverty alleviation and citizen participation.

FunBEA, Brazil

Our core objectives

Boyarka Community Foundation, Ukraine

Center for Disaster Preparedness, Philippines

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Key outcomes in GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025 2024 / 2025

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Fondo Acción Solidaria A.C. (FASOL), Mexico

1. Grants to community philanthropy organizations

Our main tool for strengthening our community philanthropy partners continues to be in the form of small grants. During the period covered by this Annual Report, we made 67 grants to 63 community philanthropy organizations and two #ShiftThePower Fellows across 27 countries. The total amount of grant funds disbursed was £1,113,094. This figure includes grant tranches paid in the period covered by this report, but for which grant agreements were arranged in previous financial years.

Our grants and learning programmes

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Indonesia for Humanity
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Institutional development

These grants are tailored to the specific circumstances and requirements of our partners. They are aimed at helping to strengthen community philanthropy organizations’ abilities to serve and engage their communities around diverse local issues, to unlock new resources and assets at the local level as a way of building local ownership as well as financial resilience, and to strengthen trust among different parts of the community.

Princes-Benefactors Ostrozky Foundation, Ukraine

Ukraine response

In response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we made a number of grants to our community philanthropy partners there. Some of these grants supported the ongoing provision of humanitarian aid. Other grants had a more long-term focus, and saw GFCF partners providing various psycho-social supports to address the trauma of the conflict, or running programmes addressing local cohesion and the inclusion of internally displaced people.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Some of the 2024 / 2025 #ShiftThePower Fellows
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#ShiftThePower Fellowships

In December 2024 we announced the third cohort of #ShiftThePower Fellows. Grants were made to Fellows’ organizations – and, in some cases, to individuals directly – to cover the time they dedicate to participating in the Fellowship. See page 22 for more details on the Fellowship programme.

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The 2024 Africa Philanthropy Network Assembly
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Conferences and convenings

These grants are aimed at supporting our partners as leaders, convenors and advocates for community philanthropy and #ShiftThePower in national and global spaces. They include support for partner-led national and regional events.

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Corporación Tamsa el Regalo es la Vida, Colombia
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Climate justice

As the impacts of the climate crisis are increasingly making themselves felt in communities around the world, the role of trusted local actors with deep connections to, and knowledge of, their communities has become more important than ever. However, such actors continue to be overlooked by the mainstream international aid and philanthropy systems, despite research showing that climate funding directed to the local level is an essential part of any larger, integrated approach to the crisis. This new pilot grants and learning programme is therefore aimed at supporting our partners as they respond to different climate-related issues as they arise in the communities they serve.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Grant fund distribution

*Both charts on this page illustrate distribution in terms of total funds disbursed.

Grants distribution by programme

Institutional Development

Ukraine Response #ShiftThePower Fellowship Conferences and Convenings

Grants distribution by geography

Sub-Saharan Africa East Asia Pacific South Asia Middle East North Africa Europe and Central Asia Western Europe Latin America and the Caribbean North America

Climate Justice

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1% 1%
7%
12%
79%
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2% 2% 1%
10%
34%
14%
15%
22%
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GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Grants map

The following map illustrates where our grant funding has been Ukraine directed. The list below provides details of which organizations received funding, and under which of our grants programmes the United Kingdom funding was received. Denmark China India Hungary Nepal Poland Bangladesh Morocco Ethiopia Uganda Phillippines Mexico Colombia Ghana Kenya Indonesia United States Brazil Nigeria Tanzania Argentina Zimbabwe Mozambique South Africa Australia Key Argentina Fundación Territorial Professional Assistance for Mexico Philippines Rights Evidence Action Teple Misto Institutional Red Comunidades Rurales Magenta (x2) Development Action Amigos de San Cristóbal, Center for Disaster (REACT) Voznesensk Community Development Fundación Territorial Sahjeevan A.C. Preparedness Taala Foundation Foundation Australia Paisano Solidarity Foundation Center for Strengthening Kaisa Ka Twerwaneho Listeners Club Ukraine Response#ShiftThePower Fellowship Community Foundations AustraliaBangladesh TerritoriADenmark Conducive Space for Peace Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA)Indonesia Solidarity Action (CASo)Fondo Acción Solidaria A.C. (FASOL) PolandFemFund UkraineBoyarka Community Foundation United KingdomBondUnited States Conferences and ConveningsClimate Justice National Alliance of Humanitarian Actors BangladeshBrazil Aliança TerritorialGraciela Hopstein EthiopiaEthiopian Localization LabGhanaNorsaacSongtaba Indonesia for HumanityQbukatabuKenyaAfrica’s VoicesCohere MoroccoTamkeen Community Foundation for Human DevelopmentMozambiqueFundo Tindzila South AfricaAfrica UniteIkhala TrustTanzaniaAfrica Philanthropy Network Charitable Foundation “Podilska Hromada”Community Foundation of Kherson ZakhystCommunity Foundation of the City of Dubno Dobrobut Common ReserveZimbabweSIVIO Institute PIPA Initiative Dignitas Uganda Foundation for Community China Hungary Éva Fekete DignitasKenya Community Nepal Accountability Lab Nepal 40 Days over 40 Smiles Foundation (4040) DevelopmentMoloda Gromada Harmony Platform Development Foundation Freedom Studio Civil Collective National Network of Local Colombia IndiaInstitute for Studies and Nguzo Africa Community Foundation Tewa CivSource Africa Philanthropy DevelopmentPrinces-Benefactors Corporación Tamsa el Regalo es la Vida Transformations Keystone Foundation Trans and Queer Fund Collective NigeriaLiberation Alliance Africa Future Generations Foundation Ostrozky Foundation

The following map illustrates where our grant funding has been directed. The list below provides details of which organizations received funding, and under which of our grants programmes the funding was received.

