Mama Hope
Mama Hope provides funding and programmatic support to community-led organizations around the world. Their model was created in response to a broken aid system – one in which top-down models disenfranchise grassroots leadership, undervalue local resources, and reinforce harmful stereotypes of poverty. Their goal is to help partner organizations thrive and achieve self-reliance and generate their own opportunities. Mama Hope places trust in the hands of the grassroots leaders who know their communities best. In doing so, they are reconceptualizing global development and shifting power to those who are closest to their problems and best suited to create the solutions to them, the communities themselves.
Mama Hope seeks to give their partners the freedom and the resources needed to change lives in their communities and build a better future for generations to come. They support their partners in a variety of ways including: establishing monitoring and evaluation expectations; strategic planning and goal setting; publishing of stories, blogs, and social media content to promote partners' work; and most importantly, fundraising for partner staff training, infrastructure and operations.
The issues Mama Hope’s partners focus on are as diverse as the communities themselves, including: water and sanitation, healthcare, education, livelihoods, women’s issues, children’s issues, food security, housing, electricity and renewable energy. Due to Mama Hope’s reach and experience in the region, it is able to share best practices with or connect partner organizations that might have similar missions, helping them become stronger as a result.
What We Need To Raise
$50,000
$6,000
Teacher and farmworker salaries that run programs at 2 of our partner organizations
$15,000
Mama Hope general operating (fundraising, admin, staff salaries, etc.)
$20,000
Direct partner funding to our 12 community partners to be invested in sustainable projects.
$9,000
Adaptive programmatic support for our 12 community partners.
Why We Chose Them
Why does the social need exist and what are the alternatives?
Mama Hope models their work on community-led development. They place the trust in the hands of the grassroots leaders who know their communities and what needs they have to tackle their challenges most effectively.
Lives Impacted (Quality) & Outcomes
Mama Hope provides support to 36 organizational leaders across 12 community-led organizations, each of whom are supporting their communities to thrive, and collectively impacting the lives of over 260,000 people. Mama Hope’s focus on sustainability with their partners is bearing fruit - currently two partners’ cover 100% of their operational costs through locally generated income. The remaining partners are covering an ever-growing portion of their operational costs through locally generated income. Their goal is to help partner organizations thrive and achieve self-reliance. They want their partners to be set up to serve people for generations to come and not be dependent on Mama Hope for their long-term sustainability.
Specific financial requests and short-, near- and long-term needs
Mama Hope is requesting funding not only to support and continue operations within the organization, but to support the community-led organizations that have seen challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. This near-term life-line is essential in seeing Mama Hope continue their community-changing work – and in turn essential for the people they support. The financial support is imperative to keep long-term sustainability projects on pace which will support the development of entire communities.