Rising Tide Foundation is mobilising up to $1 million to support local organisations on the ground in Venezuela — grounded in evidence, not emergency instinct.
The earthquake in Venezuela has compounded an already fragile civic environment. Many of the organisations best placed to respond are small, trusted, and deeply embedded in their communities — but they are also the ones least visible to international donors.
This fund is designed to reach them directly, with flexible support that matches their actual capacity to deploy it — not the capacity we might imagine from the outside.
The framework draws on two decades of post-disaster research showing that grassroots civil society organisations consistently outperform large-scale relief operations in speed, relevance, and community trust — when they are empowered rather than bypassed.
"The organisations that proved most nimble were those operating with modest ambition matched to their actual capacity — local knowledge, earnest relationships, and the freedom to respond to what was directly in front of them."Lenore Ealy — Coordinates of Resilience, 2009 (Post-Katrina research)
The case for a civil society-first approach isn't ideology — it's fieldwork.
A 2006 US government study of Katrina relief expected to find that voluntary organisations supplemented official efforts and paled in comparison. All three assumptions proved false. Small organisations regularly outperformed FEMA and the Red Cross in speed, relevance, and human-level care.
When large outside actors — government or NGOs — dominate disaster response, they crowd out local civil society by absorbing volunteers, resources, and attention. Communities recover more slowly and with weaker long-term resilience when this vacuum forms.
Across Katrina, Sandy, Hurricane Dorian, and COVID, the single best predictor of community recovery speed is pre-existing social capital — the density of trust relationships, civic associations, and mutual aid networks. Funders who strengthen these assets invest in resilience, not just relief.
Drawn from post-disaster fieldwork by Lenore Ealy and Virgil Storr (Mercatus Center), these four qualities distinguish organisations that actually drive recovery.
The most effective organisations don't just aim for immediate relief — they hold a holistic picture of what a recovered community looks like and work backwards from there. We will prioritise grant applicants who can articulate this clearly.
Organisations with earned, intimate knowledge of their communities — their social fabric, cultural norms, trust networks — respond faster and more appropriately than outside actors, regardless of resources. Proof of roots matters more than proof of capacity.
The best responders are improvisers. They discover and connect resources creatively, adapt to changing needs on the ground, and don't wait for standardised procedures. Flexible, unrestricted funding is what makes this possible.
Organisations that put community recovery above their own institutional survival — sharing resources, deferring to others, creating clearinghouses rather than centres of power — generate the collaborative energy that sustains long-term recovery.
A phased approach that matches funding size to the organisation's proven capacity to absorb and deploy it well — avoiding the bureaucratisation trap.
Small, fast grants to organisations already known to Rising Tide's Venezuela partner network. Minimal paperwork, maximum speed. Priority to organisations with existing social capital and community presence — not those with the most polished funding applications.
As the picture on the ground becomes clearer, larger grants to organisations demonstrating effective deployment in phase 1. Grant size calibrated to organisational capacity — not simply "more money to the best performers." An organisation that managed a small grant well doesn't automatically get multiples more without evidence of absorptive capacity.
Larger, longer-term support for a small number of organisations with demonstrated track records and a coherent vision for sustained community recovery. At this stage, grantees may include organisations working on the structural conditions — civic space, economic rebuilding, community competence — not just material relief.
Phase 3 is also the natural moment where the Venezuela Rising Fund could kick in — picking up the longer arc of transition towards a free Venezuela, with its six focus areas of institutional reform, press freedom, entrepreneurship, education, talent return, and economic reconstruction.
The fund's design is shaped by what the evidence says actually works — including what it says actively undermines recovery.
| Dimension | Our approach — and why |
|---|---|
| Grant size Principle | Right-sized to the organisation's proven absorptive capacity. Oversized grants destabilise small organisations by forcing bureaucratisation before they can deploy. |
| Grantee type | Preference for deeply embedded, community-rooted organisations over national or international NGOs. Include faith-based organisations explicitly — they carry unique legitimacy and community trust. |
| Funding flexibility Principle | Unrestricted or lightly restricted. Rigid budget lines prevent the improvisation and resourcefulness that effective responders depend on. |
| Reporting Watch | Light-touch narrative reporting, not line-by-line financial accountability for small grants. Heavy reporting requirements consume exactly the time and energy that should go into relief work. |
| Selection criteria | Existing social capital — pre-earthquake relationships, community trust, and track record — matters more than organisational size, legal status, or previous donor relationships. |
| Geographic spread | Deliberately multi-regional. Resist the pull to concentrate in the most visible areas. Invisible communities often have the weakest access to incoming relief. |
If you are a funder thinking about responding to this crisis and want to learn from our experience — who we've met on the ground, how we've structured this fund, what we'd do differently — we're happy to share. We're not looking to channel funding through us, but we believe the more funders who get this right, the better the outcome for Venezuela.
Get in touch → venezuela@risingtide.ch