Funding the Last Mile: Money Mapping & Redesign

Community-based organizations are often closest to the people and challenges funding is intended to reach, yet getting resources to that last mile can be complicated. Funding may pass through intermediaries that are themselves under-resourced to provide the support, oversight, and flexibility CBOs need, while CBOs remain accountable for delivering results. Through money mapping, role reversal, and practical redesign exercises, participants will draw on their own experiences to examine what happens along the funding chain and what it takes to get resources to the last mile effectively.

Together, we'll explore questions such as:\

• Where does money slow, shrink, or change as it moves toward the last mile, and why?
• What have we seen work in getting resources closer to communities while supporting flexibility and accountability?
• What changes when we treat sub-granting as a discipline to invest in rather than an overhead cost to minimize?