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GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Grants in the spotlight

Institutional development

From Uganda to Mexico to Bangladesh: Bringing community contributions to the fore

The development of alternative reporting and accounting systems which recognize and value diverse forms of local contributions is a topic of growing interest across our global network. We made a number of grants to partners to support their efforts in this regard, each contributing to the emerging conversation.

In Uganda, Civil Collective launched a study on how to quantify community contributions. They conducted field visits and interviews in the communities where the organization is active, and organized peer exchanges with other actors on how they value local contributions. The idea is that the study could be a conversation starter with international actors about the need to form more respectful partnerships between local and external actors.

With its grant, the Center for Strengthening Solidarity Action (CASo) worked with six groups across Mexico, and conducted a deep dive exploration of strategies for local resource mobilization. The exercise adopted a broad definition of “resources”, including “moral resources” (legitimacy, leadership, etc.), social-organizational resources (use of public space, access to information, etc.), “cultural resources” (local knowledge, traditions and attachment to the territory, etc.) and “material resources” (tools, materials, equipment, etc.). A core objective of the research is to develop a framework that can help quantify different kinds of non-financial resources so that they can be more visible. The aim is that this will be a useful tool for community and grassroots actors, but also for external donors looking for more appropriate ways to complement community resource mobilization efforts.

Civil Collective, Uganda

Produced by the National Alliance of Humanitarian Actors Bangladesh (NAHAB)

While in Bangladesh, the National Alliance of Humanitarian Actors Bangladesh (NAHAB) recognized a pattern in disaster response: that while local communities were typically the first responders and local contributions in such scenarios were significant and wide-ranging, these were typically not accounted for or recognized in reporting from international actors. With a GFCF grant, NAHAB worked with its members in three disaster-prone districts to carry out research aimed at defining and documenting local resources involved in humanitarian responses. They developed a financial management framework which can recognize and account for the cash and in-kind contributions (particularly time) of first responders. NAHAB also offered trainings to its members interested in adopting the framework as part of their regular accounting and bookkeeping practices.

This work, though spread across geographies and thematic areas of interest, is based upon the same premise: that community contributions have largely been invisible and that, while some of these contributions are non-financial, they are no less valuable. Recognizing, documenting and ultimately celebrating community contributions not only builds community ownership and pride for the work, but also offers external actors a new lens to look through. This is one in which communities are not passive recipients of support, but rather bring their own significant strengths and assets to the table.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Ukraine response

Foundation for Community Development: Steadfast in its commitment to its community

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continued to grind on, Ukrainian community foundations themselves offered remarkable stories of adaptability, hope and resilience. Take, for example, the Foundation for Community Development from Kramatorsk, in the Northern Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine. In March 2022, as part of a larger exodus from the region, the foundation staff relocated – now themselves as internally displaced people (IDPs) – to Bar, in the Vinnytsia region in Western Ukraine. The foundation quickly established itself there, and focussed its work on assisting other IDPs.

Towards the end of 2023 some of the foundation’s staff returned to Kramatorsk. On the frontlines of the war, the issues facing those in Kramatorsk are numerous. Economic prospects are poor, vital infrastructure that has been destroyed is not being rebuilt due to a lack of available resources, while vulnerable groups are particularly in need of social assistance. The scarcity of resources has led to tensions with IDPs arriving from temporarily occupied regions. Young people no longer attend school and are becoming isolated. Across communities, there is wide need for psychological support.

With a GFCF grant in 2024, the foundation re-focussed its activities in Kramatorsk, setting out to address the needs of the most vulnerable in the city and to rebuild social cohesion through educational, psychosocial and integration activities. This included organizing assistance for IDPs on a peer-to-peer basis: local residents and IDPs who had been living in the Kramatorsk

community for longer periods connected with, and supported, those who had recently been forced to relocate due to the hostilities. Additional support for IDPs included trainings on starting their own businesses and connections with local employment centres. Amongst the IDPs there was a disproportionate number of women who had lost their homes, jobs and friends. The foundation offered them art therapy sessions, and psychological support from specialists. The overarching goal across activities was to develop new social relations, and to provide those who had been made most vulnerable by the war opportunities to participate in community life. Despite the economic hardships in Kramatorsk, the foundation mobilized USD $1,800 (approximately £1,435) from local sources to support the work.

With a follow-up GFCF grant made in January 2025, the foundation is aiming to expand its support to vulnerable groups. This will involve establishing a volunteer network to assist vulnerable people in frontline communities in Donetsk. The foundation will recruit and train the volunteers, who will then be assigned to different households. Regular visits will enable volunteers to gather information on the specific issues and needs of individuals, and then to provide them with appropriate assistance, or to pass along their requests to other relevant actors.

