CUL Modular Unlearning Cycle 2

September 16 - December 11, 2026

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Expression of Interest

From Reflection to Practice Change in Philanthropy and Development

Thank you for your interest in joining the PRA Collaborative Unlearning Labs 2026.

The Collaborative Unlearning Labs are reflective and practice-oriented spaces for funders, INGOs, intermediaries, community-based organisations, locally led organisations, and development practitioners who are ready to examine how power, colonial legacies, funding practices, partnership behaviours, and institutional assumptions shape development and philanthropy.

The Labs are grounded in the PRA Collaborative Unlearning Cycle: Surface, Disrupt, Reframe and Practise. This approach supports participants to move from awareness and critical reflection into concrete changes in behaviour, relationships, decision-making, funding, accountability and institutional practice.

Cohort Dates

Start date: 17 September 2026
Expected completion: 10 December 2026
Format: Online
Frequency: Biweekly sessions
Duration: 12-week learning journey
Session length: Approximately 2 hours per session

Available Unlearning Lab Pathways

Please select the pathway that best fits your role or organisation.

1. Funder Unlearning Lab

From Grantmaking to Solidarity Stewardship

For donors, foundations, grantmakers, philanthropic advisors, funding intermediaries and institutions seeking to rethink how money, trust, risk, decision-making and accountability operate in grantmaking.

This Lab will explore:

  • Colonial legacies and the case for unlearning

  • Money as power

  • Disrupting saviourism and heroic philanthropy

  • Racialised risk and compliance as control

  • From generosity to reparative solidarity stewardship

  • From localisation to locally held authority

  • Redistributing decision rights across the grantmaking cycle

  • Flexible, full-cost and mutually accountable funding

Core invitation:
What are we willing to change so that money moves with more trust, dignity, solidarity and shared power?

2. Intermediary and INGO Unlearning Lab

From Gatekeeping to Solidarity Accompaniment

For INGOs, intermediary organisations, consortium leads, localisation teams, partnership teams, grant managers and organisations positioned between donors and communities.

This Lab will explore:

  • Who benefits from intermediation

  • Internal coloniality within headquarters, country offices and professional hierarchies

  • Subcontracting disguised as partnership

  • Capacity deficit narratives and the transfer of cost and risk

  • From gatekeeper to time-bound bridge

  • From capacity building to capacity recognition

  • Solidarity accompaniment

  • Equitable consortium and partnership architecture

  • Responsible power transfer and institutional transition

Core invitation:
How do we use our access and infrastructure to make local power more possible — not our control more permanent?

3. Community-Based and Locally Led Organisation Unlearning Lab

From Survival to Agency

For community-based organisations, grassroots groups, local NGOs, women-led organisations, youth-led organisations, movement actors and locally led organisations seeking to strengthen agency while remaining accountable to communities.

This Lab will explore:

  • Donor validation, internalised dependency and mission drift

  • Internal power, elite capture and community legitimacy

  • Unlearning silence, negotiating and setting boundaries

  • Extractive representation and upward-only accountability

  • From beneficiary and sub-grantee to agenda setter and knowledge producer

  • From donor dependence to community-rooted agency and solidarity

  • Community accountability and inclusive governance

  • Mission-fit funding, negotiation and ecosystem solidarity

Core invitation:
How do we protect our purpose, negotiate with confidence, act in solidarity and remain accountable to the communities that give us legitimacy?

Who Should Apply

This Expression of Interest is open to individuals and organisations working in philanthropy, humanitarian action, development, civil society, community organising, grantmaking, partnership brokering, accompaniment, advocacy, research, movement building, and locally led change.

We especially welcome participants who are willing to engage with honesty, humility, courage and care.

Participation Expectations

Participants are expected to:

  • Attend the full learning journey where possible

  • Participate actively and respectfully

  • Engage in personal and institutional reflection

  • Complete light reflection tasks between sessions

  • Identify one practice-change experiment to test after the Lab

  • Contribute to a learning culture rooted in trust, humility, reciprocity and solidarity