The Ford Foundation Office for West Africa (OWA) recently welcomed the Deputy Vice President for International Programmes, Kimberly Bayer and the Director of the BUILD Initiative, Victoria Dunning, for a high-level visit.
Their strategic engagement aimed to deepen partnerships and advance the foundation’s commitment to strengthening resilient civil society institutions across West Africa.
The visit spotlighted the foundation’s Building Institutions and Networks (BUILD) initiative–a flagship grant-making approach designed to help social justice organisations grow stronger and more resilient by providing five years of general operating support and targeted organisational strengthening support to grantee partners at the frontline of social change.
BUILD equips partners with the strategic clarity, internal capacity, and long-term stability they need to achieve impact and drive systemic change over the course of years and decades.
Explaining the initiative further at one of the BUILD Grantee Convenings, Regional Director of Ford Foundation’s West Africa Office, Dr. ChiChi Aniagolu-Okoye, said “The Ford Foundation has been on the Building Institutions and Networks journey for about a decade now, since the President of the Ford Foundation, Darren Walker, announced the FordForward strategy in 2015 that made building durable institutions and networks one of the foundation’s highest priorities. And in that time, BUILD has grown into not just a valuable approach to grant making at Ford but stands as a strong model for how donors can support long-term resilience, equity, and impact. She emphasized that too often, donors focus on funding programs while overlooking the institutions that implement these programmes.
“At the Ford Foundation, we’ve seen that real, lasting impact depends on the strength and stability of the organizations we support,” she noted. Through the BUILD initiative, the foundation has invested in long-term, flexible support that allows partners to strengthen internal systems, adapt to change, and lead from a place of stability.
“It’s time for more donors to recognise that building strong institutions is a fundamental requirement for driving justice, equity, and transformational change,” she added.
The message to the broader philanthropic community is clear: resilient institutions are not just more effective—they are essential to achieving sustainable impact. The week-long outing, which spanned Abuja and Lagos, provided a valuable platform and opportunity to share learning and foster learning around institutional sustainability, and deepen engagement with the Foundation’s BUILD grantees and key regional partners and staff.
Speaking at the meeting with the Ford team, the Executive Director of dRPC, Dr. Judith-Ann Walker, said, “The BUILD grant didn’t just fund programs; it helped us build an institution. It has transformed the way our organization thinks about sustainability, risk planning, and organizational strategy, and has given us the flexibility to formalize structures, plan long-term, and grow internal resilience.” Dr. Walker added that one of dRPC’s biggest challenges has been ensuring that evidence-based research informs actual government policy rather than remaining on paper.
“Through strategic partnerships and persistent engagement—capacities we’ve strengthened with support from the BUILD grant—we’re working to bridge that gap, so that data drives decisions and advocacy leads to real change,” she said. She emphasized that this approach is grounded in the organization’s broader philosophy:
“We’ve learned that true impact happens when we invest in relationships—with grassroots actors, local institutions, and cultural leaders who shape real-world outcomes.” Reinforcing how much the BUILD initiative has driven expansion and structural growth, Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, Executive Director of the Lux-Terra Leadership Foundation noted that “The BUILD grant has allowed us to grow in ways we never imagined—from restructuring our organization internally to expanding our outreach across Nigeria. We’re not just changing minds—we’re transforming systems. Our vision is to establish ‘Centers of Excellence’ that are not only places of training but sanctuaries of safety, dignity, and transformation for generations to come. The BUILD initiative has taught us that our structural strength is as important as our spiritual mission. A sustainable institution with integrity will outlive its founders and serve society for decades.”
At a meeting with the Ford team in Lagos, Nigeria, Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, Director of Research and Policy at Spaces for Change (S4C), highlighted the transformative impact of the Ford Foundation’s BUILD grant on the organization. “The BUILD grant has fundamentally shifted our operations—from reactive project-based work to a more strategic, focused, and scalable model,” she said.
Ibezim-Ohaeri credited the grant with enabling S4C to strengthen its governance architecture, expand regionally, and invest in long-term research and policy advocacy, noting “We’ve built a governance system that ensures accountability and sustainability—something that project funding rarely supports.”
The BUILD Grantee Convening in Abuja on May 6 was a central highlight of the visit, bringing together over 20 long-standing and new BUILD grantees from across West Africa for a day of collaborative learning, peer exchange, reflection, and strategic dialogue. Sessions explored ingenuity in leadership, governance practices and financial resilience. The event underscored the diverse and creative approaches local partners are using to amplify their impact in an increasingly complex development landscape. Speaking at the forum, Kimberly Bayer, Deputy Vice President for International Programs at the Ford Foundation, reaffirmed the organization’s deep commitment to long-term, trust-based philanthropy.
BUILD, she noted, is Ford’s flagship investment in institutional strengthening, financing some of the foundation’s largest and most significant commitments globally since 2016. “BUILD is our version of trust-based philanthropy,” Bayer shared, highlighting the core values of mutual trust, equity, and shared learning that underpin the program and calling for this model to influence not just Ford’s future funding, but the broader philanthropic sector.
Bayer stressed that resilient civil society organizations are critical frontline actors, capable of navigating challenges and reimagining a more just future. “We believe that to confront inequality, we must invest in strong institutions—organizations that have the time, resources, and certainty to focus on their internal health so they can do transformative work externally. In today’s uncertain world, resilience is not a luxury—it’s essential.” Welcoming the newest BUILD partners to what she described as a global community of nearly 550 grantees across 47 countries, Victoria Dunning, Director of the BUILD Programme at the Ford Foundation, said “BUILD is an opportunity to invest deeply—not only in your mission and programs, but in your institutional resilience, so you can navigate shifts in funding, leadership, strategy, and the broader world around you. Our partners are not only sustaining their institutions; they are reimagining what responsive, inclusive civil society looks like.”
She added that the results of Ford’s evaluation of the BUILD initiative are clear: “Multiyear, unrestricted funding—when combined with dedicated support for institutional development—leads to stronger, more resilient organizations of all sectors, structures, stages, and sizes. It also deepens their connection to the communities they serve.”
