Q1 reply:
A corporate colleague working at country level subsidiary once quipped, “One of the most frightening sentences for a country team hears from HQ is, ‘We’re here to help you.’ What that normally means is that they’re going to tell you how to do things their way.” Not surprisingly, this phenomenon is not unique to within big organizations managing their own internal affairs. There are countless examples throughout all sectors and assuredly in cross-sector situations, too.
While there are many outstanding and effective methods ad tools to gather insight and intelligence to inform strategy, which absolutely include grassroots / frontline voices in the process, there is a huge difference between including insight and participation in the development of the strategy. Anyone would be hard pressed to find examples today where grassroots voices are not included, but how they are included is the issue.
In most fundamental terms, the ‘static’ insertion of grassroots voices risks misunderstanding, which can amplify and increase distortion as the strategy takes shape. Active involvement of grassroots/frontline voices in strategy development provides ongoing opportunity to check context and provide active feedback, allowing dynamic development of a strategy that is properly contextualized and that grassroots / frontline voices feel they have a more active role in developing.
As I said in the chat, there is a credibility gap if these voices are not included in any relevant discussion or communication about issues that directly or disproportionately affect them
The most successful and sustainable housing programs are driven by homeowners themselves. Homeowners should make decisions about materials, architecture, locations of windows, doors, toilets. They should handle the cash and hire local labor.
In line with this, Build Change promotes homeowner-driven, conditional cash plus technical assistance, a model now used in post-disaster and prevention contexts around the world. We also consult local communities, including homeowners and local craftsmen and laborers, about designs, materials, and construction techniques in order to ensure our solutions are locally relevant and therefore more appropriate, sustainable, and scalable.
Recently, our team in Colombia has partnered with Afro-Colombian communities and local organizations in Urabá, Colombia to elevate marginalized voices and integrate racial equity into home improvement efforts. This included collaborating directly with local families on the safe use of wood, proper construction techniques, and practices to extend the lifespan of wooden homes.
Using input from local homeowners and expert carpenters, we adapted structural designs to align with local traditions, shifting from a timber frame to a post-and-beam system based on partner input. The collaboration fostered mutual learning—respecting local building culture while emphasizing the value of resilient construction methods. Since we began, Build Change has found that this kind of homeowner driven approach is consistently the most effective implementation model, the most conducive to permanently changing unsafe construction practices, and the most likely to multiply the positive effects of building better.
More information on this work in Colombia can be found here.
The risks are that there will be misalignment with community needs, lack of adoption of the product or services, trust deficit, will deter growth of the business, missed innovation opportunities and possible reputational risk.
As part of the development of a comprehensive curriculum tailored for apparel and garment workers, a detailed needs assessment was conducted at the outset to understand the challenges and aspirations of women in this sector. The findings from this assessment informed the design of a curriculum focused on foundational life skills, including modules on communication, problem-solving and decision-making, as well as time and stress management. These skills were identified as critical for enhancing productivity in environments such as garment factories, where effective teamwork, clear communication with peers and supervisors, personal goal-setting, planning, and problem-solving are essential.
Participant insights played a pivotal role in shaping a participatory learning methodology, which proved highly effective. The sessions were intentionally designed to be engaging, incorporating interactive elements such as games, role plays, and quizzes, and by connecting learning topics to real-world scenarios relevant to the participants’ daily lives. Feedback from participants also enabled the extension of these learnings beyond the workplace, allowing for application in home and community settings. This holistic approach provided participants with practical tools to experiment with and internalize key concepts.
A notable strength of this approach was the iterative development of the curriculum. After piloting the initial modules, participants provided feedback that identified additional learning needs and priorities. As a result, the curriculum was expanded to include modules on financial literacy, general and reproductive health, safety and security, water sanitation and hygiene, entrepreneurship, legal literacy, social entitlements, and execution excellence.
Over time, participant input also led to the creation of specialized curricula for adolescent girls, segmented by age groups (11–14 and 15–17 years), which included additional modules on self-identity, self-awareness, and employability skills. The comprehensive nature of these modules facilitated the program’s expansion, ultimately reaching more than 1.5 million direct beneficiaries across various industries and sectors beyond apparel manufacturing.
