Breaking the Chains of Restricted Funding Begins With How We See Ourselves

As we enter December and that familiar season of gathering, slowing down, and returning home, many of us travel from the cities back to the villages and rural areas. These journeys often bring us back to the warmth of family and to the stories that shape us. For me, one story from my mother always lingers in my mind.

She loves to remind us of a time when one of my brothers refused to stop breastfeeding. He was old enough to eat solids and had a full set of teeth, yet he could not imagine life without that comfort from my mother. One day, a family friend intervened. She applied Aloe Vera to my mother’s breast, and that was the last day he ever tried. That was the moment he realized, perhaps for the first time, that he could stand on his own.

I keep thinking about that story because 2025 demanded that same kind of awakening from many organisations across Africa. When USAID cuts shook the continent, many NGOs, CBOs, CSOs, and NPOs suddenly faced a frightening question. How do we continue feeding children, educating communities, supporting women, and holding the fabric of society when the system we leaned on no longer sees us the same way.

For decades, institutional funding has been treated as the only path, the only validation, the only sign that our missions are legitimate. And just like my brother, we held on because no one had taught us the taste of independence.

Yet in our communities, we always say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to raise a movement and sustain a mission. The wisdom of that Aloe Vera moment is that independence is often introduced by someone who reminds you of who you already are.

This year, as Lizz reflected on the extraordinary leaders she walked with, she reminded us that across the continent, people are choosing themselves long before donors choose them. They are offering safety to families navigating homelessness, building cultural pride in young people, protecting languages, supporting women entrepreneurs fighting to keep their businesses alive, documenting environmental health, and teaching children with dignity. Some of these organisations have one staff member. Others rely on volunteers. Yet they keep showing up.

Their work is sovereignty in motion.

But here is the truth that kept pressing on my heart this year. Decolonizing philanthropy does not begin with donors. It begins with us. It begins with mindset.

So many African organisations fear spending even five dollars of their own money on their own growth. They freeze before making decisions that could help them stand tall. This fear mirrors the restrictive logic that keeps us dependent, waiting for permission, waiting for institutional approval, waiting for someone to say, go ahead, it is good for you.

Scarcity creates paralysis.

And it blinds us to our own agency. I said something recently that I continue to hold close. People do not see themselves as rational agents who can take care of themselves. They see themselves through the eyes of systems that have historically underfunded them.

But here is what I have learned through the work we do at Ndisu. Communities are powerful. When people come together with intention, they build futures that outlive budgets and grant cycles. They create movements anchored in relationships, not proposals. And they create freedom.

This is why I believe so deeply that investing in data is investing in freedom. When organisations build clean, consolidated donor files and learn to steward their own communities, they begin to taste the sovereignty my brother discovered that day. They realise they do not need to wait for the world to tell them they are worthy. They know it already.

Our Learning Series this year brought together seven organisations, each arriving with hopes, fears, and uncertainty about the future. But together we confronted a simple truth. If we want unrestricted funding from the world, we must first refuse the restrictions we put on ourselves.

We must stop waiting for someone else to apply Aloe Vera to wake us up. We must choose ourselves first. And we must remember that everything we need to build sustainable, relational, community centred giving already lives within our villages, our people, and our stories.

This is us. Ndisu. And we are building a continent that no longer waits for permission to thrive.