What approaches have you seen work well to ensure financial sustainability after the end of a grant?
Question submitted by: Lwaboshi Dieudonné, Femme en Action pour le Progrès Social, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The best approaches are those that intentionally embed sustainable financing into programme design from the outset, rather than treating sustainability as an afterthought once grant funding ends.
One effective example comes from a child vaccination programme implemented through community health workers in rural settings, working within existing community-based structures. Beyond providing direct remuneration to community health workers, the programme deliberately invested in their long-term economic resilience. Interested community health workers were supported to form self-help groups and trained in entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and the management of savings and loans, using the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) model.
Each group received seed funding alongside ongoing technical support to strengthen financial decision-making and social cohesion. Importantly, the programme planned a gradual transition away from direct remuneration, which was fully phased out midway through the project (after approximately two and a half years). By that point, the savings and loans groups had accumulated sufficient capital, and members had established reliable income-generating activities.
Despite the withdrawal of stipends, community health workers continued to meet their programme deliverables through the end of the project. Years later, impact evaluation showed that both their livelihoods and their voluntary engagement in community health work had been sustained.
The key drivers of this success were innovation and intentionality at the design stage. The programme made no assumptions about follow-on grants or future donor funding. Instead, sustainability was treated as a core outcome rather than a funding contingency.
In my experience, financial sustainability is most achievable when programmes are designed with clear intent, incorporate innovative livelihood or financing mechanisms, and explicitly plan for a future without continued grant support.
(This answer was provided by Dr Michael Kiragu, a Kenyan fundraising expert, and Founder and Principal Consultant at Bell Consultants)