Evaluation studies have demonstrated significant positive impacts on key performance indicators. The program has been continually refined and scaled through partnerships, guided by ongoing evaluation, participant feedback, and independent research. This process underscores the centrality of participant voices and experiences in shaping the evolution, improvement, and expansion of the program.
Documented outcomes indicate that this feedback-driven approach is highly effective. Analyses have shown substantial improvements, including a 150% increase in self-efficacy and a 100% increase in workplace influence among participants. Women who completed the training reported leveraging their skills to advocate for greater participation in household decision-making, community infrastructure projects, and business development through loans. Additionally, participants exhibited marked improvements in self-esteem, communication, and self-advocacy, which were described as transformational, with positive ripple effects on the well-being of their families and communities.
Participants have shared how the training enhanced their ability to communicate effectively, resolve workplace issues through dialogue with supervisors, and engage more constructively with family members. Further studies have found significant and sustained productivity gains resulting from the soft skills acquired through the program.
The continuous refinement and scaling of the program, driven by participant feedback, highlights the value placed on grassroots experiences and insights. This feedback loop has enabled ongoing adaptation and improvement, ensuring that the program remains responsive to the evolving needs of women and girls, thereby enhancing its overall effectiveness and reach.
Drawing from my 23 years of grassroots experience in SME ecosystems and community development from Asia and Africa, I would like to highlight several factors that hinder a proper understanding of grassroots efforts and familiar to benefits frontier community as expected:
Mostly Assumption-Based Strategies: We often design strategies that rely on assumptions rather than being grounded in actual realities. This can lead to plans that do not align with the genuine needs or conditions of the community. Additionally, we tend to overlook the insights of frontline actors when developing innovation and development strategies, neglecting the broader systems-level issues. This oversight may result in inefficient resource allocation or the promotion of actions that are impractical at the local level.
Lack of Local Buy/Top-Down Approach : In the design process, we frequently implement programs without securing local support or gaining insights from the community. Consequently, these strategies may face resistance or fail to be effective on the ground.
Building Trust and Collaboration : Fostering trust and collaboration rather than imposing top-down strategies is essential. Failure to do so can exacerbate inequalities and deepen existing power imbalances.
Less integration of ESG /GESI aspects: Incorporating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) elements in program design and implementation often lacks or does not align with local strategies. By addressing these issues, we can better support genuine grassroots development and ensure our initiatives resonate with the communities we aim to serve.
Non-Addressing Systemic issues/lack of shared vision , we need to engage frontline actors in co-designing interventions to effectively address systemic issues rather than just the symptoms of a problem. It’s important to build local leadership and infrastructure to ensure long-term success. Local ownership and buy-in are crucial. Additionally, addressing system-level interconnected issues—such as policies, practices, social relationships, norms, local power dynamics, and resource ownership—plays a vital role in driving meaningful change.
In 2023, we conducted a material review through a survey amongst farmers, implementing partners, ginners, and employees in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China. They identified key concerns such as soil health, health and safety, market volatility, and gender disparities. If grassroots voices had not been included, these important issues could have been overlooked or underestimated, leading to strategies that do not reflect the most pressing problems faced by those directly involved in the supply chain. These insights have in some way or other informed enhancements in our programmes, including initiatives like the Responsible Gins Code of Conduct and the establishment of performance indicators for climate change mitigation under REEL, traceability, and women’s empowerment.
Incorporating the voices of farmers on-the-ground and on the frontlines of the climate crisis is essential to deliver targeted and impactful training in more sustainable agricultural practices. This has always been our strength and we have been doing this through several ways including farmer surveys, FGDs with women farmers, interactions during farmer trainings etc. Farmers remain at the center of everything we do, as they are the foundation of the raw material chains.
We have seen first-hand how engaging with local leaders has been critical to the success of our own programmes. Take, for instance, our work with women farmers who are generally hardest hit by climate change compared to their male counterparts. Most wear multiple hats, taking care of the farm, livestock, and their households. Temperamental weather puts a strain on them as they must work harder to produce sufficient cotton yields, while also sourcing food, water and firewood for their families. This direct experience of the climate crisis, combined with a connection with their land and community, and an aptitude in conscious resource management, that makes them well-suited to be agents of change.