Despite the personal challenges they themselves have endured since the start of the fullscale invasion, the foundation staff have shown extraordinary flexibility in the face of massive wartime disruption and, throughout this, have been steadfast in their commitment to assist those most in need.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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2. Connecting the field and strengthening the evidence base for people-led development

If the community philanthropy field is to be better recognized, appreciated and supported there is still much work to do to demonstrate its value and relevance to a range of different stakeholders. Over the year, we continued to connect the field through in-person and online gatherings. We also published four reports, to build the evidence base for community philanthropy and to make the case for alternative ways of deciding and doing.

Connecting the field

Measuring What Matters

In the second half of 2023, we launched an open call to our global network of community philanthropy partners to apply to be part of an action learning group on Measuring What Matters. Bringing together 22 participants from 17 countries, the group ~~a~~ met for the frst time in July 2024 in Bali. The framing question for the meeting was “What will it take to build new systems that measure what matters?” Using open space and emergent learning methodologies, participants were invited into conversations with their peers on questions that they were wrestling with, often both philosophically and logistically. Topics included how to measure trust, identifying barriers (mind-sets, assumptions, perceived “donor requirements”, etc.) that stand in the way of meaning (particularly in regard to the perspective of community), who and what needs to change if we are to move towards a better system (and how), the role of feminist story-telling approaches and narrative shifts, the use of art and other non-written forms, and so on.

The GFCF Measuring What Matters action learning group in Bali, and below in Tangier

The group met again in February 2025 in Tangier, with each participant having undertaken some kind of experiment or exploration since the Bali convening, in order to be able to bring something back to a collective pot of experiences that can contribute to a basket of solutions and approaches that might benefit the larger field and discourse. An important outcome of the Tangier convening was a reframing of the issue at hand. The group agreed that it is essential to first start with “what matters”, and then to think of why and how to measure it. There was also broad agreement that the current context calls for concrete alternatives, and radical reimagination rather than attempting to repair or revive outdated systems. The group committed to continue connecting and learning from each other moving forward.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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The INGO Problem

In her book published in 2024 “The INGO Problem – Power, Privilege and Renewal”, Deborah Doane lays out the central thesis that INGOs act as a barrier to shifting more power and resources to local civil society. The reasons for this are multiple, though the result is a less diverse, less resilient civil society at the national and local levels, which is a barrier to solving the very problems that INGOs profess to address.

In December 2024 we hosted two online discussions with Deborah to consider the book’s relevance to the #ShiftThePower movement and to the “demand side” of efforts to reform and transform the international development system. The conversations were not intended just to provoke further criticism of the INGO sector, but rather to encourage a broader questioning of a dominant system that, at best, has underestimated the value of national and local civil society actors and, at worst, has entirely undermined them. Across the two sessions, participants discussed the importance and urgency of radical reimagining that extends beyond individual institutions, governance and management structures. At a time of multiple intersecting crises and growing anti-civil society narratives, alternative values-based, horizontally networked, global civil society operating systems, driven by new “coalitions of the willing”, are more important than ever.

Coffee and tea sessions in the wake of the USAID funding freeze

In February 2025, we heard from many of our partners around the world about the impacts of the sudden freeze of USAID funding on their organizations and their work. With many finding themselves in a state of crisis, we organized four online coffee and tea sessions, to provide space for conversation with peers and allies facing the same uncertainties. More than 50 of our partners joined the sessions, some of whom had not been directly affected by the funding freeze, but who were there to offer their solidarity and support. The conversations highlighted that now is the time for building – or reviving – local cultures of giving that have tended to be erased by an external funding system that has insisted on the primacy of its resources. Despite the shock of the moment, the discussions called for positive action, and the need to change mind-sets about who has “resources.”

Image courtesy of Nguzo Africa, Kenya

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Growing the evidence base

’ – Community Philanthropy, Women s Philanthropy and Feminist Philanthropy Understanding Opportunities and Challenges for Collaboration to Improve Women’s and Communities’ Realities

– Envisioning an Alternative Ecosystem for Global Development and Humanitarianism Responses from Community Organizations from the Global South

By: Themrise Khan

By: Marija Jakovljević, with editorial support from Dana R.H. Doan

We engaged practitioners and interested parties in community philanthropy, women’s philanthropy, and feminist philanthropy to explore relationships among and between these three approaches and points of interest related to the broader philanthropy ecosystem, with a specific focus on women’s human rights. This report is the result of the first phase of this global, collaborative project. The starting assumption for the research was that each approach is rooted in similar values and goals, with mutually relevant practices and shared challenges. As such, there is potential for each to lift the others in achieving shared objectives and overcoming shared challenges. The summary report is also available in French, Portuguese and Spanish. An online launch event for the paper was held in November 2024.

In 2023 Themrise Khan published the paper “Envisioning an Alternative Ecosystem for Global Development and Humanitarianism”, the goal of which was to devise a more tangible way of addressing global inequality and development beyond the oft-repeated, but vague calls for the “decolonization” and “localization” of aid and development and “shifting the power.” This initial paper called for a series of consultations with a range of stakeholders. We supported Themrise in realizing consultations with civil society organizations in the Global South, including a number of #ShiftThePower Fellows, which this report summarizes. An online launch event for the paper was held in February 2025.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Finding Light in Darkness: The role of Ukraine’s Community Foundations in a Time of War

By: Olga Bentz

Drawing on data collected through the GFCF’s grantmaking in Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, this report describes the range of community foundations’ responses to the crisis. It illustrates how Ukrainian community foundations have demonstrated remarkable resilience and impact during the ongoing war, addressing both immediate humanitarian needs and fostering long-term community development and social cohesion. The report is also available in Ukrainian. Co-hosted with the National Network of Local Philanthropy Development in Ukraine, an online launch event for the paper was held in March 2025.

