Disasters around the world are on the rise, with drastic increases in both their frequency and intensity. While charitable donations have gone up over the past decade, they haven’t kept pace with rising needs, and the vast majority of funds given to international causes never make it into the hands of local groups.

Localization is a philanthropic movement focused on elevating the status of local and national actors by ensuring they are adequately funded and can lead and inform humanitarian responses in their area.¹ Engaging in localization when giving is an effective way to maximize impact while minimizing costs. Localized giving:

• Supports a more rapid response since the groups are already in the area.
• Allows groups best acquainted with the community to address their needs with solutions that make sense for that community.
• Increases funding that is going directly to the area by cutting down on overhead costs and transaction fees.

Rapid Regional Response

Local actors are always the first responders in a crisis, as international organizations need to mobilize and deploy to the area.

Example

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of well-funded local and national actors amid travel restrictions and global need; often, local groups were best placed to address the needs of their communities. Local and national actors around the world provided their communities with supplies and protective equipment, food assistance, and help scheduling vaccine appointments.

Informed, Sustainable Solutions

Local actors can see the bigger picture when it comes to crises in their communities. Well-meaning outsiders are prone to react in light of a pressing crisis and may prioritize aid that is only a short-term solution.

Example

The Bay of Bengal is a disaster-prone region. Local actors know that this area needs help preparing for disasters and mitigating risks. Outsiders tend to focus only on helping after a disaster has struck and only if it is of a sufficiently great magnitude. As such, funding can be erratic and often focused on relief rather than on building sustainable systems and infrastructure to withstand these storms. If local actors were properly funded, they could use their knowledge to help their community better prepare for the future, which in turn will help them respond more effectively when future disasters strike.

Maximizing Funds

Giving directly means more money for the actual issue since doing so cuts down on transaction fees, mobilization costs, and other such overhead.

Example

Donating directly to local or national groups would free up $4.3 billion of funding per year that currently goes to international groups’ overhead.

The Global Relief Navigator

With the launch of the Global Relief Navigator, our flagship tool for disaster relief and response, CAF America is reaffirming its commitment to these underserved and often overlooked communities, emphasizing the importance of localization and granting to local grassroots organizations, which will drive forward the levers of change and lead to a sustained and positive impact. This tool leverages CAF America’s global database of validated disaster-responding charities and presents it on a visual world map, allowing donors to grant directly to responding local charities. Additionally, the tool allows donors to sort and search for organizations located directly in the impacted country and find responding partners that truly have a local and grassroots presence.

Footnotes

1. The exact definition of localization is often debated as people disagree over which actors should be included, how actors should be included in a response, how directly funds need to be given, and what conditions are acceptable to place on the funding.

Graphic Sources

1. EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, 2024, Brussels, Belgium – www.emdat.be
2. Aon, 2024, Climate and Catastrophe Insight
3. Value is based on traceable funds; Global Humanitarian Assistance, 2023, Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2023