In international development, we see many programs focus on training and funding as their primary tools for impact. At Rise Up, we know that real transformation requires more. The pivotal moment comes when leaders move from designing their strategies to putting them into practice, meeting decision-makers, mobilizing their communities, and navigating complex systems to drive large-scale change for women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people. Rise Up Leaders often face shifting political contexts, organizational hurdles, and unexpected challenges. In these moments, funding alone is not enough. What leaders need is a trusted thought partner who offers sustained technical assistance – and that’s what makes Rise Up special.
Rise Up’s model of technical assistance goes far beyond traditional capacity building. We combine expert 1:1 guidance, structured problem solving, and context-specific thought partnership to ensure that leaders not only achieve immediate impact but also grow into more effective advocates for the long term. An external evaluation of Rise Up’s work, conducted by Dalberg Advisors, affirmed this approach: leaders across Rise Up’s global network highlighted ongoing technical assistance as the key factor that helped them translate learnings into practice. They emphasized the critical role of Rise Up’s country-based team members in helping them execute projects, and pivot their strategies in response to new challenges, including political transitions, lack of political will, and other unpredictable threats.
Rise Up provides an average of more than 70 hours of direct technical assistance to grantees over a period of 18 months. Rather than concentrating this support at the beginning of their journey with Rise Up, we spread it across the entire life cycle of their advocacy project: from proposal development and grantmaking documentation to project implementation and reporting.
What sets Rise Up’s technical assistance apart is the depth of engagement. Locally based team members provide virtual consultations, make key introductions, and even attend advocacy events alongside leaders when appropriate. This level of proximity builds accountability, broadens leaders’ networks, and ensures strategies remain responsive to evolving global contexts.
Rise Up’s country-based team members utilized the Logic Framework, a simple tool that lays out an advocacy project’s objectives, activities, and expected results in one place, further strengthening our approach to technical assistance. Leaders are encouraged to revisit and update their frameworks every three months, mapping what’s actually happening on the ground against planned results. This structured tool allows Rise Up team members to monitor progress, identify gaps early, and make collaborative adjustments to keep strategies effective and on track.
The outcomes speak for themselves. Leaders consistently report that technical assistance makes the difference between ambitious advocacy proposals and concrete results. Over time, our model has built a global network of hundreds of skilled advocates who know how to design strong proposals, navigate complex political landscapes, measure their impact, and secure additional funding.
And the benefits do not stop when a grant ends. Alumni continue to receive support through quarterly resource emails, referrals to local opportunities, and, for selected leaders, coaching for public speaking engagements or international convenings.
In a sector that often values scale over depth, Rise Up’s model for technical assistance demonstrates that deep investment in leaders creates lasting change with compounding effects. By integrating structured tools and providing intensive technical support throughout project implementation, Rise Up ensures that leaders are not just recipients of funding, but long-term agents of change capable of advancing gender equity and justice well beyond a single project.
This is the kind of support that moves advocacy from aspiration to achievement, and it is what makes Rise Up’s technical assistance a powerful catalyst for transformation.