The System We Want – a Curation of Posters Exhibited at the #ShiftThePower Global Summit

In December 2023, 730 people met in Bogotá for the #ShiftThePower Global Summit. Participants represented the range of the civil society and funding eco-system, with the largest group coming from grassroots institutions, networks and movements. Much of their work often lies beyond the gaze and reach of big donors. During a Poster Session participants had the chance to share exciting examples of practice and research that are ontributing to larger efforts to shift power. This e-book is a collection of those posters, and paints a picture of the system we want. The e-book is also available in Spanish.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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3. Building a global movement

to #ShiftThePower

Despite the critical roles that national and local actors have played in responding to disruptions and crises in recent years (COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, the growing climate catastrophe – to name a few), these same actors also continue to be regularly overlooked and undervalued by mainstream philanthropy and development sectors. Our work to build a global movement to #ShiftThePower and to keep expanding the voice of the movement, therefore, feels more important than ever.

Too Southern to be Funded

Details governing the flow of resources from OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members to Global South civil society organizations have traditionally been buried in layers of paperwork and technical language in a manner that has been opaque and difficult to grasp. A number of allies from across the #ShiftThePower movement came together to support a piece of research analyzing DAC member aid flows, which ultimately revealed systemic imbalances in the distribution of Official Development Assistance (read the full report Too Southern to be Funded or the summary).

The report also makes clear that, despite rhetoric committing to support Southern leadership and civil society, a significant portion of aid remains unofficially “tied”, disproportionately benefiting civil society actors within DAC member countries, while marginalizing civil society elsewhere. The reality is that barely 10% of aid from OECD DAC members reaches civil society organizations in the Global South. This practice not only discriminates against Global South civil society but also undermines the spirit of the 2001 DAC Recommendation on Untying Official Development Assistance.

In April, the #ShiftThePower movement penned an open letter to members of the OECD DAC to bring attention to the systematic exclusion of Southern civil society from international funding opportunities. The letter – which garnered more than 250 signatures – aimed to raise awareness of this issue among Southern civil society organizations, and to ignite new discussions within Northern-based organizations and international development agencies, advocating for a more inclusive and equitable approach to global funding.

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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#ShiftThePower Fellowship

The purpose of the #ShiftThePower Fellowship is to strengthen the connection between peers around the world, to collectively explore ideas of systems change in international philanthropy and development aid, as well as to grow representation of the movement.

The second edition of the #ShiftThePower Fellowship wrapped up in June 2024. We had a broad “ask” of the Fellows. It was for them to engage, write, reflect and explore alternative approaches to how change happens in development with one another. The “offer” from our side was to provide access to platforms, networks, resources and time. In August, the Fellows hosted two closing webinars to share some of the work they had undertaken over the course of the Fellowship. Specific feedback from Fellows after the close of the programme included:

“The Fellowship was a space to rethink and reshape political thought on shifting power, decoloniality and to reimagine new ways of doing things.”

“The Fellowship – for me – started as an opportunity to think about what systems change perspective can bring towards conversations on #ShiftThePower – a very conceptual question. It allowed me to engage with different people and perspectives and to find a network that turned the question into something more concrete and practical.”

ShiftThePower Fellows from the second and third cohorts

The third cohort of #ShiftThePower Fellows launched in December 2024, including 15 global change-makers from 12 countries, each with their own unique backgrounds and visions for change. They represent varied efforts to transform communities and challenge existing power dynamics in international development and philanthropy. This edition of the Fellowship will focus specifically on the role, potential of, and emerging practices associated with community philanthropy as a strategy for shifting, sharing and building power. The final output of the Fellowship will be to contribute to a body of new and existing knowledge in the form of research papers by the Fellows.

#ShiftThePower Treehouse

The Treehouse continues to grow as a platform to curate the thoughts and reflections of practitioners within the #ShiftThePower movement doing development differently. During the period covered by this Annual Report, the Treehouse published 47 articles in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, and had just under 25,000 visitors. The Treehouse was also the home of the Too Southern to be Funded campaign.

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Giving for Change

The Giving for Change programme is a five-year, €24 million (approximately £20.5 million) programme which aims to foster local giving as an expression of voice, civic participation, solidarity and dissent. Funded under the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affair’s “Power of Voices” programme, Giving for Change is being implemented in Brazil, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Palestine and Uganda, and is led by a consortium of four organizations: the Africa Philanthropy Network, Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF), GFCF and Wilde Ganzen. The working thesis of the programme is that lasting and transformative change can only happen if it is driven from the bottom-up as well as from the top-down.

The GFCF is the lead partner around global advocacy initiatives. Over the period covered by this Annual Report, we supported various activities in Giving for Change countries aimed at building on momentum from the 2023 #ShiftThePower Global Summit. In April 2024, KCDF, the East African Philanthropy Network, and the GFCF co-hosted a convening in Nairobi titled “#ShiftThePower – A Global Conversation Rooted in the Local”, which brought together 70 participants representing a broad cross-section of civil society actors, including community philanthropy organizations, funders and commentators. It was an opportunity to hear from some of those who participated in the Summit about the key messages that emerged, and the potential opportunities that can be harnessed in pursuit of a more equitable global civil society and funding system.

