Dignity data exposes which funding model actually shifts power
Jon Edwards, a freelance consultant with over 35 years at the edges of international philanthropy and grantmaking, reports that across six years of survey data from 75 organisations, groups rooted in community philanthropy showed a correlation with dignity of r = .409, while service-delivery models showed virtually none at r = .077. The work was done with the social statistician Barry Knight.
Edwards describes where the resistance sat inside funding institutions: legal advisors, financial controllers and risk-averse boards, shaped by mindsets that assume communities cannot be trusted with their own futures. Compliance regimes, time-bound projects and externally defined problems followed from those seats, not from the communities receiving the money. He frames the resulting contradictions between stated values and actual practice as choices rather than inevitabilities.
Source: Alliance Magazine · September 28, 2026