TAI Weekly

TAI Weekly | How We Fund Social Progress

By TAI (Role at TAI)
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TAI Weekly

Dear readers,

TAI joined the throngs at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok last week where the impacts of climate change were hard to ignore amid flooding hitting Thai communities hard. Inside the conferenc halls there was much discussion of debt - with heavy hitters highlighting “cracks in the existing debt architecture.” The most interesting responses came from outside the official program. The first meeting of the governance council of the Borrowers Club was hailed by the UN Secretary General as a “powerful and permanent space to ensure countries can negotiate debt solutions from a position of strength and experience.” David McNair called for a modular approach to restructuring combined with embedding core principles of debt managemen, such as transparency. Plus, there was the launch of a new financial data portal - more on that below.

Now, on to the rest of the Weekly - everything from the latest on the all-too-often forgotten SDG 16 to the heady mix of AI, trust and democracy to a plea to distinguish between economic growth as an end in itself and as enabler of freedom and security.

Happy reading!

TAI team

What's New 

As more governments contribute to development cooperation, how visible are their efforts? The second report in Publish What You Fund's “Making Impact Visible” series examines 47 providers outside the OECD Development Assistance Committee. While many report development finance data through existing systems, none publish to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), leaving a significant gap in project-level information. 

The fourth Global Progress Report on SDG 16 examines progress toward peaceful, just, and inclusive societies. More than a decade after adoption of the 2030 Agenda, growing insecurity, polarization, declining trust, and geopolitical fragmentation are putting development gains at risk.

TAI was in Paris last week for the OECD Global Forum on Building Trust and Inclusive Democracy, which saw the launch of a new report: “Government Unstuck: The Next Frontier of Government Transformation.” It explores practices that can make government more connected to citizens, easier to navigate, more flexible in its use of resources, and better prepared for the future.

Could tax credits reinforce financial sustainability for independent media? A California experiment may give some answers. With the introduction of refundable tax credits to help newsrooms retain journalists and hire new staff, news organizations could receive $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, followed by $15,000 for each additional journalist. Supporters point to losses in local journalism, while critics raise concerns about costs and the state's potential financial liability.

Civil society organizations working on natural resource governance often face violence, criminalization, and legal harassment. Transparency International's report on protecting civic space in extractives governance examines why freedom of expression, assembly, and association are essential to ensuring communities can scrutinize resource revenues and hold powerful actors accountable.

Richard Nephew draws on his experience as the State Department's Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption in a new piece for Just Security. He examines lessons from past efforts and proposes a more focused, agile approach to future policy, including stronger accountability and greater attention to corruption at home.

In case you missed it, the Tax Justice Network has launched a new tracker on illicit financial flows, that shows how much tax revenue countries lose and which jurisdictions facilitate those losses. The resource offers a way to understand the scale of the problem and identify where action is needed to protect public revenues.

Vukasin Petrovic reflects on how democratic activists can respond to corrupt dealings, attacks on the press, mass surveillance, and restrictions on civil society. He outlines strategies to help grassroots organizations, independent journalists, and other civic actors adapt to growing political and financial pressures.

Could artificial intelligence help restore trust in democracy? One emerging argument is that AI could help repair institutions that repeatedly fail to listen to citizens, solve problems, or deliver basic services. The challenge, according to this piece by the Pew Research Center, is to ensure that these technologies strengthen public institutions and accountability while addressing the risks they may introduce.

Publishing beneficial ownership information is only the first step toward transparency in the extractive sector. Open Ownership explores how pioneering regulators are using this data in extractive licensing, where decisions about ownership, contracts, and resource rights can shape who benefits from natural resources for decades.

A legal study commissioned by the International Federation of Journalists found that, among ten countries reviewed, only Italy has clear rules limiting government spyware use against journalists. Research by Paula Ligia Martins calls for stronger legislation, oversight, and operational resilience for newsrooms and civil society, warning that surveillance threatens journalists' safety and can lead to self-censorship.

ESSENTIAL WATCHING:

The “Future of International Cooperation Report 2026: Redefining Global Trust” launched during UN General Assembly High-Level Week, exploring proposals to renew trust and improve global and regional governance. Developed by four organizations, the report examines opportunities to strengthen international cooperation.

From Our Members

HEWLETT: has gathered free resources, funded in part by the foundation, that are available to any nonprofit looking for support with strategic transitions, legal assistance, financial resilience, digital security, and board governance. 

MACARTHUR: Explains its participation in the Philanthropy Data Commons, an initiative connecting funders, nonprofits, and their partners so data can flow securely to where it is needed, on terms that work for the organizations sharing it.

SECRETARIAT: More than 120 initiatives are exploring the future of foreign assistance, according to findings from the Funders' Roundtable on the Future of Development. In a conversation with Proximate, TAI discusses the growing divide between donor priorities and Global South agendas, the need for greater coordination, and why locally led development must remain central to a more equitable global system.