In August, we co-hosted similar events in Mozambique and Uganda with Giving for Change national anchor partners Fundação Micaia and the Uganda National NGO Forum, respectively. An open space approach was utilized at both, encouraging participants to consider concrete pathways and lines of action to advance the #ShiftThePower agenda and the vision of a good society more broadly. Measurement, story-telling, local resource mobilization and advancing human rights were among the topics that participants chose to discuss in depth with their peers.

In Mozambique in particular, discussions surrounding community philanthropy and critiques of the current international development system are relatively new and underdeveloped. The convening, which also attracted participation from beyond Mozambique (including organizations from Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe), explored the potential for community philanthropy as part of larger conversations about reforming and transforming aid and localization.

The Giving for Change convening in Kampala, Uganda

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Representation at conferences and events

The growing interest in community philanthropy and #ShiftThePower among new audiences was reflected in the range and number of events at which the GFCF was either invited to speak at, or to facilitate the participation of others to do so. Some highlights have been selected for this Annual Report.

Human Rights Funders Network Funding Futures Festival

During the Funding Futures Festival in Tbilisi in April 2024, we were part of two sessions. The first, “Is the Human Rights Movement Moving Together or Moving Apart?” co-hosted with Reimaging the INGO (RINGO), challenged funders and INGOs to support human rights groups to build local constituencies for their work, particularly in the context of shrinking space. Partnering with the Alianza of Socio-Environmental Funds of the Global South and Global Greengrants, we also hosted the session “Global South Funding Networks: Weaving an Ecosystem of Justice.” This aimed to shine a light on the role of networks of local funds and foundations around the world that build long-term relationships with communities, de-centre external donors and mobilize resources that challenge power dynamics and foster grassroots philanthropy.

International Society for Third-Sector Research conference

Our roundtable discussion “Bridging Research and Practice to Measure What Matters” at the July 2024 International Society for Third-Sector Research conference held in Antwerp built from a 2023 online session “Bridging Scholarship and Practice”, as well as our larger strand of work around reimagining measurement approaches. The conversation featured the views of three US academics who have written extensively on issues of equity in evaluation in the US context. Our partners from Indonesia for Humanity also presented their work during the session, and shared how they have developed innovative approaches to evaluation and learning which centre the views and experiences of the communities they aim to serve, and which they describe as “an alternative to the lifeless model that over-simplifies our work.” Participants were invited to identify links between innovative evaluation approaches and scholarly research agendas, to share theories and resources that might help to strengthen these innovations and to propose new areas of research for future knowledge building efforts.

Community Foundations Australia #ShiftThePower Summit

In November, we travelled to Bangalow – alongside five GFCF partners from Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines – to attend Community Foundations Australia’s mini #ShiftThePower Summit, and associated Community Foundations Forum Week. The Summit was specifically designed for foundations exploring new and progressive ways to unlock the inherent power of communities, centering equity and justice in their practice. As noted by a representative of the Mparntwe Alice Springs Community Foundation that attended: “The decisions and culture we establish now will flow through for years to come: how we start is how we’ll continue. What I particularly got out of our discussion is that we need to stop, slow down, and spend time to engage even more deeply with our community. We’ve done that reasonably well…but we have a long way to go to become as deeply embedded and as truly community-led as we need to be. If we are to avoid becoming top-down, out-oftouch, elitist.”

GFCF Annual Report 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

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Our finances

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25

Thubutu Africa Initiatives, Tanzania – image courtesy of Nguzo Africa, Kenya

Consolidated statement of financial activities (incorporating income and expenditure account) for the year ended 31 March 2025

Unrestricted funds
Restricted funds
Total funds		 Total funds
2025
2025
2025		 2024
Note £
£
£		 £
Income from:
Donations and legacies 3 1,039,378
1,039,378		 2,131,858
Investments 4 137,265
137,265		 194,715
Other 10,462
10,462		 113,205
Total income 137,265
1,049,840
1,187,105		 2,439,778
Expenditure on:
Charitable activities 5 375,671
1,732,211
2,107,882		 3,114,670
Total expenditure 375,671
1,732,211
2,107,882		 3,114,670
Net (expenditure)/income: (238,406)
(682,371)
(920,777)		 (674,892)
Transfers between funds 15
Net movement in funds (238,406)
(682,371)
(920,777)		 (674,892)
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought forward 3,936,914
1,605,374
5,542,288		 6,217,180
Net movement in funds (238,406)
(682,371)
(920,777)		 (674,892)
Total funds carried forward 15 3,698,508
923,003
4,621,511		 5,542,288

The Statement of Financial Activities includes all gains and losses recognized in the year.

All activities derived from continuing operations during the above two financial periods.

The notes on pages 18 to 34 of the full audited accounts form part of these financial statements. A copy of the audited accounts can be requested from the GFCF.

