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#Shiftthepower: Community Giving As A Critical Consciousness-Raising Tool, Susan Wilkinson

The Foundation Review

This article proposes that foundations committed to community-led development must be prepared to invest in efforts that empower the community. In particular, there is potential for funders willing to challenge the top-down nature of the current aid and development system through use of critical conscious-raising to claim a transformative role in shifting from a “recipient” to a “citizen” approach to community development.

For foundations to assist communities in criticizing this power imbalance and using the insights that result to challenge the system requires the “three-legged stool” of community philanthropy — strengthening capacities, developing assets, and building trust — to become …