Ukrainian Community Foundations Are Protecting Local Ownership, Even in Wartime

In 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian community foundations, like many local organizations around the world facing crisis-driven funding surges, confronted a difficult dilemma: how do you combine international funding with local funding so that the first does not displace the second?

As a National Network of Local Philanthropy Development (NNLPD), we began thinking about how to preserve the level of local philanthropy that emerged in the invasion’s first months, almost immediately after the war began. It is worth noting that war differs significantly from any other emergency in at least one respect — it is an ongoing state. You never know when it will end, when the next strike will come, or which city will be hit next. This question became more urgent by the third year of the full-scale invasion, when international interest in Ukraine began to wane, and we realized that this war would last a long time, and that no one would help us better than we could help ourselves.

Rapid Change in the Community Philanthropy Landscape

Before the full-scale invasion, in 2021, the combined budget of community foundations in our network totaled approximately UAH 26.4 million (around $980,000 USD). By 2022, it had grown to UAH 121.3 million ($3.7 million) — a 4.6-fold increase. It peaked in 2023 at UAH 159.3 million ($4.6 million), six times the prewar level. This growth did not happen because communities suddenly became wealthier. It happened because international funding began flowing through community foundations as a convenient and trusted channel.

Locally raised resources fluctuated considerably within these totals. In 2022, they accounted for roughly 44% of total budgets, as Ukrainian society mobilized to donate to organizations they knew and trusted. By 2023, that share had fallen to 10.5%, and it remained at a similar level — 10.7% — in 2024. This decline is unsurprising: people’s savings began to run out, and a harder truth set in — that the war would not end as quickly as anyone had hoped, and that people needed to plan to sustain themselves over the long term.

Despite this decline in local resources within foundation budgets, our research report, Ukrainian Philanthropy 2025: Who Gives, How, and Why, found that 76% of Ukrainians donated money, time, knowledge, or other resources at least once in 2025. So why is there such a wide gap between what reaches community foundations locally and what Ukrainians are actually giving?

The answer lies in the realities of wartime giving: the first instinct for most donors is to support the military, whether through specialized military funds, brigade- and unit-specific funds, or volunteers directly fulfilling soldiers’ requests. As a result, raising local resources is not only a strategic challenge for us — it also carries a moral dimension, since no one wants to compete for funds with the armed forces that protect us.

Even so, we work to help community foundations think long-term and diversify what counts as a local resource — not only money, but also local expertise, free use of space, volunteer time, and similar in-kind contributions. International funding, in turn, has helped us build local capacity. ​​​​One example is our network-wide initiative, “Harvest Way,” through which community foundations hold small-grant competitions for families with household garden plots. Families submit proposals, and selected applicants receive grants to help them grow and sell produce more effectively.

“F​​​​rom an external grant, through a local program, to a new local donor is precisely what distinguishes the growth of local philanthropy from simple aid distribution.”

In several communities, contest winners have since approached their community foundations, wanting to donate to support the next round of participants. This may be the clearest indicator that a community foundation remains true to its purpose: people it once helped return — this time as donors. “F​​​​rom an external grant, through a local program, to a new local donor is precisely what distinguishes the growth of local philanthropy from simple aid distribution,” as Daria Rybalchenko, director of the NNLPD, describes the project.

Let the Community Set the Agenda First

​​​​​Future of Korop Region community foundation, in Chernihiv region that borders Russia, began operating under the community foundation model in 2024. Despite its recent transition, it has already seen its ability to mobilize local resources grow steadily. Larysa Vashchenko, the foundation’s head, said the organization uses a co-financing model to build local engagement: “First, we identify international resources, and then we mobilize local ones. Once part of the funding is already secured at the international level, it becomes easier to demonstrate the project’s value and build the case for raising local resources.” Communication with the community and visibility of the foundation’s work through its website have proven essential to this approach.

Vashchenko noted that the foundation has not encountered situations in which an external donor designated funding for a priority that did not align with what the community considered most important. “​We pursue and accept only funding that responds to an actual demand from the community. As a result, we have not seen donor priorities shift our community’s focus toward projects the community itself would not consider a priority.” Because of this approach, the foundation funds only those projects the community genuinely needs and is willing to contribute toward itself, recognizing their importance firsthand.

“​We pursue and accept only funding that responds to an actual demand from the community. As a result, we have not seen donor priorities shift our community’s focus toward projects the community itself would not consider a priority.”

Trust Built Over a Decade Cannot Be Taken for Granted

The Berezan Community Foundation was established in 2012 in Kyiv region. In 2022, the community was partially occupied, resulting in significant infrastructure damage that the community is still working to repair. Before the full-scale invasion, more than 50% of the organization’s budget came from local sources. At the start of the invasion, funding was entirely local; international funding began arriving starting in April and May of 2022. As of June 2026, local resources account for 30–40% of the foundation’s budget.