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Consolidated balance sheet as at 31 March 2025 ~~Be~~

2025 2024
Note
£		 £
Fixed assets
Tangible assets 12
3,154		 2,002
3,154 2,002
Current assets
Debtors 13
502,888		 857,485
Cash at bank and in hand 4,222,930 4,896,362
4,725,818 5,753,847
Liabilities
Creditors: amounts falling due
within oneyear		 14
(107,461)		 (213,561)
Net current assets 4,618,357 5,540,286
Total net assets 4,621,511 5,542,288
Funds
Restricted income funds 923,003 1,605,374
Unrestricted income funds 3,698,508 3,936,914
Total funds 15
4,621,511		 5,542,288

The financial statements on pages 11 to 34 of the full audited accounts (a copy of which can

be requested from the GFCF) were approved by the Trustees, and authorized for issue on 15 September 2025 and are signed on their behalf by:

Robert Ian Bird Trustee

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Income from donations and legacies

Unrestricted funds
Restricted funds
Total funds		 Total funds
2025
2025
2025		 2024
£
£
£		 £
Grants 1,039,378
1,039,378		 2,131,858
Unrestricted funds
Restricted funds
Total funds		 Total funds
2025
2025
2025		 2024
£
£
£		 £
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation 399,494
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation 332,428
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs(Wilde Ganzen) 495,721
495,721		 880,962
European Union 6,868
Fondation Hans Wilsdorf 245,000
245,000
Fund for Shared Insight 161,616
Global Greengrants Fund 48,848
GlobalGiving 197,874
197,874
H&S Davidson Trust 20,000
20,000		 20,000
Humanity United 38,547
38,547		 59,792
Porticus 42,236
42,236
Robert Bosch Stiftung 151,131
Rockefeller Brothers Fund 70,719
1,039,378
1,039,378		 2,131,858

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Our legal and administrative information

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Fundación Territorial Paisano, Colombia

Our legal and administrative information

Our board

The GFCF was registered as an independent charity in Northern Ireland and South Africa in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It has two legally constituted boards. The founding board is legally constituted in the U.K. It was the founding organizational member of the South African board and a sub-set of U.K. board members constitute the South African board. Board members (Directors) are nominated for a three-year period, with the possibility of two renewals. Nominations are made and approved by current Directors.

The board is responsible for guiding the GFCF’s programmes and operations. Specifically, the Directors are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the Directors determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

The board is governed by the GFCF Governance Manual, which was adopted in May 2015 and was developed in compliance with its statutes of registration in Southern Africa and Northern Ireland:

A report of the Directors for the year ended 31 March 2025 is available on pages 33 - 37 of this report.

The GFCF currently has an international board of individuals highly experienced in the fields of community philanthropy and social development. For the 2024 / 2025 period Directors included:

GFCF Board and staff at a 2024 meeting

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Safeguarding policy

The GFCF strives to foster a working environment free of any kind of intimidation, aggression or violence, and which upholds the highest standards of operations. As such, and in response to various instances of abuse and malpractice from development actors that surfaced over 2017, in 2018 we published a Safeguarding Policy and updated our Whistle-Blower and Complaints Procedure, to reiterate our commitment to these ideals.

As outlined in the policy, we as an organization strive to ensure that our working atmosphere is a safe and welcoming one, and one in which respect between all colleagues is fostered, regardless of gender expression, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, state of health or political leaning. This applies to all staff, board members, temporary personnel, consultants and others who carry out work on behalf of the GFCF. In terms of safeguarding, the GFCF treats seriously any allegations of exploitation or abuse. This may include but is not limited to: sexual exploitation and abuse; child exploitation and abuse; bullying and harassment; and, malpractice in the workplace.

For the period covered by this report, the GFCF complied with all requirements laid out in its Staff Manual and Whistle-Blower Policy. All staff reviewed these documents again in March 2025, as part of an annual practice and commitment to upholding the values laid out therein. No suspected or actual integrity violations were reported in the period covered by this Annual Report.

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FunBEA, Brazil
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References and administrative details

Registered charity name: Global Fund for Community Foundations

Commonly used acronym: GFCF

Northern Ireland charity number: NIC101135

Company registration number: NI073343

Registered office: The Mount, 2 Woodstock Link, Belfast BT6 8DD, Northern Ireland, U.K. Operational address: 50 Oxford Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa

Auditors: Ross Brooke Limited, Chartered Accountants, Statutory Auditors, Suite I Windrush Court, Abingdon Business Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 1SY, U.K.

Bankers: HSBC, 25 - 29 Royal Avenue, Belfast BT1 1FB, Northern Ireland, U.K.

Solicitors: Jennifer E. A. Ebbage, Edwards & Co Solicitors, 28 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2LA, Northern Ireland, U.K.

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----- Start of picture text -----
Charitable Foundation “Podilska Hromada”, Ukraine
----- End of picture text -----

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Report of the Directors for the year ended 31 March 2025

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Report of the Directors for the year ended 31 March 2025

Structure, governance and management

The directors present their report and the audited financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2025. The directors of Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF) for the purposes of company law and who served during the year and up to the date of this report are set out below:

ʼ Amitabh Behar (Resigned 31 August 2024)

The financial statements comply with current statutory requirements, the Memorandum and Articles of Association, applicable Accounting Standards in the United Kingdom and the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) “Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice” SORP (FRS102)

The charity is a charitable company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 29 July 2009 (company registration number NI073343), registered with the HM Revenue & Customs as a charity, no. XT18816 and registered with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland as a charity No. NIC101135.