ESSENTIAL LISTENING:

In this episode of “Giving With Impact,” The Aid Cloud cofounders N Hlaing and Jose Ravano discuss humanitarian funding gaps, barriers to delivering aid, and the importance of funding local organizations directly in a post-USAID landscape. 

TOOLS AND TRENDS FOR FUNDERS

Physicians for Human Rights has published “A Funders Playbook for Evidence-Based Human Rights Investment,” a resource for funders seeking to ground their human rights investments in evidence.

As funding opportunities shrink and civil society organizations struggle to survive, microgrants and innovative funding approaches can help sustain civic space, particularly at the local level. Accountability Lab explores how these models can strengthen local civic infrastructure and help organizations continue their work in Nepal.

Can a new institutional model bridge partisan divides over U.S. foreign aid? In a Devex opinion piece, James Kunder argues that neither restoring USAID to its previous form nor transferring its functions to the State Department is sufficient. He proposes a U.S. Agency for Foreign Strategic Assistance as an alternative to modernize development efforts and build a more effective, bipartisan approach.

Writing in the Financial Times, Raj Patel reminds us that “Markets can discipline companies that misallocate capital and voters can dismiss unpopular governments - but foundations answer to neither… Philanthropists should recognise that the rent due on their moral high ground is accountability.”

New global survey data point to steep funding cuts in the business and human rights field. In this piece in Alliance magazine, Benjamin Claeson, Christen Dobson, and Nele Meyer examine what funders can do to address the gap between prevailing business models and human rights and environmental goals.

Focused Topic of the Week

How We Fund Social Progress

Philanthropy loves a success story: an innovative program, a social enterprise that scales, a new fund with catalytic potential. But what if we're looking for impact in the wrong places? In Stanford Social Innovation Review, Alan Wagenberg argues that paying taxes and advocating for adequate taxation may be among the most consequential ways to advance social progress. If public systems are the only ones shown to deliver essential services equitably and at scale, why does so much philanthropic effort go toward filling gaps rather than addressing the funding shortfalls behind them?

But this raises a bigger question: how do we define prosperity in the first place? In “Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century”, Catherine Masterman and Claire Godfrey draw on Thomas Paine to make the case for a simple principle: no profit without responsibility. Economic growth, they argue, should be a means to freedom and security, not an end in itself. That distinction matters when wealth creation is celebrated as progress, even when its benefits are unevenly distributed and its costs fall on people and the planet.

These questions also invite us to look beyond individual interventions and examine how resources move through society. ONE's Development Finance Observatory brings together data on aid, debt, climate and health finance, domestic budgets, and remittances, making it easier to trace financial flows across different systems. The data cannot answer every question about fairness or impact, but it can help us ask better ones. If social progress depends on how resources are raised as much as how they are spent, should we be asking not only how philanthropy can fund solutions, but whether the economic systems we operate within are part of the problem?

JOBS

CALLS

  • Coefficient Giving has introduced Launchpad Funds, a request for proposals to seed new funds or scale existing ones addressing important, underfunded problems.

  •  The European Endowment for Democracy provides rolling funding for local democracy organizations in the Eastern Partnership, Middle East and North Africa, and Western Balkans and Turkey.

  • The Fifth Element invites blog contributions on systems transformation from practitioners and researchers, drawing on both lived experience and analysis across diverse perspectives.

  • Open Technology Fund, Internet Freedom Fund: Grants of up to $900,000 support tools and research for online privacy, anti-censorship, and digital security. Individuals aged 18+ and organizations worldwide may apply. Full proposals are by invitation after a concept note, with applications accepted on a rolling basis. 

  • RINGO Reverse Call for Proposals: RINGO invites international actors, including funders and INGOs, to support locally determined priorities through funding or in-kind assistance. The model puts local civil society organizations in the driving seat, allowing them to assess which partners can best meet their needs. 

  • Call for Papers: The Authoritarian Ecosystem: The Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Political Studies Association's Autocracy and Regime Change Specialist Group invite abstracts on authoritarianism. Deadline: November 10, 2026.

  • Creative Bureaucracy Festival, Global Call for Participation 2027: Submit projects, research, and creative ideas to challenge public administration. Selected contributions will be presented in Berlin on June 3, 2027. Deadline: December 11, 2026. 

  • Support for Local Media Initiatives: EEA Civil Society Fund Greece offers project-based funding for local media initiatives led by civil society organizations in Greece. Deadline: December 15, 2026.

  • OECD Anti-Corruption Research Challenge 2027: Researchers are invited to participate in the 2027 challenge. Deadline: January 10, 2026.

  • Investigative Reporting Grant for Nonpartisan Stories: FIJ Grant Applications 2027 offers funding for freelance journalists producing nonpartisan stories across all regions. Deadline: January 29, 2027.

 CALENDAR

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