Alla Novikova, the foundation’s chair, explained that the organization’s work is rooted in ongoing community engagement: “Everything we do centers on the community’s needs, and all our projects respond directly to them. Because we have worked in this community for so long and stayed in close contact with so many people, we understand who is willing to contribute which resources to which projects.”

Some needs can be met with local fundraising within two to three months; others take more than a year. According to Novikova, sustained community engagement requires what she calls “sparks” — individuals deeply committed to an idea who are willing to champion it, which in turn draws others in. The foundation also credits its long track record in the community and its commitment to transparency for its continued success in raising local resources: “We have worked with some local businesses since 2017, and now they bring in their own partners to work with us as well.”

Building the Conditions for a Future Local Base

Raising local resources has proven more difficult for the Voznesensk Community Foundation in Mykolaiv region. While residents have increased their giving in recent years, that giving is concentrated on military needs. Viktoriia Baltser, a representative of the foundation, also noted that wartime economic recession has reduced both businesses’ and residents’ capacity to donate. Before the full-scale invasion, local resources accounted for 60% of the foundation’s budget; today, that figure stands at roughly 1–2%.

Despite this, the foundation actively pursues nonfinancial local resources, including staff and facilities provided by the local government. Through a signed memorandum, the foundation now operates an adult education center on land provided by a local municipal enterprise, which also funds three staff positions for the project.

Baltser said external resources are helping communities endure the war and have served as a catalyst for meaningful change. In her view, if donors were to withdraw from communities now, those communities would stagnate, since local resources cannot currently cover existing needs. At the same time, while international funding remains the foundation’s primary resource, she believes it is essential to lay the groundwork for an eventual shift toward local funding — by supporting the growth of new local businesses likely to remain loyal to the foundation, building trust and social capital within the community, and contributing to broader economic recovery.

Small Grants, Local Ownership

The Boyarka Community Foundation, located in Kyiv region, combines international and local resources through small-grant project competitions. Through the applications they submit, community members determine which problems take priority — and funds raised locally are supplemented with contributions from international grantmakers.

Since 2022, the foundation has run 24 such competitions, drawing 451 project applications from local activists; 208 of these received funding. Twenty competitions were carried out on a “community/international donor” co-financing basis, funding 146 of 328 submitted projects. Local donations are equivalent to about 10-15% of what arrives in international funding — a pattern that Mariia Kyrylenko, a representative of the foundation, said reflects the community’s economic reality: “There is no major business presence in our community, unemployment is high, and roughly a third of residents are pensioners receiving the equivalent of $80 to $115 a month. A 50/50 co-financing model, which some grantmakers sometimes expect, is neither fair nor realistic for communities like ours.”

“When in-kind contributions are factored in — volunteer time, personal vehicles, donated space, or equipment — the real balance between local and external resources shifts considerably from what the financial figures alone ​​​​suggest.”

“That said, when in-kind contributions are factored in — volunteer time, personal vehicles, donated space, or equipment — the real balance between local and external resources shifts considerably from what the financial figures alone ​​​​suggest,” she mentions. What keeps the community in the role of owner rather than project executor, Kyrylenko added, is the breadth of people involved in the process: more than 100 regular donors vote on which projects move forward, assessing both relevance and each initiative group’s capacity to deliver. Project teams, volunteers, and local entrepreneurs all see themselves as playing a meaningful role — a circle wide enough that the community does not experience itself as a passive recipient of aid.

Instead of a Conclusion

The four cases gathered for this piece do not offer a single answer. They offer four different answers to the same question — and that, perhaps, is the central finding.

• For Future of Korop Region, protecting local priorities is a matter of selection: they pursue only the funding that already responds to a demand from the community.
• For Berezan, it is a matter of time and relationships: more than a decade of community work has built a level of trust no grant can purchase or replace.
• For Boyarka, this is a question of structure: a model of competition in which the decision on what is most important remains directly in the hands of the residents, who contribute to the funding of the competition.
• For Voznesensk, it is a matter of honesty: acknowledging that local resources cannot currently meet the community’s needs, while deliberately building the conditions under which they someday might.

What these organizations share is not a single strategy but a shared discipline: each treats the question of local resources as strategic, not as an afterthought to day-to-day operations. That discipline is what allows them to remain community foundations, rather than simply surviving on external funding.

For anyone working in local philanthropy, regardless of country or context, these four cases serve as a reminder that a community foundation’s resilience is not measured by the size of its budget. It is measured by whether the community considers the foundation its own. External funding can accelerate growth, catalyze change, and help a community endure a crisis — but it cannot create that sense of ownership on an organization’s behalf.