The GFCF is registered in the UK and South Africa. The two legal entities are inextricably linked and operate as a group. A full set of consolidated accounts of the group is available.

The narrative below reflects a brief overview of the group and the work it does. The Board of Directors have prepared a detailed Annual Report. This report is available upon request.

Appointment to the Board of Directors

The composition, appointment and dismissal of directors is guided by the GFCF’s two legal Statutes (U.K. and South Africa) and principles of good governance. The Board appoints directors. At every board meeting, GFCF directors are invited to recommend names of potential directors. The Nomination Committee (a sub-set of current directors) retains a record of this. Occasionally, and at the discretion of the directors, a global open call for applicants is also used as a method for board recruitment.

Eligibility criteria applied in the selection of new directors include demonstrated track record in the fields of community philanthropy, private philanthropy and / or international development aid, evidence of commitment to and vision and relevant specific expertise (in finance, particular programme, policy and geographic priority areas etc.). Other considerations include ensuring the diversity of the board as a whole in terms of age, gender, race / ethnicity, lived experience etc.

Short-listed candidates are invited to speak with the Nomination Committee and Executive Director, at which time a decision will be made regarding whether to approach them to serve. The Nomination Committee will consult, in confidence, with other directors prior to meeting potential board members in order to have all voices taken into consideration during the process. Should a candidate be approached to serve as a director, this will be approved and formalized by serving directors, requiring a majority of two-thirds of directors agree with the appointment.

Each new director receives an orientation package as part of their induction. This comprises organizational statutes, governance manual, most recent strategic and operational Plans, latest annual report and audited financial statements and a selection of key publications that will orient the director to the organization’s approach to community philanthropy and its ways of working. All new directors are required to review and sign off on the Governance Manual, returning this to the Executive Director for record keeping.

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Responsibilities of the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is responsible for approving the annual strategy. However, decisions regarding allocation of grants, operations and day-to-day allocation of resources lie with the GFCF management personnel. The Board of Directors delegates day-to-day management of the charity to the Executive Director, Jenny Hodgson. The Board of Directors meets twice annually to advise on high level strategy and to provide oversight in terms of grant making, personnel are taken by the Executive Director and Board of Directors. In making these decisions, U.K. charitable sector benchmarks, as well as geographic location of staff, are taken into consideration.

The directors are specifically responsible for preparing the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and UK Accounting Standards (UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). Company law requires the directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of the affairs of the charity at the end of the financial year end and of the surplus or deficit for that year.

Objectives and Activities

The GFCF is a grassroots grantmaker working to promote and support institutions of community philanthropy around the world. Its long-term goal is to embed the practice and paradigm of community philanthropy as a cornerstone of a new architecture for effective, locally-owned and locally-driven development that shifts power and voice to the community level.

The GFCF works with individual community philanthropy organizations and other local grantmakers and civil society organizations and their networks around the world, with a particular focus on the Global South and Central and Eastern Europe. Through small grants, technical support and networking, the GFCF helps these local institutions to strengthen and grow so that they can fulfil their potential as vehicles for local development and as part of the infrastructure for sustainable development, poverty alleviation and citizen participation.

In preparing these financial statements the directors are required to:

The directors are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with them reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In accordance with company law, as the company’s directors, we certify that so far as we are aware, there is no relevant audit information (information needed by the charity’s auditors in connection with preparing their report) of which the charity’s auditors are unaware, and the directors have taken all the steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the charity’s auditors are aware of that information.

Resources Oriented Development Initiatives (RODI), Kenya

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The three core objectives of the charity are listed in the table below, along with activities undertaken in line with each objective, and how success is assessed with regards to each.

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Objective Activities Undertaken Assessing Success Aims
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To support the building of institutional
capacity among community foundations and
community philanthropy organizations at the
local level.		 ʼ Grantmaking programmes
ʼ Technical assistance		 ʼ Number of grants
ʼ Number of new partners
ʼ Connections between partners
ʼ Local resources mobilized by
partners		 Short-term:
ʼ Locally-owned and directed
community philanthropy
organizations, building assets,
capacities and trust in the areas
where theywork.
To strengthen the feld of community
philanthropy across the world, focusing
on deepening practice, fostering thought
leadership and enhancing the voice and
identity of the feld.		 ʼ Convenings of likeminded
organizations around specifc
issues, themes and geographies
ʼ GFCF website and communications
ʼ Strengthening the evidence base
for, and documenting the practice
of, community philanthropy		 ʼ Number of convenings / number
and range of participants
ʼ Number of reports produced /
downloads from GFCF website
ʼ Increase in traffc to GFCF website
ʼ Number of blogs / thought pieces
in E-Bulletin
ʼ Increase in subscriptions to
E-Bulletin		 Short-term:
ʼ Capacities, connections, networks,
practice, and visibility between
partners are strengthened.
ʼ Evidence base for community
philanthropy as an eco-system of
local actors responding to urgent
and changing community needs at
the local level is expanded.
To inform and infuence the relationship
between the community philanthropy feld
and policy makers, international
development agencies and the broader
philanthropic sector.		 ʼ #ShiftThePower Treehouse
ʼ #ShiftThePower Global Summit
(“Road from Bogotá”)
ʼ #ShiftThePower Fellowships
ʼ Advocacy and infuencing
Possible Now
ʼ Advocacy and infuencing Giving
for Change
ʼ Advocacy and infuencing Ukraine
ʼ Building new partnerships with
funders
ʼ Representing the GFCF,
community philanthropy and
#ShiftThePower amongst a range
of different actors		 ʼ Increase in traffc to
#ShiftThePower Treehouse
ʼ Number of new donors to GFCF
and partners
ʼ Number of new partnerships / new
ways of working demonstrated with
INGOs and funders
ʼ Number of events held or attended
online and in person		 Long-term:
ʼ Profle of community philanthropy
amongst a broader range of
development actors – as an
increasingly theorized and
documented development practice,
and a core element of broader
efforts aimed at building local
ownership and shifting power – is
increased.

