Money, culture, and change; financial sustainability, and the inner-life of youth-led organisations in Medellin, Colombia

The thesis examines the role of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in development, by inquiring into their capacity to articulate and enact alternative solutions towards social transformation (Banks, Hulme, & Edwards, 2015). More specifically, the thesis enhances our knowledge of how CSOs engage with the shrinking availability of funding for civil society. A prominent view within the literature is that to assure their financial sustainability, CSOs need to engage with and harness market forces- reflecting what some have seen as a process of deepmarketisation that has accompanied the hegemony of the neoliberal model (Carroll & Jarvis, 2015). This research inquired into the pathways toward financial sustainability taken by small, value-driven, youth-led CSOs in Medellin, Colombia. I aimed to understand the connections between how organisations finance themselves and their culture, worldviews, and contributions to social change. The backbone of this research is a cooperative inquiry called Plata, Cultura, y Cambio (Spanish for ‘Money, Culture, and Change’) which, over the course of ten months, engaged ten leaders of youth-led CSOs in Medellin, Colombia, in a process of self-reflection (first person inquiry), collective analysis, and exploration of their organisational cultures and practices (second person inquiry) (Heron & Reason, 1997; Reason & Bradbury, 2008). The findings from this action research process contribute to a deeper understanding of the world-views of the leaders of youth-led CSOs in Medellin. The argument I develop is that while seeking financial sustainability, youth-led CSOs in Medellin experience and must navigate the tension between official development discourses that promote competitiveness, innovation, the creation of employment and economic growth, and their own commitment to the co-creation of meaning around spaces, ideas, and practices that help people be together, reflect on their reality, and express themselves. To navigate this tension, they are learning how to selectively engage with market logic, while creating mechanisms to generate non-market values through economies of solidarity.