What about the Middle? Thinking Systematically about Localization

In the international peacebuilding system¹ there is growing consensus on the importance of strengthening the capacities of local organizations to manage their own processes and empower social leaders to carry out directly the projects and initiatives needed by the communities in which they live and serve. Multilateral agencies, bilateral donors, philanthropies, and other private entities such as businesses around the world are increasingly aware of the need to work directly with communities and social organizations rather than through organizations that serve as “intermediaries”; or operate in the middle.

Colombia offers a unique case study for the localization debate. Unlike other conflict‐affected countries, international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) are not the main channel through which international aid flows. Instead, Colombia has strong state capacity and a historically well‐established civil society of which many organizations at the national and regional levels can and do receive aid. However, the processes and mechanisms through which international aid is disbursed detracts from these national‐level organizations' ability to grow and meet their missions. Moreover, the current localization debate focused on funding mostly community‐based organizations ignores the ecosystem of organizations that operate at all different levels. We define Colombia's national‐level organizations as those organizations that are not community‐based organizations because they do not represent a single community or population, but work at the national level, with deep connections to different communities and regions. Arguably, these “middle”; organizations are local in the localization literature, but they have national‐level operational capacity.

The localization debate has been successful in drawing attention to how top‐down peacebuilding processes have failed and how the focus has shifted to a bottom‐up approach (Lederach 1997; Paris 2004; Paffenholz 2015; Wolff 2022). This has emerged as a strategy to decentralize interventions, strengthen local capacities, and acknowledge the unique ways in which societies build peace (Leonardsson and Rudd 2015). However, some scholars have argued that local practices and institutions can also hide issues of injustice and power differentials based on factors like gender and class (Peterson 2012). Therefore, it has been necessary to combine international and local perspectives to create comprehensive understandings of peacebuilding. This new conception has been referred to as “hybrid peace,”; recognizing the complex and interrelated nature of peace processes, which involve a combination of local and international actors and approaches. It acknowledges that peacebuilding efforts often involve a blend of liberal and non‐liberal elements, combining both formal institutional mechanisms and informal local practices (Mac Ginty 2010; Richmond and Mitchell 2011). The type of middle organizations present in Colombia, which does not seem to fit within the traditional localization narrative, fits well into the idea of “hybrid peace.”; However, the role of these national‐level organizations is largely absent from the debate.

This article looks at the ways in which national‐level organizations, such as think tanks, human rights organizations, and peace organizations—or “middle”; organizations in Colombia—face five key constraints to tailoring aid so that it is accessible to local communities and local organizations.² While several of these constraints are shared by all local organizations, we highlight the impact on the national‐level organizations. First, national‐level organizations must learn to operate based on specific project logic and formatting required by each donor, a process that is time‐intensive and not streamlined across donors. Moreover, the organizations must be accountable to each of their donors, whose goals may or may not be aligned with the strategic objectives that the organizations set for themselves in the long term. This means that, although relevant knowledge and actions are produced by these types of organizations, the capacity for advocacy is lower and impact is limited, dispersed, and difficult to measure. Second, when organizations at the “middle level”; focus their efforts on reports for funders and upward accountability, they cannot capitalize on the knowledge they produce and the recommendations they make to other actors in the peacebuilding system (e.g., local authorities, companies, community‐based organizations). Third, the knowledge that national‐level organizations produce is not aggregated or synthesized in an actionable way in the public sphere, further replicating the vicious cycle of inconsistency between the strategic intention of the organization and its actions. Fourth, the ability to adapt and innovate at a local level is stifled due to project funding cycles. Dependency on funds affects the ability to pivot the design and implementation activities that respond to the interests of local communities and thus hinders innovation. The result is lower capacity by national‐level organizations to propose new actions more in line with what they see in the territory. Fifth and finally, national‐level organizations often are in competition with each other and with organizations at the regional level, and the way donors set up projects discourages the creation of partnerships among these organizations.

This article presents a case study on an innovative grantee–donor relationship between Fundación Ideas para la Paz and Humanity United. We explore a new model for collaboration among diverse Colombian organizations and unpack the core principles and structure that make this model possible. The article concludes with recommendations on how donors and INGOs can better operate together to advance peace in Colombia and an examination of how the lessons learned from this case study can be applied to other conflict‐affected countries.