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Plans for the Future

These objectives will continue to be advanced in the coming years by the charity. The Board of Directors holds formal meetings twice annually to review progress and strategy based on experiences and lessons learned. For the foreseeable future, no significant changes to strategy or resource allocation are foreseen.

Public Benefit

In setting our objectives and planning our activities for the year the directors have given careful consideration to the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland’s guidance on public benefit to ensure that the activities have helped to achieve the charity’s purposes and provide a benefit to the beneficiaries. The directors believe that all the work of the GFCF is for the public benefit, as defined in law.

Achievements and Performance for the year ended 31 March 2025

For the year ended 31 March 2025 the charity awarded 67 small grants amounting to £1,113,094 to community philanthropy organizations in 27 countries. The primary purpose of the GFCF’s grantmaking is to build the capacity of community philanthropy institutions around the world. By fostering local cultures of giving, harnessing both local and external resources and through the use of grants and other supports to grassroots partners, community philanthropy institutions are able to become trusted and effective change-makers able to empower communities to address their own development needs. GFCF grants particularly emphasize efforts to reach and support those communities most marginalized, whether by poverty, prejudice or other forms of exclusion. For the year ended 31 March 2025, GFCF grants supported the institutional development of individual partners, #ShiftThePower Fellowships, conferences and convenings, climate justice and response efforts to the war in Ukraine.

broader philanthropic sector. In particular, the GFCF is a member of the Giving for Change consortium, a five-year, eight-country programme aimed at positioning community philanthropy, both nationally and globally, as a form of and force for freedom of expression and claiming of rights. The #ShiftThePower Fellowship programme also falls under this third objective.

Financial Review

Overview

The GFCF ended the financial year in a favorable position, one that will allow the organization to move forward and focus on implementing a sustainable operating model in 2025/26. In total, the GFCF raised income of £1,039,378 in 2024/25, compared to the previous financial year of funds raised of £2,131,858. The income was higher in the 2023/24 financial year as a number of donations were received for the one-off event, the #ShiftThePower Global Summit held in December 2023. During the 2024/25 financial year the organization has been able to mobilize new funds towards climate justice. For the period 2024/25 the GFCF spent £2,107,882 on charitable activities. This is lower than expenditure of £3,114,670 in the previous year, 2023/24. The hosting of the #ShiftThePower Global Summit accounted for the higher value of expenditure in the previous financial year. Funds from the one-off donation received in the 2022/23 financial year were spent towards the allocation of grants to the value of £202,232. Expenditure on raising funds amounting to £54,942 in 2024/25. This expense is lower than the previous year, 2023/24, where expenditure in this regard was £62,438. The higher value of fundraising expenditure in the previous financial year was due to the increase in fundraising activity for the #ShiftThePower Global Summit. The total funds carried forward to the financial year 2025/26 are £4,621,511 compared to £5,542,288 carried forward to the financial year 2024/25.

A second GFCF objective relates to learning and sharing of good practice. The charity organized various in-person and online learning events, enabling practitioners in community philanthropy to exchange with, and learn from, colleagues working in different country contexts. Several reports and thought pieces were also produced, which aim to build the evidence-base for community philanthropy as a development practice.

A third focus of the charity’s work is focused on continuing to raise the profile of the global community philanthropy among policymakers, international development agencies and the

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Principal Funding Sources

The GFCF’s income is derived from a variety of sources. Income is received largely in the form of grants from institutional donors (including trusts, foundations, multilateral and bilateral donors), and, occasionally, voluntary income for appeals and campaigns. The principal funding sources for the year ended 31 March 2025 were the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, H&S Davidson Trust, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs via Wilde Ganzen, Fondation Hans Wilsdorf, Foundation for a Just Society, Fund for Shared Insight, GlobalGiving, Humanity United, Porticus, Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Reserves

The organization will have no designated reserves at this time given the value of the unrestricted funds held by the organization, and the Finance Group will review this quarterly.

Risk Policy

The risk policy and risk register are reviewed at each board meeting to identify any risks that have arisen and to record steps to mitigate these risks in the risk register.

Fundación Territorial Magenta, Colombia

Auditors

UHY Ross Brooke, Chartered Accountants are deemed to be reappointed in accordance with Section 487(2) of the Companies Act 2006.

References and Administrative Details

Refer to pages 30 and 31 of this report. The Report of the Directors was approved by order of the Board of Directors and signed on the board’s behalf by:

Robert Ian Bird

Trustee

Date: September 15[th] , 2025

Zhytomyr Community Foundation, Ukraine

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