Our Impact
What Long-Term
Trust Produces.
When organisations have the freedom and stability to work with genuine autonomy, they do remarkable things.
When organisations have the freedom and stability to work with genuine autonomy, they do remarkable things.
From South and Southeast Asia to Central and East Asia — funding organisations tackling environmental justice, gender equity, rural livelihoods, digital inclusion, and grassroots civic participation.
From the Amazon to the Andes, Caribbean islands to urban centres — supporting movements addressing land rights, indigenous sovereignty, youth empowerment, and climate resilience.
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and North Africa — investing in organisations driving economic inclusion, education access, health equity, and governance reform.
In some of the world's most vulnerable communities — funding organisations at the frontlines of climate adaptation, cultural preservation, food sovereignty, and sustainable livelihoods.
Unrestricted core funding allows organisations to hire and retain talented staff, reduce leadership burnout, build reserves, and invest in the systems and tools that make operations sustainable.
Without project-restricted budgets, organisations can pursue their own theory of change, pivot when evidence demands it, and invest in advocacy or systems change work.
Systemic change requires time. Grantees use multi-year commitments to build coalitions, influence policy, and create the kind of community trust that cannot be manufactured in a 12-month project cycle.
Membership in the global grantee network opens doors to cross-regional collaboration, shared learning, and collective advocacy that individual organisations rarely access alone.
"For the first time in our organisation's history, we are not writing grant reports every three months. We are building. The difference is extraordinary — in what we can accomplish and in what it feels like to lead an organisation that is genuinely in control of its own direction."— Executive Director, Grantee Organisation, West Africa
"The peer network has been as valuable as the funding itself. I have learned more from fellow grantees in six months than from ten years of donor-organised capacity building."— Programme Lead, Grantee Organisation, Southeast Asia
"What The Changemakers Initiative understands — and most funders do not — is that local organisations are not implementing their ideas. We have our own ideas. We just need the resources to pursue them."— Founder, Grantee Organisation, Latin America
The five-year commitment of $25 million represents the Global Funding Alliance's conviction that local organisations — given the freedom and resources to act — will produce more sustainable, more equitable, and more durable change than any externally-designed intervention.
This is not an experiment. It is a reckoning with a decade of evidence about what actually works in international development — and the courage to fund differently.
Applications for the 2026 funding cycle are open. The process is simple, free, and built to respect your time.