Colombia is a country of contrasts. In the last decade, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank have classified Colombia as an upper middle‐income economy. This classification should mean that Colombia requires less international aid to promote its national priority agendas. Colombia's economy continues to grow, as does its ability to manage national and regional processes. However, Colombia is still one of the countries of the Latin American and the Caribbean region receiving the highest overseas development funds. Colombia has the largest number of United Nation agencies in all Latin America (Centro de Pensamiento Estratégico Internacional 2010). According to the Colombian Presidential Agency of International Cooperation (the APC³ for its acronym in Spanish), Colombia received USD$1.071 billion in 2021, more than in any other year (Colombia Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2023). This is due to the challenges of sustaining peace throughout the country, the ongoing effects of the armed conflict, and increased inequality and social disparities in rural areas of the country. Despite the overall moderate growth, Colombia's economic performance has been characterized by significant regional disparities, with certain regions of the country experiencing higher growth rates than others. Additionally, tax evasion and income inequality remain major challenges for the country, and the COVID‐19 pandemic has had a significant impact on employment and economic activity. Overall, there is still much work to be done to ensure sustainable and inclusive economic development for all regions and segments of society, particularly those regions directly affected by conflict and violence.

Another contrast in Colombia is that, despite the amount of international aid it receives, these funds are small compared to the national budget. International aid in the GDP has typically been low (0.39 percent of the GDP in 2020 according to DANE 2023). Unlike other countries that receive foreign aid related to peace processes and peacebuilding, Colombia has a democratic state with functional governmental institutions. Despite its many challenges, Colombia can boast of being a government capable of investing its own resources on priority programs and sectors. Donors do not avoid cooperating with the government, as they do with low‐income countries that lack governmental capacities (Garcia Duque and Casadiego 2021). Finally, Colombia has an organized and robust civil society that works on its own initiatives at the national and regional levels. Using empirical and theoretical evidence, Garcia Duque and Casadiego found that nongovernmental organizations and civil society in Colombia are key actors in most of the projects funded by international aid (Garcia Duque and Casadiego 2021).

While aid for most countries in the international peacebuilding system is directed toward building the capacity of local organizations and on strengthening democratic governments and state institutions, Colombia stands out because of its civil society and the governments' ability to manage resources and operations directly. This paradoxical set of contrasts—middle‐income country yet high levels of international aid, adequate organizational capacity at the state and national levels to manage aid yet with entrenched conflict dynamics throughout the country—makes Colombia a laboratory of different approaches, ideas, and efforts about fostering cooperation between large donor organizations, national and regional authorities, and the organized civil society.

However, the existence of a strong civil society has presented challenges within the peacebuilding system in Colombia. The issue is not about best approaches to building capacity or empowerment but rather how to coordinate the efforts when various organizations have different skills, missions, and programs. The impact of the foreign‐funded interventions is spread unevenly throughout the country given the lack of coordination. This coordination challenge mirrors the global debate related to the need for more efficient international aid in development assistance through greater innovation and multi‐stakeholder partnerships (United Nations 2015).

Although it may seem an easy matter to address, the challenge of cooperation and collaboration may be one of the most complex within the peacebuilding system in Colombia. Fueled by conditions imposed by the donors of international aid for peacebuilding, national‐level organizations have few incentives to collaborate with other organizations in creating programs. The following section outlines the five main challenges that national‐level organizations face and that hinder their meaningful coordination and cooperation with other organizations in the country.

In its 2021 Management Report (APC 2021), the APC identified the need to promote alternative pathways for international aid that are not based solely on traditional models of bilateral or multilateral aid. For example, concepts and approaches such as results‐based financing, social impact bonds, mixed funding, impact investment, philanthropic funds, counterpart funds, clean development mechanisms, crowdfunding, and others are all being tested in the Colombian context. International philanthropic organizations stand out among the list of resources as these funds tend to focus on building and enhancing local organizational capabilities, allowing processes of experimentation and promoting cooperation among such organizations. The APC specifically stated that Colombia does not face the risk of low financing from international aid but rather confronts two specific challenges: (1) a lack of knowledge management, and (2) a lack of coordination among all types of national‐ and regional‐level organizations (APC 2021).

The first challenge regarding knowledge management⁴ points to the lack of documentation related to the experiences and lessons learned among the many funded projects and programs. Organizations did not share—or apply beyond any single intervention or project—lessons learned on allocating resources, developing and executing processes, and avoiding key pitfalls. Government institutions at the national and regional levels are not aware of similar projects funded by international aid efforts and thus do not coordinate with these programs to maximize efforts. This lack of knowledge management also influences any follow‐up on the impact and sustainability of initiatives and diminishes any sense of ownership by the national institutions.

The second challenge of coordination is best highlighted in what the APC identifies as weaknesses in the coordination mechanisms that the country has designed. With no efficient mapping of the various organizations and projects, different project leads cannot be followed up on and coordinated across the initiatives (APC 2021). Thus, there is no systematic way of elevating innovative and effective tools and complexity‐aware approaches to solve some of the most challenging problems.⁵ Moreover, on the part of both donors and local organizations, there remains an unwillingness to create plans that involve multiple stakeholders across levels. Even if the reluctance to create such plans is overcome, institutional and legal barriers impede organizations' ability to implement them.

