It was 2002 and joy poured out of Taller de Vida, a small Colombian NGO. Two dozen kids were rehearsing a play about their experiences as internal refugees from the civil war and their laughter showed they were spotlighting strength, not suffering.

At that time, international foundations were still eager to find creative solutions to social problems in Latin America, and Taller de Vida had been able to secure funding so hundreds of kids could rebuild their humanity through the arts. Over the next decade, the organisation’s ideas would become a model for governments and NGO programmes around the world.

In 2026, however, Taller de Vida has much less chance to exercise that creativity. Stella Duque, the director, explains why. ‘Today, when a funder approaches us, we have to remake ourselves in their image: “This is what I want, and you’ll do it for me.”’

In her view, the old balance has flipped and funders no longer learn from organisations with innovative pathways to social change. The assumption is that local NGOs merely implement a foundation’s strategy and, in a world of increasing polarisation and political hatred, we all lose insight into how democracy could function better.

Innovation and Utopia: Focusing on Locally-led Solutions to Social Problems in Latin America

Between 1991 and 2007, I travelled through almost every country in Latin America, organising small youth-focused nonprofits into a single collaborative network. Coming from the United States, I was struck by the creativity and effectiveness of their programmes. There were national movements of street kids, modern dance schools for refugees, Indigenous groups keeping their culture alive in rapidly growing cities, and they didn’t just provide social services; they created new forms of participatory democracy and self-organisation.

Today, this innovation is being stifled, often by exactly the funders who claim to support it. As Duque explained, ‘They want to make us their subcontractors. They can’t even hear a proposal, an idea.’  Meanwhile, off the record, a foundation officer confirmed what Duque and so many others were saying about the lack of focus on locally-led solutions to social problems: ‘The foundation promotes its own knowledge and its own agenda…it’s not about what [the local partner] knows how to do.’

Read the full article about democracy and civil society in Latin America by Kurt Shaw at Alliance Magazine.