The risk here is that strategy is irrelevant at best, and impossible to achieve at worst.
You get it wrong. That’s the risk.
You build something that looks good in a PowerPoint but doesn’t work in real life. You miss what matters, focus on what doesn’t, and end up surprised when people don’t buy in. Or worse, push back.
When you leave out the people closest to the issue, you lose sight of the real-world context. You design from assumptions, not evidence. From hierarchy, not experience. And that’s when strategies drift. They become abstract. Detached. Easy to ignore.
Listening to frontline voices isn’t about being nice. It’s about being right. It’s how you stress-test your thinking. It’s how you spot blind spots early. And it’s how you build something people actually want to use, support, or fight for.
Miss that step, and you’re not being strategic. You’re gambling.
The key risks for not including grassroots or frontline voices in generating and sustaining solutions are that the opportunities to include local knowledge, experience and expertise can be missed significantly reducing the impact and ongoing engagement of target communities. The following example shows how we have actively sought to engage and sustain frontline voices in developing and delivering an impactful solution.
Case Study: Manurewa South School Funding Panel
Connecting Kids with ‘Life Beyond the Corner Store’
Context
In 2015, a philanthropic organisation (known as BHT) partnered with Manurewa South Primary School in Auckland, New Zealand, to pilot a novel approach to education and community engagement. Funding Panels, later called Project Panels at the request of participating school panels, was developed in response to feedback from local schools and stakeholders advising that many children living in Manurewa ‘live their lives within two or three streets of where they live’. The initiative aimed to augment school/community engagement and enable students (aged 5 to 12) and their parents in conjunction with their school leaders to collaboratively decide how an annual grant from BHT should be used to benefit children’s learning and wellbeing, and enable them to see and experience ‘life beyond the corner store’.
Objectives
- Increase student exposure to opportunities beyond their immediate environment.
- Foster a sense of belonging and contribution among students.
- Support students to thrive academically and socially.
- Build leadership and confidence in young people.
- Strengthen school-community relationships.
Community-Led Structure
A Project Panel was established, comprising:
- Two student leaders (co-chairs)
- Parents and teacher aides
- The school principal
- Representatives from the Manurewa Parent Hub (a local community organization) were funded by BHT to provide a Secretariat for the panel
The panel was intentionally designed to be inclusive, with students playing a central role in decision-making. As part of their secretariat services, The Parent Hub acted as a bridge between the school and the wider community, mentored students representatives and coordinated logistics for the purchase and delivery of items and events funded through the Panel.
Key Activities and Outcomes
- Student Voice and Leadership
- Students gathered peer feedback and co-chaired meetings.
- Students also developed confidence, public speaking and decision-making skills.
- Targeted Funding Initiatives as decided by the Panel
- Educational trips (e.g., Auckland Zoo, Stardome, farm visits) for students with limited exposure to the wider world.
- Chromebooks and teacher aides to support digital learning and classroom engagement.
- “Kids Café” – a student-run service to provide lunches for hungry children.
- Sports and recreational equipment to promote health and fun.
- Community Employment and Upskilling
- Local parents were employed as teacher aides, some progressing to further training and permanent roles.
- These parents, if their own volition, also became champions within their community for improving engagement between families and the school and for educational attainment more generally.
- Inclusive Events
- Community Fun Days to bring families, staff, and students together in a relaxed, welcoming environment.
Role of Philanthropy
BHT’s approach was characterised by:
- A “light touch” — providing funding and support without imposing rigid structures.
- Trust in the school and community to define their own priorities and aspirations.
- Flexibility to adapt and evolve based on community feedback.
This model allowed the community to take ownership of the initiative, ensuring that funding was directed toward locally relevant and sustainable outcomes.
Lessons Learned
- Community-led panels foster genuine engagement and shared ownership.
- Student involvement enhances leadership and ensures relevance.
- Philanthropy can catalyse systemic change when it empowers rather than directs.