Within the context of these challenges, it is interesting to compare the different types of social organizations operating in the country today. According to USAID “Suma social Program”; there are 208,230 nongovernmental organizations in Colombia (USAID 2021). A cluster of organizations within the Colombian network of civil society organizations operates at a national level and plays a double role. Such organizations do not represent any specific social or ethnic group. Rather, they serve as a bridge between communities and international organizations and funders, implement projects directly throughout the country's regions, and develop their own advocacy agendas for public issues. Although these types of organizations have more direct interaction with, and visibility to, the national government and international stakeholders, they are still subject to a financing and program logic imposed by international funders that does not foster cooperation between organizations. Below, we share the most relevant constraints faced by these organizations that negatively impact tailoring aid in a manner that is accessible and driven by local communities.

National‐level organizations in Colombia have their own agendas and missions and strive to influence public opinion to advance peace. These organizations develop internal research and advocacy strategies to influence public debates, spending organizational time and resources to do so. However, as they derive most of their financial resources from external funders—mostly international implementing organizations—their organizational goals take a back seat to project goals. As described in the literature, numerous international–local partnerships rely on a subcontracting model that tends to be inflexible, hierarchical, and focused on specific tasks, limiting the meaningful involvement of local partners in decision‐making processes and providing inadequate financial compensation (Wall and Hedlund 2016; De Geoffroy and Grunewald 2017; Lindley‐Jones 2018; Howe and Stites 2019; Stoddard, Czwarno, and Hamsik 2019). Any knowledge creation and learning accomplished by these national‐level organizations are carried out through a specific project objective and rationale. Their deliverables, whether they are actions, policy papers, curricula, or training modules, to name a few, relate only to a short‐term intervention strategy related to the project.

Thus, when each donor has its own specific strategy and within that each project has its own theory of change and its own performance management rubric, these national‐level organizations must manage a myriad of disparate approaches and logic frameworks. Consequently, the organization's day‐to‐day activities do not connect well with its strategic organizational objectives, which in turn leads to less influence over key decision‐makers around peacebuilding in the country and less commitment to continued peacebuilding at the national and regional levels. In sum, project rationale is reinforced due to the constant short‐term funding cycles and there is no incentive to work on long‐term strategic issues.

Knowledge management is a systematic process of data collection, analysis, and learning that results from the experience of implementing projects. Knowledge management across various projects and experiences requires organizational effort. Yet because organizations must address project objectives and reporting requirements for different donors in a timely manner, they are not able to capitalize on, manage, or use the knowledge produced by each project. They do not have the dedicated time within their organization's internal structure nor organization‐wide tools to identify best practices and lessons learned that they can transfer internally, which hinders both the development of knowledge management systems and collaborative work within and outside the organization.

When project logic is centered, knowledge is divided into two. First, it is found in the project's results and reports, as well as reflections thereupon, with the most tangible learning taking the form of recommendations to other stakeholders in peacebuilding. For national‐level organizations, such stakeholders are national and regional governmental institutions and authorities, INGOs, and funders. Second, knowledge is created for internal use, but it does not inform internal processes because the knowledge management system is so weak. Exercises such as long‐term planning, defining program areas, and establishing organizational monitoring and assessment tools are not prioritized.

As noted, the research and advocacy agendas of organizations are subject to the timelines and requirements imposed by donors, which are mostly short term. Due to tight project timelines, organizations are halted from building a coherent advocacy strategy that works across various efforts to align the purposes and actions of the organization. This further curtails the organization's ability to explore and push for longer term change through tailored and adaptive advocacy strategies. Advocacy efforts must respond to key moments and events, but when national‐level organizations are tied to tight project deadlines and protocols, such advocacy efforts are stifled and funding cannot be allocated to any emerging advocacy effort. Instead, we see that what is required to build peace and advocate for societal transformation does not fit with what is being funded nor within the timeline of the funding cycles.

National‐level organizations and community members working with them rarely can propose alternative approaches or pivots in their work based on contextual factors and real‐time experiences. When local realities and contextual knowledge are sidelined due to timelines, national‐level organizations are less able to innovate and tailor their work to the community's emerging needs. These organizations must comply with donors' priorities—and, as noted, donors' restrictive project designs—at the expense of regional and local transformation. The organizations cannot develop innovative approaches to solving problems. The current project‐focused structures incentivize organizations to continue seeking conventional funding, which perpetuates short‐term and isolated goals without a larger strategic vision.

