Authored by: Ruth Awentirim Pechim Ane

For a year now, I have worked with STAR-Ghana Foundation’s Business Development & Resource Mobilisation unit. This experience has pushed me to reflect more critically on what resource mobilisation means in practice. I am beginning to see it is not only about finding “Calls for Proposals”, but also about power and institutional culture, and how these quietly shape organisational choices, priorities and even internal incentives over time.

Donor Dependence, Power and Organisational Behaviour.
One clear pattern is how deeply many CSOs are structured around donor funding from the Global North, not just as support but as their backbone. This dependence is not always acknowledged openly, yet it determines staffing, programming and organisational direction in very practical ways, including what gets prioritised and what gets sidelined. As funding tightens and sometimes shifts toward defence and security priorities, many organisations are uncertain how to proceed. The challenge is strategical and existential, touching on organisational survival itself.

Through observation and conversations, I see how this dependence shapes organisational behaviour. Many organisations compromise core mandates to remain fundable. They respond to calls outside their strengths or long-term direction simply to survive. Over time, this creates mandate drift, where work gradually reflects donor priorities more than original purpose, even when organisations remain committed to their founding vision.

Resource mobilisation requires institutional discipline. Not every call is your call. Responding to donor opportunities is often like applying for jobs: need alone is not enough, and urgency can lead to poor strategic choices. There must be alignment between who you are, what you can do and what is being asked, otherwise organisations stretch themselves too thin and lose focus.

At the same time, funding is necessary for organisational survival before mandates can be upheld. Organisations need systems, skilled staff, credibility and internal capacity to deliver consistent work. While some donors provide core or flexible funding, many operate within specific agendas, indicators and predefined outcomes they are accountable for to their own institutions and taxpayers.

In an ideal world, more flexible long-term funding would exist, allowing organisations greater autonomy and planning space. But in reality, organisations must navigate donor realities as they are, not only as they should be, and make strategic trade-offs within constrained environments.

This also means being honest about power. I recall a conversation with CSO leaders on negotiating core funding before accepting work. For strong organisations, this can be strategic and even protective of mandate integrity. But it reflects privilege many smaller CSOs do not have. While some organisations are selected for credibility, visibility or perceived value, most operate in crowded funding spaces where donors can easily impose priorities, conditions and reporting burdens. Negotiating flexible funding therefore depends heavily on accumulated reputation, institutional history and positioning.

This complicates advice often given in the sector. Encouraging organisations to be strategic is important; however, recognising unequal leverage is equally important. Many comply not from lack of direction or clarity, but because they operate from precarity, uncertainty and survival pressure. In a shrinking funding climate, this distinction becomes even more significant in understanding organisational behaviour and decision-making.

At the same time, donor stringency does not emerge in a vacuum. Some organisations are created primarily because funding opportunities exist, rather than from sustained social or political commitment. Where governance is weak, funding can sustain institutions focused on organisational survival, patronage or elite benefit rather than transformation. This contributes to donor mistrust, making donors more cautious, more controlling and more prescriptive due to experiences of weak accountability or shallow programming.

This does not mean donors are always fair or NGOs should be broadly viewed with suspicion. But mistrust is co-produced. The rigidity many organisations experience reflects both donor power and credibility or accountability gaps within parts of the sector.

Performance, Participation and Sustainability.
Another thing I am noticing is how donor logics become embedded as organisational culture over time. Certain activities continue not always because they are the most effective, but because they are visible, measurable and acceptable within donor reporting systems. A donor-funded programme may repeatedly organise hotel workshops on familiar issues, even when participants have attended similar sessions before. Activities are delivered because they meet reporting requirements and expected outputs; participants attend for reimbursement, networking or obligation. The workshop is completed, attendance recorded, photos taken, outputs documented and reported.

Whether real learning or behaviour change happens is a separate question that is often harder to capture.

Donor logic is not entirely flawed. Removing participants from daily routines and responsibilities can enable deeper engagement, reflection and peer learning. But what often emerges is a performance culture driven by measurability, compliance and familiarity rather than impact or innovation.

This performance culture extends into communities. Many now expect transport reimbursement, food or allowances for participation in consultations or meetings. This is understandable: people leave farms, shops and care work to attend. Their time has value. Yet what begins as facilitation can become a condition for participation. Engagement becomes transactional. Without payment, some assume organisations are dishonest about donor funds or withholding resources.

Elsewhere, mistrust is reinforced by political actors portraying CSOs as outsiders with hidden agendas. The result is suspicion and weakened ownership of processes. This raises questions about the long-term sustainability of participation models heavily dependent on reimbursements.

NGOs are often more accountable upward to donors than outward to communities. Communities may know funding exists but not understand its scope, purpose or limitations. This gap produces misunderstanding, resentment and unrealistic expectations. Meaningful participation therefore requires transparency, co-creation and trust-building that goes beyond monetary incentives and focuses on shared ownership.

For me, sustainability is not only financial but also political and relational. Heavy donor dependence reduces organisational freedom to negotiate, to protect core mandates or to challenge unrealistic interventions.

If organisations can cover part of their operational costs through more sustainable means, they gain not only stability but also leverage. They gain the ability to engage donors more honestly about what is feasible, what works, what does not, and how resources can be used more effectively and realistically.

Rethinking Resource Mobilisation

Resource mobilisation should not be limited to available grant calls. It begins by ensuring clarity, credibility and internal stability that allows organisations to engage funding relationships more strategically. It is about knowing who you are (your mandate), what you are trying to achieve (your mission and vision), and what kinds of support strengthen rather than distort that mission. It is also about recognising that donors, NGOs and communities all operate within systems of incentives that do not always reward honesty, coherence or impact.

Rethinking resource mobilisation is not only about alternative income streams such as social enterprises or impact investments. While increasingly discussed, these are not universal solutions, especially for organisations whose work cannot easily be reduced to market value. The deeper shift may lie in redefining what counts as a resource: trust, accountability (both downward and upwards), relationships, local giving and influence matter as much as financial capital.

The challenge is not replacing donor funding but reducing overdependence on external priorities in ways that preserve organisational integrity, autonomy and long-term purpose.

Conclusion
These are still early reflections. Resource mobilisation is not just technical; it reveals the political economy of development: who holds power, who sets priorities, and what it takes to pursue impact without distortion.

Stronger civil society will depend not only on better fundraising, but on alignment between mission and money, organisational discipline and accountability to communities in whose name development work is undertaken.

Over time, these dynamics also demand more reflective practice from practitioners, not only in how they raise funds, but in how they continuously interpret power, incentives and relationships within the development ecosystem over time and in practice in real contexts as well.