- Strong facilitation (e.g., via the Parenting Hub) is key to bridging institutional and community voices.
Impact
The initiative demonstrated that enormous impact can be achieved when organisations meet and work together as equals to design and deliver inclusive processes and structures that activate local knowledge and skill sets. The Manurewa South Project Panel created a replicable model that was quickly adopted by other schools supported by BHT.
Our second question today
Including grassroots voices in the development of solutions is essential to ensure that the needs of the community are truly understood and addressed. When organizations take the time to consult with workers directly, they gain a deeper insight into their specific challenges and requirements. In the context of the construction or manufacturing sectors, where many workers, especially women, face difficulties balancing work and family responsibilities, crèche facilities play a critical role in improving job retention, productivity, and overall well-being.
By engaging with female workers and understanding their childcare concerns, companies can design crèche facilities that are more than just a space for children. These facilities can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the workforce, such as aligning with shift schedules, providing nutritious meals, ensuring safety and cleanliness, and being conveniently located near workstations. Such thoughtful planning, developed in partnership with workers, ensures that the solution is both practical and effective, directly addressing barriers to women’s full participation in the workforce.When communities are not consulted in the design process, the solutions may fail to meet their actual needs, leading to lower uptake and engagement. Consulting with workers allows for the creation of solutions that are responsive to the real-life situations of those they are intended to benefit, fostering a sense of ownership and trust among the community
My name is Delphine, and I have just joined the community. I am an executive search/recruitment professional, and run my own search firm working exclusively in support of the NGO/Foundations/Social Enterprise sector. My perspective tends to be around self fulfillment and self-actualization around what we do and how we contribute to the greater good in society. The traditional model of the donor or the business sitting at the top and contributing to issues and communities on the ground fails to offer that fulfillment. When people feel like they can tangibly impact their communities, then everyone wins. They are more fulfilled, more engaged, and they own the result. If it is imposed, they will not.
We adopt and implement the following practices, and most of the impact comes from social and social entrepreneurship programs in the Water, Energy, and food sectors I used to be engaged. We also adapt the following strategies as much as possible, but still it is not enough where a lot of innovation and outside of box thinking is needed
Recognising the community’s strength : First, we recognise the community’s strength and capacity to contribute. We then involve them in co-designing and implementation in the beginning in a consistent and transparent manner while respecting their local languages, customs, and knowledge systems.
Promoting Inclusiveness : We strive to create inclusive spaces by ensuring participation from marginalised groups—women, youth, elders, and people with disabilities. We aim for this involvement to be meaningful rather than symbolic. To achieve this, we utilise community mapping, storytelling, focus groups, and design thinking workshops.
Appreciating the power dynamics and decision-making process : When designing and implementing the program, we prioritise local power and actively involve communities in the decision-making process. We allow communities to define their own priorities rather than assuming what is most important to them. We utilise co-design sessions, prototyping, and feedback loops to ensure their voices are heard.
Tailor-made Capacity Building support : We design tailor-made TA support as much as possible, providing tools and training as needed to help people participate fully and confidently. We ensure that solutions can be sustained locally by co-creating with an eye toward long-term ownership.
Adopt, Learn and Reflect : One of the critical aspects we integrate is Learning, adapting, and reflecting. Gather regular feedback: Ask what’s working and what isn’t. Adapt plans as communities’ insights and the market evolve.
A2: CottonConnect develops its farmer programmes through co-creation with local farmers and trusted implementing partners. This ensures programmes are customized to regional needs and challenges.
The Co-creation approach we follow:
Localized Customization: We engage directly with farmers and stakeholders through our on-the-ground farm teams to tailor programmes to specific geographical and local contexts.
Strong Local Partnerships: Our implementing partners, across geographies provide invaluable grassroots networks and build strong relationships with smallholder farmers.
Pilot Programmes: We test and refine programmes through pilots before scaling them.
Farmer-Led Demonstrations: We facilitate farmer-to-farmer learning by supporting demo plots where selected farmers showcase sustainable practices. This peer-to-peer approach builds trust and encourages adoption of innovations within familiar environments.