Donors set up programs in a manner that creates competition among national‐ and regional‐level organizations and impedes network building. As each funded project is premised on a particular theoretical approach to creating and sustaining peace, donors choose national‐ or regional‐level partners based on the experience and expertise required to implement each proposed project according to such approach. In turn, each organization works individually to obtain the results sought by the donor and in the manner prescribed by the donor. This discourages the creation of long‐term organizational partnerships across levels and instead only promotes cooperation—if any—on a project‐by‐project basis. The focus by donors on one‐off projects limits the possibility of larger impact through collective action and breeds an environment of competition rather than collaboration.

The five constraints discussed above create a challenging operating environment in Colombia as national‐level organizations and communities continue to pursue peaceful transformation after more than 50 years of armed conflict. In the following section, we will look at a donor–grantee relationship and how these five constraints were managed in the development and cultivation of such partnership, which laid the foundation for a collaborative model for Colombian peacebuilding organizations to chart a new way forward for change.

In 2017, Humanity United, an American philanthropic organization, partnered with Fundación Ideas para la Paz, an independent peacebuilding think‐and‐do tank in Colombia. Humanity United (HU) is dedicated to cultivating the conditions for enduring peace and freedom. It supports partners to advance human dignity and change the systems that enable violent conflict and human exploitation around the world.⁶ HU is part of the Omidyar Group, a collective of social philanthropic organizations that support systems change in the world. Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP) was founded 20 years ago. Its mission has been to influence debates and public policies related to peace and security. FIP works with public institutions, civil society organizations, the business sector, and the international community to develop innovative and tangible contributions to the advancement of peace, security, and sustainable development in Colombia.⁷ According to the classification of Colombian social organizations outlined earlier in this article, FIP may be considered a national‐level organization or “middle”; that does not represent the interests of a specific sector or population, instead representing a broad agenda and serving as a bridge between the international system and national and regional organizations.

With HU's focus on advancing local agency and power within the peacebuilding system, its relationship with FIP offered an opportunity to explore how a donor can act in partnership with an organization in a conflict‐affected context such as Colombia. Moreover, both organizations determined at the beginning of their partnership that analysis of and reflection upon their relationship could offer valuable lessons and contribute to filling the gap in information on how donor–grantee relationships can help catalyze (or not) peaceful transformation in conflict‐affected countries. This case study allows us to analyze how to overcome the difficulties faced by national organizations that were discussed above. Organizations at this middle level usually have ambitious advocacy goals and a broad agenda that entails working with diverse communities throughout the country. However, they are subject to the conditions imposed by international aid. As we will see below, the FIP–HU partnership is based on two main principles that challenge the way the donor–grantee relationship is traditionally set up: horizontal relationship and flexibility in exploring outcomes.

The first two grants that HU provided to FIP centered on exploring a systems approach⁸ to addressing peacebuilding challenges in Colombia and what this approach could mean for an organization like FIP that operated in a polarized society and faced the challenges of a national‐level organization in the peacebuilding ecosystem. The FIP team questioned their entire mission and raison d'être when in 2016 the historic peace agreement between the national government and the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) was signed, ending five decades of armed conflict. Although these two parties reached an agreement, it was not accepted by the public, with 50.2 percent voting against the peace accord in a national referendum and 49.8 percent voting in favor (BBC 2016). “Peace”; divided the country. As a result of the referendum vote, the FIP team started to rethink their strategy for making peace last (Acumen Academy 2021a). In 2017 and 2018, both HU and FIP focused their 1:1 conversations on asking questions of each other to drive revised strategic thinking on how to carry out their missions and initiatives in a complex environment, which does not allow for simple solutions.

In 2019, after two years of working with FIP, HU provided its first two‐year general operating support (GOS) grant to the organization. HU chose the GOS funding mechanism to provide flexibility for FIP to determine where and how those funds were used.⁹ FIP in turn asked HU to be an equal partner with them as they set out to learn about what kind of change they wanted to make in Colombia and in the peacebuilding field more broadly. For HU and FIP this was an opportunity to identify values and ways of working that built a partnership different from a conventional contractual agreement. In this process, both organizations chose to consider the power differential between them in terms of their strategic, technical, and operational capacities. The two organizations agreed to a horizontal relationship.

