What do the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainable grant-making practices have in common? Both represent a long-term commitment to supporting the people, places, and communities that we are all part of.

In recent years there have been growing calls for philanthropic giving to local charities to become more financially sustainable. What this means in practice is a move away from short-term funding towards supporting everyday running costs and investing in capacity building. Underpinning all these eminently sensible calls is a recognition of the huge impact of local charities and community organisations.

If we want more funding in the sector to plug the well-documented shortfalls, we need to speak in a language that is commonly understood by the donors we want to give. The SDGs provide an off-the-shelf framework for us to do just that. For instance, a 2019 survey found that of the 250 world’s largest global companies surveyed, 82 percent have reported on the SDGs. The 17 interconnected Goals, from No Poverty (Goal 1) to Reduced Inequalities (Goal 10), are broad enough to align with the huge variety of causes that the UK’s 170,000 charities support.

When philanthropic giving is framed within the SDG mantra of securing ‘a better and more sustainable future for all’, funding sustainability makes perfect sense. The 2030 Agenda wasn’t intended to be achieved overnight. Its success is contingent on a long-term approach. The only effective way to do this is through a place-based model that is defined by funding sustainability.

Working with our network of community foundations we see how local partnerships benefit the people and places they operate in. By aligning with the SDGs, donors can use the scope of the Goals to focus on the issues that matter most to them.  As one donor to the County Durham Community Foundation puts it: ‘The SDGs have enabled us to identify themes that are broad enough to allow diversity of choice, and yet keep us aligned with our long-term vision.’

Read the full article about funding sustainability by Rosemary Macdonald at Alliance Magazine.