Cadence works to actively direct tangible and intangible resources towards development interventions that intended communities deem necessary, effective and sustainable. We do this by three main streams:

1. Direct advisory to donors

   We work directly with donors, philanthropists and philanthropic institutions who have open calls for proposals or intended to distribute grants. We partner with such granting entities to shortlist and select final grantees based on community feedback. To do this, we engage intended communities in the target geographic areas through our network of locally-rooted academic institutions to organize a series of roundtables guided by participatory visual research methods. Through an intersectional, rigorous and anonymous process, intended communities select grantees based on their proposed approach and offer insights on which community assets, potentials and capacities could be leveraged to achieve an intervention’s outcomes.

2. Actively Scouting Champions

   On a pro-bono basis, we independently seek out community-based organizations, changemakers, social innovators and enterprises making exceptional impact to promote to our network of donors, philanthropists and philanthropic institutions for future funding. We know that traditional funding is often limited to actors with far-reaching powerful networks, enormous budgets and well-financed hierarchies. While we acknowledge that such characteristics contribute to accountability and transparency, Cadence was established because purely following these metrics has continuously excluded grassroot actors who continue to lead change in crises, political upheaval and the withdrawal of foreign aid. Thus, we aim to empower these genuine local actors towards realizing an aid-independent development sector.

3. Maintaining a Community of Practice (CoP)

   For decades, international foreign aid has been steered by the underlying foreign policy of the donor country. Philanthropy on the other hand has mostly been driven by the individual interests and hobbies of high net worth individuals (HNWI). The essence of why Cadence was established is because we understood that this top-bottom setting of priorities in development led to a disconnect between what communities and donors defined as ‘development’. Through regular participatory consultations relying on visual research methods, Cadence seeks to bridge this gap by convening and maintaining regular Community of Practice (CoP) gatherings to share with policymakers, donors and so-called ‘decision-makers’ what intended communities define as their priorities. These gatherings are convened in online and offline settings, to foster genuine dialogue and steer future calls for proposals towards the priorities of communities in the intended region.