Donor-NGO Relations: Resource Exchange & Interdependence?

Popular analysis often argues that the donor-NGO relationship is unequal and one-sided – the ‘piper calls the tune’ and, if NGOs want funding, they must succumb to donor demands. However, recent thinking highlights a different story. Alnoor Ebrahim has argued that donors and NGOs are ‘highly interdependent’, for whilst NGOs need economic capital, donors need to be recognised as effective in their distribution of resources – this can only be achieved if they are able to demonstrate that they support successful organisations. Thus, there occurs an ‘exchange of information for funds, or of symbolic capital for economic capital’ (2003: 101). NGOs are able to utilise this dynamic by manipulating donor dependence on information in order to leverage resources and minimise interference. The methods they employ consist of, and result in, a number of managerial and organisational changes.