FIP's partnership with HU demonstrated to them that innovating on internal and external organizational processes does not happen overnight, but rather, innovation comes from learning how to move forward strategically. Documenting the shifts and turns was important for the FIP team, allowing them to become more deliberate in strengthening their organizational priorities. They found that even if they remain highly dependent on projects to fund their work, it was crucial to their organizational growth and strategic vision to create spaces where they could leverage their understandings of the political, social, and economic context (FIP 2022a). From this point forward, FIP started an internal process that led to the formulation of its new strategy, delineating the organization's position within the peace ecosystem in the country as well as its medium‐term priorities. The Systemic Map of Peace in Colombia was designed as an effort to conceptualize this process visually. The exercise pulled from across FIP's thematic and operational teams and brought 35 researchers together to create and engage in the systems community of practice within FIP. While the teams had engaged with each other prior to this, they had not seen each of their strategic priorities woven together toward a unified goal prior to this exercise. This mapping exercise facilitated a deeper understanding of the challenges inherent in building peace in Colombia and pinpointed where FIP was well placed to influence specific sectors, such as the business community and key government institutions in Colombia (Acumen Academy 2021b).¹⁰

A fundamental part of building an innovative partnership had to do with its design process. HU and FIP teams maintained an open dialogue, which was crucial to foster reflections that allowed a genuine co‐creation process to take place. The activities have been based on a horizontal, fluid, and bidirectional exchange that helped both HU and FIP to identify mutual interests based on collaborative learning and organizational strengthening. The partnership allowed both parties to go beyond the traditional relationship of “donor–grantee,”; in which the donor drives the work of the national‐ or regional‐level organization.

The GOS grant helped FIP adopt an institutional approach to knowledge management and organizational learning, addressing the knowledge management issues highlighted by the APC report and discussed above. The core team managing the grant created a sense of co‐responsibility for its success across FIP's different thematic areas (FIP 2022b). Thus, the broader FIP team engaged with HU on different activities such as learning workshops focused on specific peacebuilding themes as well as cross‐portfolio discussions held by the HU team. This effort highlighted how important it was for both HU and FIP to break down silos within their organizations to foster a more comprehensive understanding of the shared challenges and act together to achieve a larger impact.

Overall, this GOS grant provided the flexibility that both organizations needed to make changes in their ways of working internally and externally. For HU, this meant laying out partnership principles for how a donor can be a mutual learning partner with its grantees, which had implications for how HU team members went about their grantmaking practices. It also influenced how HU engaged with other Colombian grantee partners. For the FIP team, this relationship helped them reflect on their role within the regional, national, and international peacebuilding systems, strengthen what they were already working on, and embark on new and innovative processes internally and externally. As part of the HU grant, the FIP team had access to a set of flexible funds that diverse teams could access to leverage their capacity and opportunities to connect different stakeholders, sectors, and agendas.

Externally, FIP assumed a new role—as a bisagra or hinge between different sectors and stakeholders. In a traditional financing scheme that encourages competition, it would not have been possible to promote initiatives like “Tenemos que hablar Colombia”; (We Need to Talk Colombia), a national initiative based on citizen dialogue for change that was made possible thanks to the HU–FIP partnership. This initiative convened both public and private universities, thus providing a broader national reach in a dialogue effort that engaged over 5,159 citizens in 1,400 dialogue conversations about the future of Colombia.¹¹ Moreover, the effort produced policy briefs and talking points for FIP and the six universities coleading the dialogue initiative, which they used with key government stakeholders in their individual advocacy efforts. Together this created a national effort beyond the scope of any one of the organizations involved.

For HU, this relationship provided a safe and trusted space to pilot a new way of engaging with grantees‐partners, strategizing, and acting collectively with donor involvement. Ultimately, what FIP and HU learned from the grant relationship process led to the creation of a novel platform to explore how a donor can support multiple organizations and strengthen the ecosystem of peacebuilding organizations throughout a country such as Colombia.

The FIP–HU partnership gave HU an opportunity to reflect on the cyclical relationship of listening first and acting second, leading it to invest its financial resources and position of influence into shifting the philanthropic space to support local organizations more effectively. Through different actions between March 2020 and August 2022, including informal conversations among subgroups of organizations, pilot joint initiatives, and peer learning sessions, HU invested in 15 organizations and initiatives. These organizations represent a wide level of diversity in terms of their reach, size, location, and thematic focus in the peacebuilding field. FIP and HU built a model through practice (“learning and doing”;) for engaging with other national‐ and regional‐level organizations throughout Colombia that fosters the conditions for locally rooted change. This section will describe the model, the conditions that enabled it to emerge, and the risks it presents for HU, FIP, and the organizations in the network. Finally, we will end the section exploring what further research is needed to better understand the model's value.

