From Scarcity Tactics to Opportunity Mindset: Rethinking How We Finance Aid and Development in 2026

I joined the Chronicle of Philanthropy's January 20 "Trends to Watch in 2026" webinar, hoping to hear how we might rebuild civil society financing. Instead, I watched brilliant professionals document the crisis with precision, refining bridge loan strategies, donor bunching tactics, and compressed planning horizons. It was valuable work. But I left wondering: when do we move from documenting the shrinking pie to exploring how we might grow it?

What Chronicle Got Right

It is fascinating how people's backgrounds shape the way they see a crisis. Chronicle's editors, Rasheeda Childress, Alex Daniels, Ben Gose, and Jim Rendon, after years covering nonprofit budgets, naturally reach for the language of risk, prudence, and adaptation. Their toolkit for 2026 reflects deep sector knowledge:

• Year-end "bunching" strategies so donors can maximize tax advantages without feeling they've paused their giving

• Bridge loans from Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and specialist intermediaries, often at 10 percent interest, to cover delayed federal and state grants

• Legal support and language shifts to shield Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and racial justice work from hostile regulatory reinterpretations

• Strategic plans that nominally span three years but are maintained with the quiet hope they remain relevant for 18 months, while the smallest organizations survive on 6–12 month scenarios

The Chronicle has done invaluable work documenting this moment with clarity and care. Organizations navigating the next 12–18 months need exactly these kinds of tools. My question is different: what type of financing architecture do we want to be operating in a decade from now? The webinar showed us how to manage a shrinking pie more skillfully. What would it look like to grow it?

The Example That Opens the Conversation

To see the difference, imagine two approaches to supporting smallholder farmers with irrigation. In the traditional model, an NGO runs a time-bound grant program: it trains farmers, the grant ends, and the program ends.

In an alternative model, the same organization partners with a solar pump manufacturer. Instead of asking for donations, the NGO integrates the pumps into its training curriculum, earns a 5 percent commission on sales in its program areas, and negotiates a small equity stake. Year 1: 200 pumps sold, generating $50,000 in revenue. Year 2: 500 pumps sold, generating $125,000. The NGO uses that revenue to expand training beyond the original grant. The manufacturer grows its market.

Farmers have access to better technology. Everyone benefits because profit has been structured to serve a purpose.

This is not a magic solution; it's one example of what becomes possible when we allow ourselves to ask: What if organizations could participate in the value they help create?

Why Survival Mode Needs a Companion Strategy

The Chronicle conversation described a sector managing permanent contingency: organizations refinancing timing risk with loans, adapting language to reduce legal exposure, and compressing planning horizons to 1 or 2 years. This echoes what I've observed across the development sector, conferences fluent in "blended finance" and "partnership," but still psychologically anchored to grants as the primary oxygen supply.

This isn't my first time asking this question. Last November, I published an op-ed in Devex titled 'How Profit Can Be Purpose's Best Ally,' arguing that the development sector's discomfort with profit prevents organizations from building the sustainable partnerships they need. The response was telling: strong interest from private sector partners, cautious silence from many NGO leaders. That silence is exactly why we need this conversation

The Chronicle's toolkit helps organizations survive the next 18 months. What I'm interested in is what builds resilience over the next decade.

When I led the G4 Alliance – a global surgical care coalition – I saw how natural it is to slip into survival mode. Donors shifted priorities, funding was delayed, and we scrambled for short-term fixes. What we asked less often was the harder question: why are we entirely exposed to these cycles?

At G4 Alliance, we transformed medical device companies from occasional donors into paying members whose dues supported our work in low- and middle-income countries. By aligning membership with their commercial expansion goals, revenue grew 24% over two years. The profit motive didn't compromise our mission; it sustained it beyond any single grant cycle.

Who's Already Building Alternatives

The good news is that organizations around the world are proving that purpose-driven entities can use commercial approaches to protect their mission, not compromise it:

• Impact investors have built portfolios in agriculture, energy, health, and education that generate measurable social outcomes alongside risk-adjusted returns. See: the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) – "What you need to know about impact investing."

  
  

• Social enterprise ecosystems are using equity, revenue sharing, outcome-based contracts, and performance-linked bonds to link capital flows to verified results. See: Social Finance – "Is an outcomes-based approach or impact bond right for me?" and Social Ventures Australia – "A guide to outcomes contracting and social impact bonds."

  
  

• International NGOs have built investment arms and social business portfolios—such as Save the Children Global Ventures and Mercy Corps Ventures that mobilize private capital and generate earned revenue while advancing their mandates.

  
  

These examples share a common insight: an organization's relationships, data, and trust are not just fundraising assets; they can underpin investable models when we're willing to talk frankly about value creation and financial return.

What This Means for Different Roles

The practical implications vary by position:

• If you're a foundation program officer, catalytic capital goes further when it de-risks new business models through guarantees, first-loss tranches, or outcome payments, rather than permanently underwriting operating budgets. Grants become the spark, not the fuel.

  
  

• If you lead corporate partnerships, NGOs become profitable distribution and insight partners, not just recipients who send impact reports no one reads. You can justify participation internally because the arrangement makes sense on both commercial and mission grounds.

  
  

• If you're an NGO executive, you can shift from seeking unrestricted funding to negotiating revenue sharing and equity positions that compound over time. You still pursue grants, but from a position strengthened by predictable earned income.

  
  

This isn't a call to abandon mission for margin. It's recognition that profit, when structured thoughtfully, protects mission by reducing vulnerability to any single funder's political shift or strategic pivot.

From Documentation to Practice

The Chronicle has documented the crisis with rigor and care. The development sector has been debating alternatives in conferences and reports for years. What's missing is a space where practitioners can move from discussing these ideas to mapping concrete implementation pathways.

That's why, in April 2026, during the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington, DC, I'm co-organizing a convening with PopTech – a 30-year leader in cross-sector innovation convenings – to do exactly that. This won't be another panel on "innovation," but a working session where:

• Corporate partnership heads, impact investors, and NGO executives bring concrete examples and models they're using or ready to test.

  
  

• We map mechanisms, commissions, equity, outcome-based payments, and identify which approaches fit different organizational contexts.

  
  

• We develop practical pathways and roadmaps that participants can begin testing in their organizations by fall 2026.

  
  

This is the first step in a longer conversation that will continue at PopTech's fall conference and beyond. We're not promising to solve development finance in one afternoon—we're creating space for practitioners to learn from each other's experiments and build on what's working.

If you're already experimenting with these approaches – or ready to start – I want you in that room. Contact me at claudio.tanca.wk[AT]gmail.com with "April PopTech Convening" in the subject line. We're carefully curating this convening, and I'm looking for practitioners willing to put genuine partnerships and real numbers on the table.

The Chronicle has shown us the map of the crisis. Let's build the pathways forward together. THERE IS HOPE!