Building movements: Five strategies for change
Hivos has developed five strategies for promoting the voices and choices of marginalized people, while strengthening civil society.
Which strategy we apply, and when, greatly depends on the context and the local organizations we work with. What all our strategies have in common is our expertise in grant making, enabling organizations and movements to reach their goals by distributing funds to them from larger donors and donor countries. This includes ensuring that these funds are spent effectively, transparently and accountably.
Supporting frontrunners
Hivos works with game-changing pioneers and frontrunners that inspire others. We have a keen eye for these creative, daring and unconventional innovators. Hivos offers them a platform, provides start-up funding and training, and connects them to different networks. Together, we develop ideas into programs that contribute to social change and more just, inclusive and life-sustaining societies.
We connect rightsholders, their organizations and allies to these pioneers so they can collaborate. The result is open-minded and creative alternatives to global problems; daring and undogmatic alternatives that serve the interest of all.
Frontrunners can be progressive citizens and organizations, courageous journalists or innovative artists and content producers. They operate on the frontlines of developments due to their pioneering ideas. However, not all frontrunners we support are cutting-edge creatives. They might also be brave young women who dare to claim their sexual and reproductive health and rights at local clinics in conservative communities, encouraged by their peers through our We Lead program.
Multi-actor initiatives
As much as Hivos values the right of individuals to shape their lives, we believe that sustainable change will only happen if people undertake concerted and collective action. Hivos brings together all relevant stakeholders in effective multi-actor initiatives.
We organize them around an exciting plan and facilitate the process of co-creating fair and inclusive solutions to complex problems. Ideas are best forged into viable solutions by the joined hands of rights holders and their organizations, government and business representatives, creatives and technologists. We finance programs, ensure professional monitoring and evaluations, and incorporate lessons learned into future programming.
A Hivos strategy
Hivos has developed a manual about forging multi-actor initiatives. The insights and guidelines captured in this manual are meant for all who engage with multi-actor initiatives, either to coordinate, strategize, manage, implement, monitor and/or reflect on different aspects of these initiatives.
Influencing policies
Hivos helps to create an enabling (political) environment in which the alternative solutions of frontrunners and multi-actor initiatives can flourish. We help rightsholders and local organizations make their voices heard, get a seat at the discussion table, and influence decisions that affect their lives. Moreover, we support their initiatives to challenge existing power relations at community, local and national level.
For example, in East and Southern Africa our regional SRH-R Fund supports organizations that advocate for people’s right to love whom they choose and to decide if and when to have children. With Free to be Me, Hivos and partners enable LGBTIQ+ communities to lobby duty bearers for access to socio-economic development programs and for an end to criminalizing laws. ENERGIA significantly has advanced gender mainstreaming of sustainable energy policies and practices around the world, based on the evidence of its successful women energy entrepreneurs.
Linking and learning is our core principle. We connect our local partners to each other and to existing advocacy networks of potential allies at the national and regional level. These networks are of great importance to engage with and influence duty bearers. At the global level, Hivos gets directly involved in influencing policies of governments and businesses. We also enable – and if necessary, train and coach – rights holders and their organizations to participate in relevant international events and advocacy moments. Having their stories told and heard in the right places and at the right time can influence key figures and generate international (social) media attention for their cause.
Moving the middle
Shifting norms and attitudes among the wider public is crucial for any lasting change in terms of climate justice, gender equality, diversity and inclusion, or more responsible and accountable citizens, companies and governments.
To achieve this, our partners and Hivos need to win over the “hearts and minds” of societal leaders and decision-makers at all levels. This takes us from the family and community to governments, (religious) institutions, companies, media and artists. Actions that change minds can start in people’s direct environment and spiral out to ever widening circles, or target public opinion and policy makers through persuasive campaigns. These campaigns also act as an essential bulwark that lets us stand up against any conservative forces aiming to dismantle or undo our work.
Our strategy, based on (formative) research and Hivos’ experience in programs such as KP REACH and Strong in Diversity, focuses on the so-called “movable middle.” This is the silent majority of people who don’t have a (fixed) opinion about controversial societal issues, but tend to follow socially accepted norms. We learned that both personal stories and influential persons, presenting new and convincing narratives, can be the decisive factor in changing their minds. In KP REACH, the heartwarming stories of LGBTIQ+ people and their relatives, neighbors, and friends (“people like you and me”) describing their struggle for acceptance measurably improved public sentiment across eight Southern African countries.
Likewise, the narratives and actions of societal leaders play a key role in shaping opinions, both in our direct environment and among the wider public. We will support our partners in engaging and entering into dialogue with moderate and progressive leaders, and we will connect them with like-minded allies to help turn them into a force for positive change. Hivos offers a broad range of expertise, tools, methodologies and training to support rights holders and organizations in changing the minds of a critical mass of the population.
Local ownership
Local ownership is both in our DNA and a vital strategy to achieve real and lasting change. Hivos will boost local ownership at all levels: in our programs, within our organization, and among donors and the development sector.
Hivos designs, implements and evaluates its programs jointly with rights holders and local organizations. They are included in the highest program governance structures, while we ensure equal decision-making and mutually address power imbalances. Hivos shares its knowledge, skills, and networks, and facilitates direct engagement of local partners with decision-makers. When advocating at international forums, our messaging will be “joined up.”
We prefer to provide long-term, strategic, core funding to organizations instead of short-term, earmarked project funding. Grant making will be participatory to shift decision-making about grants to rightsholders and local organizations. We will experiment with alternative financing mechanisms that promote local ownership. Overall, Hivos strives to allocate 80 percent of funding obtained to the development of local partners.
Within our own organization, we will further redistribute power and decentralize even more of our work to our regional hubs. We will have decentralized budgets and decision-making power by 2025, adhering to upward and downward transparency and accountability principles. Together with (regional) staff and partners, we will explore and design inclusive and participatory governance structures, including all leadership positions. All Hivos programs will have a built-in exit strategy.
To increase (support for) local ownership within the donor community and the development sector, Hivos will actively lobby to promote its vision, use concrete examples as evidence, and share lessons on how to best adapt organizations, processes and programs. We will support donor efforts to directly fund local entities.