Based on the learning in their own bilateral relationship, HU and FIP valued the mutual exchange between peer organizations and thus took steps to explore different ways of bringing together organizations from across the system. FIP and HU used a methodology that sought to connect, build, and strengthen relationships between social organizations in the peacebuilding system in Colombia and to tackle effectively the five constraints mentioned above. The ecosystem model, or the “ECO”; for short, is based on four key principles called the 4 Cs:

• Capacity‐building: to design a set of deliberate reflection and learning sessions based on each organization's needs that nurtures their capacities and priorities

• reCognition: to recognize and acknowledge the unique interests, needs, strengths, and capacities of each organization to promote horizontal relationships¹²

• Connection: to actively link organizations together to foster exchange and learning opportunities

• Collaboration: to identify new emerging collaborations among the organizations to meet critical moments in the context

Together, these four principles provided a platform for the 15 organizations and initiatives to acknowledge and learn from each other and identify possibilities for future collaborations, challenging the traditional way organizations operate in the country, which, as mentioned above, is fueled by competition instead of cooperation and network building.

The financial setup of this model is equally important to unpack and analyze. HU considered how the financial structure of the model could embed the 4 Cs mentioned above. There are four components of the financial structure of the ECO model that HU uses to support the network of organizations.

1. Core 1:1 support to each partner in the ECO: This refers to the bilateral relationship between HU and the grantee in which they discuss and decide on the best way to support the organization's mission using the grantmaking options available (e.g., general operating support, project support, or contractual support).

2. Designated backbone organization support: This financial support is directed to an organization in the ECO network that can coordinate the gatherings of the group and provide support to HU as it does not have country offices. This role can rotate throughout other members of the ECO if there is interest and capacity to do so.

3. Learning and exchange fund: This fund is meant to facilitate learning, sharing, and cross‐engagements among the ECO organizations. This can be done bilaterally or in groups of two to four organizations, depending on shared thematic interests, regional location, or organizational priorities, among other categories. This learning and exchange fund can also be used to convene all the partners on a specific learning or exchange;¹³ this would be different (and financially separate) from the ECO gatherings managed by the designated backbone organization. The purpose is to learn from and host each other so that the group can engage on approaches, methodologies, thematic areas, and challenges to build rapport with one another.

4. Emergent ideas fund: This fund focuses on supporting ideas that emerge from the exchanges and collaboration of the organizations in the ECO. The initiatives supported by this fund must involve at least two partners in the network and can include—when necessary to leverage and be responsive to pressing opportunities—organizations that are not part of the ECO but are part of the broader ecosystem. This fund does not compete with the core support funds mentioned in #1 of the financing structure. In the first two years the fund can be allocated to other organizations and initiatives outside the ECO network.

The ECO model was designed to drive locally rooted change and support the organizations to become the most effective organizations and initiatives possible. The assumption underlying this approach is that each organization has a clear role in the peacebuilding system, and that by engaging with each other they can strengthen the whole system to advance peace in Colombia. HU's peacebuilding strategy in 2023 for Colombia is based on this ECO network.

From a donor perspective, HU's network approach to support systemic change in Colombia is an example of leaning into the potential of “networks of influence and support”; (Campbell and Braithwaite 2023). Instead of evaluating only one peacebuilding intervention or focusing on one type of organization to determine the utility of a peacebuilding effort, HU engages in various formal and informal relationships between actors that are working to promote peace and transform Colombian society.

In analyzing the creation of the ECO model, it is imperative to consider the following questions: What conditions enable this model to emerge? What risks do FIP, HU, and other organizations face by engaging in such a model? What issues will require more research as the model develops?

The first condition that supported the emergence of the ECO model was the internal reflection of both HU and FIP, which led each of them to adopt a systems approach. Throughout the development of the ECO model from 2019 to 2022, HU engaged in a period of strategic review of its investments and analyzed its role within the peacebuilding system in Colombia to determine what strategic value‐add it brought as an American philanthropic foundation. HU decided to analyze its own position of influence and power proactively and take a systems‐informed approach to its investments in Colombia rather than pursue one focused strategy that it alone drove. Around the same time, FIP undertook its own internal organizational strategic review after the 2016 failed peace referendum, enabling it to explore new ways of partnering with organizations and interacting with international donors. This led FIP also to take a systems‐informed approach to peacebuilding in Colombia. This moment for strategic realignment provided the opportunity for both HU and FIP to be more risk tolerant as they tried out various ways of engaging with grantee‐partners¹⁴ through small joint initiatives and funding that ultimately led to the creation of the ECO network.

