A strong, organised civil society is essential to systems change. But year after year, many of the partners we depend on to fulfil this mission struggle to maintain enough funding to be most effective. They are overloaded, lacking the time, capacity or resources to promote systemic transformation beyond a project’s day-to-day activities. We recognise the value of core support to help our partners communicate, fundraise, advocate, pay staff salaries and more with organisational development and unrestricted funding. C&A Foundation steadily increased the number of full core support grants we provided for a total of 42 grants (and €10.75 million) between 2014 and 2019.

We have never believed in silver-bullet philanthropy. We know funders don’t have all the answers, but good ones always look for, learn from and leverage what works. This is why we invested at different levels – allowing us to start small, test good ideas, course correct as necessary, and scale when the time was right. Small grants can help in advancing research, piloting innovations, testing partnerships, filling knowledge gaps and developing nascent concepts. Those ideas and solutions with the potential to promote systemic change then need to be scaled, requiring greater investment and longer time horizons to ensure sustainability.

The diversity of our average grant sizes and their durations reflect an approach that deepened commitment as we drove impact.

The average duration of C&A Foundation implementation and core support grants was 23 months. For grants above €100,000, the average duration was 30 months.

Grassroots organisations are on the frontlines of change. These local organisations are often best-placed to understand and address the systemic forces at the root of problems. With strong connections to, and a deep understanding of, the communities in which they operate, grassroots organisations are also more able to develop lasting solutions that work for local people. For these reasons, C&A Foundation has sought to strengthen the resilience and reach of our grassroots partners.

Cross-sector transformation requires cross-sector engagement. And multi-stakeholder initiatives are constructive platforms for that engagement to take place. They can amplify the work of partners, convene industry stakeholders and encourage collaboration. Through fostering and supporting MSIs like Fashion for Good, C&A Foundation witnessed the ways in which these types of platforms can harness collective ambition and accelerate positive change. While they are not beyond critique, MSIs are an important part of the ecosystem of change, which is why C&A Foundation financed a number of these initiatives in 2019.