Ideation on How to Increase Impact in the Global South

GlobalGiving (GG) leadership facilitated a Spanish-language, breakout session with their Mexico network of 130+ nonprofits after the GG 2020 town hall meeting in late-January 2020. GG leaders asked Mexican nonprofits for ideas on ways they can invest impact-oriented resources in lieu of campaign monetary awards.

PSYDEH serves as Mexican National Mentor, and our last five years of growth are a case example of what is possible for local-focused nonprofits with the right human and monetary resources. Mahathi Kumar, PSYDEH’s USA-based special projects coordinator, with moral support from Roisin McAuley, our Scottish strategic communications consultant, proposed these three pilot project idea areas:

(1) corporate connections

(2)”on the ground” professional consulting

(3) freelance professional services

Each suggested project is designed around existing GG tools with an eye to helping Global South partners to amplify our own voices AND leverage these voices into more resources. As Mahathi explained to 20+ GG staff during the call, “

We believe/know that GG nonprofit partners like PSYDEH face different challenges than bigger organizations. In Mexico, we suffer through a tough public funding climate. 2018 was a political election year; existing funding was largely directed to political-party aligned nonprofits. Currently, the Mexican federal government has cut almost all public funding for civil society. COVID-19 affects private funding streams. For example, we’ve recently lost anticipated significant funding from two different funders with whom we’ve been negotiating for months. Our small-donor network is fully exhausted. We simply have not reached the tipping point where funds secured result in the team we need to build a larger network and/or viral donor movement.

Yet, we see these roadblocks as opportunities to Listen. Act. Learn. Repeat. And GG can play a critical role in helping us, all Global South outfits, succeed, and not necessarily just through more money… [We just need] a hand up, not a handout. We’ll do the rest.”