Another condition that enabled the creation of the network was HU's assessment of how to leverage the funds it had allocated for Colombia and the mechanisms through which to provide such funds. In comparison to other independent private funders such as the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, and the Porticus Foundation, the amount of HU's total grants in Colombia was relatively small. HU's funds were even smaller relative to bilateral funds that the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United Nations invested in Colombia. As a philanthropic donor, HU had the flexibility to invest in Colombian organizations at different levels, and of various sizes and capacities, using different funding mechanisms (e.g., GOS, project, or other financing structures). HU reviewed what was possible within its grantmaking structures and found that various forms of grantmaking allowed for a tailored approach to the needs and missions of each of the organizations and initiatives it funded. HU's legal framework allows program staff to support various organizational structures including nonprofits, for‐profit organizations, and informal networks based within and without the United States. HU found that despite the small size of its grants, it could provide a breadth of options to its Colombian partners, which created a strategic edge compared to other funders/donors who had more constraints on their funds. Within the current ECO network, HU is using GOS, project, contract, and initiative‐based grantmaking.

The ECO model holds several risks for both grantee‐partners and donors. First, organizations may fear losing their competitive edge if they work in the network. If the current peacebuilding system in Colombia continues as is, under the five constraints described above, grantee‐partners may consider a request to join the ECO with cynicism and mistrust. During a convening of the ECO network in August 2022, one grantee‐partner said that it did not believe HU would allow for dissenting viewpoints and for opportunities to learn from failure. Finally, there is a risk that the balance may swing too far toward collective learning and collaboration at the expense of supporting the unique characteristics of each organization.¹⁵

Another risk relates to challenges of collective work and how poor communication about a broader strategic vision can confuse organizations and cause tension between them. At one point, the FIP team told an HU staff member that they perceived HU to be funding an initiative like the work HU funded them to do (an analytical systems mapping exercise on the challenges to building peace). This was a critical moment in the HU–FIP relationship because it pushed HU to articulate more clearly their perspective and reasoning for funding multiple initiatives on peace through various organizations in Colombia. The FIP team voiced their confusion and opinion on the issue, leading HU to openly share from their point of view how the different initiatives worked together. In the end, HU and FIP found a way to weave the two initiatives together into a more robust and holistic assessment of the challenges of the peacebuilding system in Colombia. Tenets of the assessment, particularly around funding cycles, competitiveness, and accessibility to financial support factor into the ongoing conversations in the ECO network.

A third risk is the balance of holding ECO funds for learning and collaboration when there may be more pressing internal financial resources for each organization. While the ECO model has a 1:1 grant structure for each organization within the network, those funds are not sufficient to cover all organizational needs. There is a trade‐off between individual organizational work and collective work that must be monitored throughout the lifespan of the ECO network to avoid creating tension within the group. Moreover, the value of the learning and emergent funds is yet to be determined.

A final risk relates to HU's investment in different types of organizations. Due to the differing size and years of operation of organizations within the network, HU prioritizes its staff time to setting up grant structures and partnership relationships that can work with smaller organizations, many of which are within the first five years of their existence. This has meant the collective work may take longer to achieve due to the need to address organizational needs of each organization and highlights an assumption underlying this model: long‐term peacebuilding requires more time, commitment, and investment than does short‐term change and may come at the cost of short‐term change.

Literature about philanthropic funds and strategic grantmaking has shifted over the past few years, with the pandemic putting a whole new light on the need to move from traditional funding models to new ways of catalyzing impact. Recent learning posits that a philanthropic strategy is resilient when it supports the ability of grantees to achieve long‐term aims collectively amid significant disruptions in context. Specifically, the authors Lynn, Nolan, and Waring state that “this resilience hinges on the extent to which networks of organizations have the power and capacity to drive change and are not beholden to funder‐driven analyses of what is needed to make progress on the ground”; (Lynn, Nolan, and Waring 2021: 52–53). The ECO model is HU's strategy for providing a way for social organizations and initiatives to take part in a network based on trust and transparency. How HU continues to put the direction and leadership in the hands of the organizations is another aspect to monitor to provide a critical lens on whether philanthropic funds shift or change based on the network's directives.

The ECO network is meant to be a living and breathing model—and one that responds and adapts to the needs of the organizations within the network. The extent to which the network can do that, and the extent to which the financial structure allows for such an approach, requires an evaluative study after the first three years of the network's existence. For example, the size of the learning and emergent collaboration funds may fluctuate at times due to the needs and visions of the organizations as well as events in Colombia. Further research and evaluation are required to better understand the impact of the ECO model on each organization's agency and mission. Moreover, the value of the learning exchanges and collaborative funds must be analyzed to determine if holding such funds fosters or detracts from joint collaborations of organizations in the peacebuilding ecosystem in Colombia. Overall, the evolution of the network, in relation to the growth and evolution of the organizations, remains a key area of inquiry to consider over the life of the network.

