How Can External Funders Better Support Civil Society Networks?
Civil society networks are vital to strengthening civil society organisations (CSOs), enhancing learning, advocacy, and accountability. But in an era of shrinking aid budgets and closing civic space, how external funders support these networks matters. K4DD research sets out what the evidence says about the most effective approaches.
External funders play a critical role in supporting civil society networks. However, there is limited literature on what external funders have learnt from their experiences so far on supporting such networks regarding effective modalities of support. The K4DD review ‘Effective Ways for External Funders to Support Civil Society Networks’ draws on evaluations of existing civil society grants and networks, alongside surveys and reports from CSOs themselves. An overarching message emerges: external funders need to provide more support that is informed by reflections on power, local knowledge, and cross-sectoral learning.
A sector under pressure
Civil society networks are under acute stress. The closure of USAID in 2025 and related budget cuts around the world have hit the sector hard: a recent EU Supporting Enabling Environment for Civil Society (EU SEE) survey found that 72% of respondent CSOs were directly affected, with 40% experiencing severe budget reductions. Many are cutting staff, scaling down programmes, or shutting altogether.
Alongside financial pressure, civic space is narrowing, seeing increased legal harassment, financial investigations and negative characterisation in domestic discourse. These trends compound an already fragile funding landscape. A survey by Forus International found that most networks depend on just one or two income sources, most rely on project funding rather than core funding, and membership fees. The consequences of a funding streaming ending can be severe: one regional African network saw its income fall by 60% when a five-year EU project ended; another East African network lost 75% of its income when its funding shifted from strategic to project grants. Membership fees, an important indicator of organisational sustainability contribute less than 5% of income in contexts with closing civic space, compared to around a third in more open environments.
Civil society networks face a myriad of challenges and are increasingly in need of financial and non-financial support which is not being met by external funders.
What kinds of support do funders provide?
Our K4DD review maps a range of funding modalities available to donors: core funding, flexible funding, project funding, rapid response funding, seed funding, pooled funding, intermediary-based funding, and bridge funding. Each has distinct trade-offs.
Core funding which supports organisations’ basic operational costs and flexible funding which gives them discretion over how resources are used, emerges as the most valued by networks. A 2023 Robert Carr Fund annual report found that 87% of its grantee networks relied on core funding to pay staff salaries and maintain basic operations. Crucially, core funding also allowed networks to respond to emergencies and developments.
Project funding, by contrast, can constrain networks by dictating their goals and limiting their ability to do long-term work. Pooled funding reduces administrative costs but risks producing lowest-common-denominator priorities and can reduce a network’s autonomy. Intermediary-based funding can help reach hard-to-access organisations but risks crowding out local actors and creating new power imbalances.
What does effective funder support look like?
Drawing on evaluations of programmes our K4DD review finds that while more funders should transparently share their evaluations of funding such programmes and learnings, it is possible to identify a set of emerging good practices.
On funding, the evidence points clearly towards moving away from short-term, competitive, results-driven project grants and towards long-term core funding that enables planning, adaptation and survival in crises. Funders should also coordinate with each other to harmonise reporting requirements and avoid duplicating work; the experience of CIVICUS shows that consolidated reporting across funders significantly reduces administrative burden. There is also a strong case for striking a balance between supporting established networks and investing in emerging ones, and for grounding funding decisions in local knowledge of needs and priorities. Lastly, it is also important for donors to have an exit strategy and allow for transitions.
On relationships and power, the review calls for a genuine shift in how funders relate to civil society. This means involving CSOs in co-creating funding programmes and not limiting their role to delivering them. Allowing networks to act as fund managers enables them to reach communities that donors cannot easily access directly. Shifting leadership from northern-based organisations to organisations based in lower- and middle-income countries. Recognising that change takes time, it is important for funders to extend project durations to at least five years to allow for the relationship-building and political processes that produce meaningful change.
Rethinking the funder-network relationship
Perhaps the most consistent message across our K4DD review’s evidence base is the need for a more balanced relationship between funders and civil society networks, a relationship built on genuine dialogue, mutual accountability, and respect for networks’ autonomy and local expertise.
This means funders investing in research on civil society needs from Global South perspectives and sharing that knowledge across the donor community, developing forward-looking practices that actively protect civic space, and treating civil society networks not as delivery vehicles for donor priorities but as actors with their own strategies, mandates, and legitimacy.
The sector is under extraordinary pressure from budget cuts, shrinking civic space, and shrinking international aid. The evidence is clear on the kinds of financial and non-financial approaches to support civil society networks. It shows that funders are urged to meet the growing unmet needs of civil society networks by learning from each other, encouraging learning between networks, building more genuine and equal relationships between funders and networks, providing long-term core and flexible funding, opening civic space, and prioritising global south leadership and local knowledge.