Our Approach
Localisation rarely fails from lack of goodwill. It fails from disconnection. Capacity is built without a funding route to use it. Commitments are made without the systems that let trust follow. And local and national actors have too few spaces to learn from one another directly.
ImpactRoot works across capacity, strategy, finance, and the connections between them - so progress in one area doesn't stall for lack of progress in the others.
We strengthen the organisations doing the work on the ground, building the systems, skills, and credibility that let local actors lead with confidence and be trusted with the resources to do so.
Training and mentoring - We provide practical training across the areas that determine whether an organisation can absorb funding and deliver at scale: technical programme skills, administration, financial management, safeguarding, policy development, and the full grant cycle from proposal writing through grant management and donor reporting. Training is paired with ongoing mentoring, so skills are embedded in practice rather than left in a workshop.
Governance and institutional strengthening - We help organisations build the governance structures, financial controls, and leadership capacity that donors look for before extending flexible, unrestricted funding. This is often the missing layer between an organisation having the right skills and being seen as ready to lead, and closing it is central to building the kind of trust that changes funding decisions.
Monitoring, evaluation, and results based management - We support the design and set up of M&E systems and results based management frameworks, giving organisations the evidence base to demonstrate impact, refine their own programming, and report credibly to funders and partners.
Local Capacity Strengthening
We advise the donors, national authorities, and institutions that shape how localisation is funded and governed, turning commitment into strategy that can actually be delivered and measured.
National strategy development and implementation - We help national authorities design localisation strategies that connect directly to broader national development plans, so that local interventions build toward sustainable, nationally owned outcomes rather than isolated, short term gains. Just as importantly, we support the implementation itself, since a strategy that is never executed changes nothing.
Alternative and innovative finance - We advise on financing models that move beyond traditional grant aid, including blended finance, credit facilities, and other instruments that give local and national actors access to capital on terms suited to sustainable growth, not just short term relief.
Donor advisory on localisation -We support donors in developing and executing their own localisation strategies, including the practical systems and due diligence frameworks that make it possible to extend more direct and flexible funding with confidence. This is where the trust gap identified in our approach gets addressed directly, not through good intentions, but through workable systems.
Institutional monitoring and accountability - We design and implement M&E and accountability frameworks that track whether donors and institutions are meeting their own localisation commitments, not only whether individual grantees deliver.
Strategic Advisory
Convening & Exchange
We connect the people and institutions that make localisation work: local actors with each other, and local actors with the donors and stakeholders who fund and shape their work.
Global peer exchange platform -We are developing a digital platform for local organisations to connect and exchange knowledge directly with peers around the world, supporting more than 30 languages to remove the connection and language barriers that currently isolate organisations working on similar challenges in different countries and regions.
Localisation knowledge repository - We curate and maintain a repository of localisation resources and publish quarterly highlights on emerging practices, lessons, and tools, providing local and national organisations with a single, accessible source of current thinking in the sector.
Multi-stakeholder forum - We convene donors, national organisations, and other stakeholders once a year in a forum shaped by their own agenda, not one set for them. Where possible, this is attached to existing sectoral meetings, making space for the conversations that localisation needs without adding another standalone event to an already crowded calendar.
Direct brokering - Beyond platforms and events, we make direct introductions, connecting specific organisations with specific funders where there is a genuine fit, turning convening from information exchange into real partnerships.