Amy Taylor
CIVICUS (South Africa)
"One of the first lines in CIVICUS’ articles of association refers to our role in promoting private philanthropy to support citizen action. In recent years, we have focused on building an alliance of civil society and promoting civil society rights and freedoms. Yet, the inherent connections between the scale and nature of resources available and the strength and diversity of civil society cannot be ignored. This was brought home to us as we prepared our 2015 State of Civil Society Report, which looked at resourcing for civil society.
As an alliance seeking to promote the interests of civil society, we see our role as working with donors to encourage them to be ‘braver’ and more effective civil society supporters. One practical way in which we did this was through the introduction of a ‘brave philanthropy’ category to our Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards. At the same time, as civil society, we committed to changing some of our behaviours, from exploring new ways of raising resources to facilitating the access of grassroots organizations to funds. We also committed to challenging political and economic elites to protect civic space and create a more sustainable resource base for civil society.
The Global Summit on Community Philanthropy is an important opportunity to continue this conversation and deepen our commitment to live up to our founding principle of engaging the philanthropy community as key actors in a strong civil society."
People Behind the Summit
