Introduction

Sourcing, managing and sustaining funding is a fundamental and usually pressing concern for community development workers. Many of the most important practical choices facing organisations revolve around funding. It is also a profoundly political topic – any discussion of funding immediately brings up questions of power and purpose, and forces us to examine how varying visions and agendas overlap or conflict. Yet, despite the absolute centrality of funding to community development, few of the recent books published on the topic have focused specifically on the community development field (INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2007; Choudry and Kapoor, 2013; Edwards and Hulme, 2013; Salamon, 2014; Morvaridi, 2015; Jung et al, 2016), and those that have, do not address the range of funding arrangements that govern contemporary practice globally (Martinez-Cosio and Rabinowitz Bussell, 2013). This book intends to fill this gap.

Moreover, as we elaborate on later, there are a number of broad international trends that make the critical scrutiny of funding particularly timely. Community organisations in diverse contexts are grappling with reconfigured states and diminished state resources. They are also negotiating new and complex ensembles of power as well as a multiplication of funding modalities. Against the backdrop of a deep crisis of democracy (Brown, 2015) and of staggering levels of economic inequality (Sayer, 2015), it is crucial to consider how funding relationships, structures and processes contribute to or undermine the possibility of meaningful democratic community development.

Funding, power and community development brings together academics and practitioners, from a range of contexts to explore the impacts, opportunities, contradictions and dilemmas associated with the resourcing of community development. The book is international in scope and includes contributions from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Australia and North America. The book's purpose is to share insights and stimulate debate on how funding, in its various forms, is shaping the theory and practice of community development; to examine how communities, community development workers, activists and funders manage the day-to-day realities of funding; and to analyse the interrelationship between funding and broader economic and political developments. The specific modes of funding addressed in the volume are: state funding (at a national and regional level); international grants and aid; corporate funding; and philanthropy, including foundations and community philanthropy.