FPO and Farmer Input Centers : We leverage Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and farmer input centers to further support our collaborative initiatives.
Missmatch and Lack of Relevance—Often, ignoring grassroots voices leads to solutions that are mismatched with actual needs. This stems from uninformed data and opinions that do not reflect the problems at hand. In the end, this leads to the waste of resources without addressing the real challenges.
Well, that “thinking you know it all” approach prevents you from tapping into their real-life stories and driving collective action and accountability.
Lack of ownership is a key risk. If people think whatever is done is ‘theirs’ they will carry it forward. Hence grassroots engagement is critical for sustainability.
Involving the grassroots in a meaningful way can help bring out nuances and specific power dynamics within the communities. Engaging with the communities will help getting a better understanding of intersectional vulnerabilities, and thus make sure that any future programme addresses the most critical needs and reaches the right people. To get to this understanding, it will be necessary to use socially sensitive approaches appropriate to the context.
Excluding grassroots and frontline voices from strategy development—especially in the context of FATE Foundation’s work with entrepreneurs, micro and small businesses, and underserved communities—poses significant risks that can undermine impact, relevance, sustainability, and trust. Here’s a breakdown of some key risks in our line of work and their implications:
- Misalignment with Real Needs of the target groups: The risk here is that we may design program strategies which reflect assumptions rather than actual challenges faced by entrepreneurs. For example, a digital literacy program designed without input from market traders might overlook barriers like low smartphone literacy or data costs. This will then impact Low adoption, wasted resources, and missed opportunities to address root causes.
- Potential Program Ineffectiveness: This is because top-down solutions often fail to account for local context (cultural, economic, or infrastructural). For example, an accelerator curriculum designed for city -based tech startups might not resonate with rural agripreneurs facing electricity shortages. This can result in poor outcomes, high dropout rates, and diminished ROI.
- Erosion of Trust and Buy-In as communities excluded from decision-making may perceive programs as extractive or paternalistic. For example a “high-growth SME” initiative that ignores micro-entrepreneurs’ needs could alienate the very base FATE Foundation aims to uplift resulting in loss of credibility, weaker participation, and difficulty scaling.
- Overlooking Hidden Opportunities as frontline voices often identify innovative solutions or untapped markets. For example grassroots feedback might reveal demand for local/indegenous-language business training—a gap a top-tier strategy could miss resulting in missed chances to innovate or expand reach.
- Inequality Amplification which can result in excluding marginalized groups (e.g., women, rural entrepreneurs) and perpetuate systemic biases. For example a funding program requiring formal collateral might exclude informal-sector entrepreneurs who lack paperwork but have strong cash flows. This can reinforces disparities contrary to FATE’s mission.
- Resistance to Implementation as policies or programs imposed without community consultation face local resistance. An example is a rigid certification process for artisans might clash with traditional apprenticeship models. This could result in slow adoption, high friction, and need for costly revisions.
- Weak Long-Term Sustainability as solutions not co-created with beneficiaries often lack local ownership. For example A donor-funded tech hub might collapse post-funding if locals weren’t involved in its design.
This could result in short-lived impact, dependency on external actors.
Q2: Farmers Voice Radio (an initiative of the Lorna Young Foundation) works with local organisations based in rural communities around the world to make participatory radio programmes with and for smallholder farmers. Farmers themselves are the main protagonists of the programmes: they decide the discussion topics, based on the issues that matter most to them; they contribute the content in their own words and voices, drawing on their own rich experience and asking pertinent questions to local experts and stakeholders; and they steer the selection of language, timing and radio station for the broadcasts, ensuring that the programmes are accessible to as many people as possible. The voices of women, indigenous people and other frequently excluded groups always feature strongly in the broadcasts in recognition of the fact that it is these groups who often struggle to access information and knowledge. This co-creation approach to the radio programmes ensures that the content is relevant, appropriate and timely, providing thousands of farmers with the information they need, when they need it. FVR’s methodology is based on behaviour-change communications techniques, and we have seen time and time again that this peer-to-peer learning can change knowledge, attitudes and practices at a large scale with listeners more likely to try something new, or to look at something in a different way, if it comes from a source they identify with and trust.