19 local organizations to watch: Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust

📋 What they do Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust is an independent, indigenous grantmaker (between $15,000-$50,000) with six focus areas: • Democracy, good governance, and institution building. • Social justice. • Women's rights. • Pluralistic values. • Youth in social transformation. • Arts and culture to further the understanding of rights/peace. 👀 Why we’re watching NTT is the only local grantmaker in Sri Lanka, where every other grantmaker is a bilateral or multilateral agency, an international NGO, or an intergovernmental organization. During the pandemic, NTT provided grants of roughly $416,000 for COVID-19 relief. And through partnerships with civil society organizations, especially those based outside of Colombo, it is able to support local grassroots organizations that often struggle to get funding from other grantmakers. 🏢 Country of operation Sri Lanka. 🗓️ Founding year 2000. ➕ Leadership Ambika Satkunanathan, chair. 📊 Impact snapshot NTT has provided 400 grants to organizations across Sri Lanka’s 25 districts. Numerous impact stories have emerged from its programming, such as Sumaga Ruhuna Circle for the Deaf–NTT, a social enterprise that provides employment opportunities to people with other disabilities in addition to people with hearing impairments in Sri Lanka’s southern province. It has also provided sign language training to government officials which enables the deaf community to access essential services. 💡Insider scoop Sri Lankan government agencies can view civil society as a threat and have imposed restrictive regulations. Building trust remains a significant hurdle in the Sri Lankan development sector. This has led to large-scale grantmakers either managing their own programs or engaging with national civil society organizations that can operate at scale and act as an intermediary for smaller organizations. This, in turn, creates a power imbalance where local organizations lack access to critical grantmakers, which NTT attempts to address. Moving forward, NTT aims to initiate conversations on institutionalized power inequities in the global development sector. For instance, it’s organizing two back-to-back convenings with grant recipient organizations and grantmakers — a collaborative effort involving the Global Fund for Community Foundations, Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific, and Open Society Foundations. ➡️ Follow 🌐 neelan.org Update, Nov. 20 and 29, 2024: This article has been updated to clarify NTT’s current leadership and reflect the organization’s update to its founding year.