10 years of Start Fund

Small and medium-scale crises, often overlooked due to a widening funding gap, disproportionately impact the world's at-risk populations. The Start Fund fills a critical gap in the humanitarian aid system, and enables agencies to leverage further funding as a result of Start Fund-supported projects.

The humanitarian sector must move towards delivering effective, appropriate, and dignified support through locally led action. Start Fund operates on the principle of decentralised decision-making by shifting processes closer to affected communities.

Humanitarian assistance is often slow. Over the last 10 years, the Start Fund has proven its timeliness and effectiveness, allowing us to deliver things at speed and reach more people in need.

Humanitarians need to prioritise anticipatory action alongside response, saving lives before crises and building community resilience. Start Fund enables this by supporting early action and preparedness through various programming that forward anticipatory action.

Start Fund's innovative approach empowers communities and members and ensures high-quality projects that put trust and accountability at the core of decision-making and partnership-building.

The Start Fund promotes collaboration across and between humanitarian actors, communities, and governments. We must champion close collaboration to provide impactful humanitarian action.

National Start Funds continue to model flexible, locally-led crisis response, inspiring a more effective humanitarian approach.

To bridge the funding gap, humanitarians need to learn to fail fast and forward. Start Fund fosters innovation by supporting members through learning approaches that allow them to be creative and inventive.

Humanitarians need to adapt to the increasing intensity, frequency, and types of crises we face. Start Fund is an agile mechanism that allows actors to prepare for what may come in the next years.

Start Fund was born out of the desire to change the slow and traditional humanitarian system. We are eager to continue what we’ve started and be ahead of trends to support our members and the wider system.