The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the unequal power dynamic between funders based in the Global North and grantees in the Global South, a report from the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at University of Cambridge Judge Business School finds.

Based on interviews with two dozen foundations, nonprofits, and social enterprises based in the Global South and an analysis of secondary data, the report, Philanthropy and COVID-19: Is the North–South power balance finally shifting? (48 pages, PDF), found that the crisis has revealed "a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo" in global philanthropy. According to the report, the dependency of Global South social purpose organizations (SPOs) — defined as any institution working to create social impact, including funders, charities, nonprofits, social enterprises, and intermediary organizations — on Global North grantmakers has adversely affected their willingness to provide input with respect to industry best practices and "has potentially undermined their ability to deliver sustainable impact and systemic change."

The study also found that, in response to the pandemic, Global South SPOs had begun to assert themselves on the basis of their greater expertise with respect to local needs and imperatives, while grantmakers were becoming more flexible in their allocation of funding and approval processes and were awarding more unrestricted grants. While only 9 percent of the nonprofits interviewed reported an increase in income since the beginning of the pandemic, many reported that their donors had taken steps to accommodate them, including a relaxation of grant conditions (30 percent), the awarding of COVID-specific funding (28 percent), flexibility with respect to budget allocations (28 percent), and the provision of top-up funding (15 percent). In addition, the report found that Global South SPOs were working to create intra-regional collaborative networks, share knowledge and data, and pool their resources. 

Launched in June 2020, the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy includes three recommendations in its report: fund professional networks that can help build infrastructure, capacity, and knowledge and support the institutionalization of philanthropy in the Global South; increase partnerships between Global South governments and philanthropists as a way to provide governments with additional capital  and help SPOs and grantmakers scale their initiatives faster; and, building on steps taken in response to the pandemic, boost organizational resilience by awarding unrestricted grants for core operating costs.

"The shift in the power dynamic that our research revealed is clearly nascent, fragile, and patchy," wrote Kamal Munir, academic director of the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy, writes in the report's conclusion. "However, it shows some early indications of practices that if nurtured and retained could potentially transform the relationship between Global North and Global South philanthropic actors. This in turn could lead to positive operational and policy outcomes that can help deliver more sustainable and scalable social impact."