Civil Connections Community Foundation

Civil Connections Community Foundation (CCCF) is an international non – government organization based in Copenhagen – Denmark. The aim of CCCF is to increase value and achievement in international development initiatives with local grassroots communities, by building bridges for commonly unreached local grassroots (especially rural) development actors (CSOs, SEs, etc.), through outfitting these with exposure, capacity, motivation, and mentorship for long-term sustainability. To this end, we actively work with engaging all types of actors on the necessity and benefits of strategically focussing on local grassroots communities as a domain of high presence of inequalities and some of the most profound development challenges. And of course, it is here over 70%, and in some regions up to over 85% of the global population – commonly the poorest and vulnerable have their livelihoods (UN, 2018). Targeting local grassroots, especially rural ones where they are found, is a decisive focus to bring the most vulnerable, yet commonly unseen, and in some cases unreached communities on board the international development agenda. Our methodology of carefully identifying impactful actors in these settings and creating awareness about what their value in their local communities is, as well as walking a capacity, motivation, mentoring and joint growth journey with them means that we in each community of contact sustainably strengthen their capacity to engage with their local development needs and challenges based on local knowledge. This contributes to local resilience and motivation to keep going on. Our mission is to support local grassroots development actors to achieve their aims in facilitating community development for a fair and sustainable world. Our target group is wide. It is composed of all actors that relate to the ecosystems of our local grassroots development partners and thus changes based on projects and contexts. Generally, however, it entails development actors, activists, volunteers, community members of all ages, gender, and origins. The aims of CCCF entail four strategic directions covered by the NGOs current five-year strategy, namely: - To identify and make known/visible local community initiatives from the different locations we work in, that would otherwise find it difficult to gain such visibility for a great job they air doing mobilizing civic engagement in their local communities. - To facilitate the strengthening of capacities of the identified local actors to be able to sustain as well as multiply their good achievements in their local communities as well as to the global level. This takes the form of training, mentoring, coaching, motivating, and voluntary support to their causes. - To support identified local grassroots development partners and activists in resource mobilization and joint fundraising as a way of closing resource needs that commonly hinder longer-term survival and sustained expansion of good meaning local initiatives. - And, implement a research and knowledge development hub - including an online journal of knowledge, working tools, methodologies, and other resources, aimed at building further knowledge and awareness around all aspects of the ecosystem of local community actors, activists, their local communities, and initiatives. Our work is based on a "Theory of Change" as follows: “At CCCF we believe that if global development is to be more effective in eliminating the greatest of community development impediments, as many strategies rightly aspire, it is of central importance to deliberately focus enough attention to the places where the majority of the world’s population lives and where the world’s most profound development challenges press most. With rural local communities being livelihoods for over 70% of the global population, yet at the same time listed as some of the most underdeveloped, gender-unequal, illiterate, detached from ‘modernity’, inaccessible, etc., our focus is to support dev