Building a Complementary Process of Philanthropy

Finding the Right Partner

From the outset of framing and scoping the work, it was important to take advice from key humanitarian multilateral institutions in the field, who enjoys well established partnerships and a strong knowledge of response capacity to disasters in the Asia and Pacific region. These donor agencies have all very robust systems for vetting organisations, from the perspectives of sound financial administration, risk and fraud management, as well as strong results-focused, and evidence-based programming.

For this first humanitarian grant competition, it has been additionally important for the Askehave Climate Foundation to invite NGOs that are all in process or have been certified according to the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHF), as a way of securing the performance of the organisation from multiple aspects. When private foundations are not able to perform a full due diligence procedure themselves, taking recommendation from established multilateral actors, and using CHF, are very sound substitutions for an otherwise resource intensive work process.

While considering the incoming applications, Askehave Climate Foundation put together an expert panel to advise. This panel was combined of climate change experts, all grounded in the context, and well known for their contextual understanding, stakeholder familiarity and knowledge of the climate related vulnerabilities in the region. The panel commented on the submission, which was then taken into account by the board, who are the final decision makers. This process of utilising locally anchored experts represented as additional quality control for the Askehave Climate Foundation.

The Askehave Climate Foundation as a partner

While scoping partners and framing the humanitarian work strand, the Askehave Climate Foundation has also been busy developing thoughts on what values the foundation will be based upon as a partner to humanitarian partners, recognising that this is a very diverse system.

Key considerations have been to make sure that the funding is complementary, and that the partnership is based on trust, which is not always easy to translate into a remote managed agreement. The pathways chosen for this has been to make a 3 year framework agreement govern the grant. Concretely this means that the partner is secured a certain amount of funding for a period of three years, and that the release mechanism is a very simple request procedure once a crisis or disaster needs rapid funding.

In this way the response will remain relevant, quick and predictable. It is the hope that this type of mechanism will have a catalytical effect – the partner organisation will be able to freely suggest where the money is most needed, of course within the overall objective of the foundation, and based on concrete needs. That type of flexibility and predictability is highly valued amongst NGOs, who are normally bound by very results focused contracts that at times are not reflective of the fact that NGOs work in a rapidly changing and dynamic context.

Additionally, it has been important to develop a contract system where additional controls are not invented, but where the Foundation relies on the partner organisations’ own minimum requirements and internal control procedures. The Askehave Climate Foundation will not seek to develop additional procedures but expect the organisation to simply follow local legislation and internal standards. Monitoring and documentation can be relatively freely interpreted, as long as the organisation provides evidence of results, for example photos and video testimonials. The Askehave Climate Foundation is not interested in increasing bureaucratic procedures but would like to have an honest and concrete dialogue throughout the partnership.

It is not a given, that the Askehave Climate Foundation wants to apply the above described considerations and processes going forward with the humanitarian work strand, yet still it has been good choice when operationalising ambitions while collecting the first experiences – with a relatively low risk approach. It is the ambition of the Askehave Climate Foundation to continue to question where it can make most difference, with most positive impact for vulnerable populations, in choice of partners and actors on ground, and in its framing. To do so, it will continue to monitor developments in the humanitarian world, to seek out best practice and profound expertise from comparable philanthropies but also to recognise that positive change and impact, at times are carried forward by embracing good ideas, rather than knowing for sure.