| Engaging with Evidence | Handing over the keys – outcomes-based approaches to scaling impact through Community Based Organisations

In this session, we explored a new case study on Educate Girls' Project Maitri. We examined how the use of outcomes-based contracts enabled scaling impact through community-based organisations and offered insights on supporting locally-led development.

Locally led development recognises the importance of involving the people and communities affected by development and humanitarian challenges in designing and delivering their solutions. Donor commitments to support locally led development have been increasingly strengthened since the 2005 Paris Declaration, gaining particular momentum since USAID’s ‘new vision for global development’ in 2021. However, despite these commitments to increase funding for local NGOs (LNGOs), there exists a significant gap between stated intentions and financial support. Research indicates that, in 2021, only 6% of bilateral funding to NGOs went to NGOs registered in the global South, and less than a quarter of philanthropic funding to non-profits went to domestic NGOs.

This Engaging with Evidence session centres around a new case study of Educate Girls’ Project Maitri developed by Social Finance International. Project Maitri built on 10 years of Educate Girls’ experience of outcomes-based delivery at scale, to deliver impact through community-based organisations in a state in which they had not previously operated.

The webinar unpacks:

• Why Educate Girls took the decision to scale their impact without scaling their footprint
• How they used outcomes-based contracts to drive impact through community-based organisations
• What can be learnt from Project Maitri for other larger NGOs and funders wanting to harness the potential and capacity of community based organisations to drive change

Find more information about the Educate Girls through the INDIGO Impact Bond Dataset and GO Lab's case study.