Since 2020, FIP and HU have jointly documented the process of engaging in a new form of a grantee–donor relationship, uncovering various findings that support the continued management and investment in this way of networking that overcomes the five main constraints faced by local organizations. Based on the learning from this case study, below are nine recommendations for other funders and INGOs in this space that are seeking to invest in localization and systems change:

1. Ensure grantees are sufficiently covered in their funding relationship before talking about funds for emergent collaborations. We learned that each grantee‐partner had to be secure in their 1:1 relationship with HU and in the current grant setup to create a safe space of gathering among the other organizations. This curbs competition and puts the mission and purpose of each organization at the center instead of the strategy of the donor.

2. Acknowledge the coexistence of diverse organizational levels in a hybrid model of peace. These levels vary from community‐based organizations to regional‐ and national‐level organizations like FIP as well as to larger international entities. Embracing a hybrid approach to peacebuilding entails acknowledging the interdependence of these diverse levels and the crucial roles they play in contributing to the overall peace process through a systems approach.

3. Support a funding structure that allows for organizations to adapt and innovate at a local level when opportunities arise. We learned that this can be done through the grant mechanism if it is sufficiently flexible in its structure (i.e., if the opportunity to adapt or pivot is already written into the grant agreement). We also found that an emergent fund is helpful for supporting these opportunities financially when they cannot be covered in an existing grant.

4. Be transparent about the parameters and flexibility of the grant options. We learned that it is important to be upfront with organizations about the different grants that are available. Providing information about types of grants, the amount of funding available and for how long, is critical in building a strong relationship with grantees. This allows grantee‐partners to consider what grant type best fits their organization and mission.

5. Provide general operating funds or core funds when possible. In addition to project funds, consider how to partner with philanthropic organizations that can provide flexible funds. HU learned that we are not currently at the funding size of other bilateral or multilateral donors in Colombia, but our funding can be catalytic to organizations that receive international aid funding and operate with stricter parameters and protocols. We found this to be critical in the FIP–HU relationship and in how they could leverage the different funding types and donors to create a more systemic approach to peacebuilding in Colombia.

6. Focus on grantmaking that promotes the strategic objectives of the organization in the long term. We learned that by developing a relationship and a funding mechanism with FIP we could support FIP to act quickly and strategically on opportunities that arose from within their portfolio of work and context. These opportunities were identified by the FIP team that was closely engaged with communities and other institutions so that they could identify and act in key moments to ensure dialogue, not violence, was the method of choice for resolving conflicts. (These opportunities were not identified by HU; had FIP deferred to HU, the opportunity would have been lost.) FIP is now sharing this internal learning with other organizations in the ECO network.

7. Create the space for advocacy strategies to be developed in each organization and among organizations. We found that many in the ECO network share advocacy objectives and thus there is a possibility to create a collaborative advocacy strategy. This emerged from one of our learning exchanges in 2022 and thus several organizations took the initiative to cowrite learning and experiences about effective peacebuilding partnerships to advocate with various donors that operate in Colombia and other contexts. This initiative within the ECO network highlights how organizations can amplify those advocacy messages among the diverse stakeholders with which each organization engages and incorporate them into their own advocacy efforts.

8. Invest in knowledge management mechanisms and learning exchanges. Support organizations to capitalize on the knowledge they produce and the recommendations they make in the peacebuilding system. Foster and fund learning spaces across different stakeholders and include donors so that collectively our efforts can amount to more than the sum of the parts.¹⁶

9. Take on risks, invest in conflict resolution skills, and ensure self‐reflection. We found that a networked approach brings many different perspectives and expectations. HU learned from FIP that direct conversations are key and help ensure that we move toward collective work while not taking advantage of one organization or prioritizing one organization over another. Building conflict resolution skills into the donor–grantee engagements and check‐in meetings provides the space for both donors and grantees to self‐reflect on the partnership and network.

There is a need for international funders and INGOs to see themselves as part of the peacebuilding system and to understand how their role in supporting and bringing together various local organizations across levels is critical for effective localization. Funders must also recognize that they play one of many roles necessary for a healthy peacebuilding system. Therefore, they must take a partnership approach to support local organizations along the various possible pathways such as developing internal and external advocacy, fostering knowledge management, cultivating collaboration and learning opportunities for the grantee–partners, and exploring innovative practices with a tolerance for more risk. Evaluation of, and learning in, this approach are imperative as well to continue to fund and support local organizations more effectively in their mission. There is a pressing need for international funders (including multilateral, bilateral, and philanthropic organizations) to reassess and revise their grantmaking and contractual mechanisms to increase the impact of their funds and build the network of organizations, particularly those at the middle level, that are committed to peace outcomes in Colombia.