This is a new series of posts on power. It is inspired by conversations during my course ‘RADIQUAL M&E: Practicing Participatory, Decolonial, Intersectional, and Inclusive Methods’. In it, we talk about how starting with a deep understanding of power at the individual level can help us to shift it at the sector and global level. This shift follows a Theory of Change if-then pathway.

I wanted to share some reflections on these steps to support your work. We often look at power at the systemic level – changes, institutional influence, and the redistribution of resources. However, it starts at the individual level, and affects our biases, privileges, and access as individuals – which therefore also affects interactions with our world. I want to start here by better understanding how our personal power and the positionality of different players within the sector can help us become more effective at making systemic change.

Individual Power

At the individual level, power starts with the biases our privileges have brought to our lives. It also affects our ability to influence relationships and decisions across groups of people. It is shaped by a combination of factors, including your birthplace, assigned and chosen gender, age, and class – the ‘demographic markers’ of your life determine your relative power. All of these sit within a global hierarchy of power. Certain age groups are given more value than others (anyone of working age, essentially). Here, it starts with the markers that automatically give you power over other groups, power within your own, power with other groups similar to you – and ultimately, power to affect change.

Then there are the power markers you earn or take on through your life – the languages you speak, the job title you hold, the part of town where you live.

Our work should ultimately be about redistributing power to the most marginalised, and to do this properly, we need to get to grips with how power manifests within ourselves and the spaces we occupy.

Individual power can be explicit or implicit. Explicit power comes from formal roles and titles, such as leadership positions or decision-making authority. Implicit power, on the other hand, may come from knowledge, access to resources, or social capital—networks, relationships, or trust built over time. Recognising both, where in your life they show up and how, is a crucial first step for humility, self-awareness, and a willingness to share power in service of a greater cause.

Positionality

This is the social and political context that shapes our identities and perspectives. It is informed by factors such as those above that implicitly or explicitly affect our relationship with power, but it takes a step further to look at your surroundings. In our work, positionality influences how individuals see the world, engage with their work, and interact with our communities and partners.

For instance, a cis-gendered, more experienced executive leading a program will have a different understanding of and access to privilege and power than a younger intern working in the same program. Recognising this difference is essential for building more equitable relationships, as it highlights the ways in which power and privilege intersect with our work.

To better understand your positionality, ask yourself:

• What formal or informal power do I hold within my organisation or community?
• Why? Who gave this to me, and how do I benefit from systems of power?
• What is my role in upholding them? How can I do better?
• How am I marginalised by systems of power?
• How do my identities (race, gender, class, education, etc.) influence my access to power and opportunities?
• What biases do I have when it comes to understanding others’ experiences and perspectives? How do I engage with them now, and how can I do better?
• How will I know I have done so, and that I have worked to shift practices of power within myself and in my team?

By reflecting on these questions, we can gain greater clarity about our personal power, and identify easy practices to do better, and start on the journey to shifting power at the system level.

Recognising Power in our Sector

We work with a diverse range of players, from grassroots organisers to large foundations and international NGOs. Each actor operates within a different power structure, and their positionality can also vary widely. Grassroots organisations, for instance, may have deep knowledge of local issues and strong relationships with affected communities but are not valued by funders and power holders with financial resources. On the other hand, large foundations may wield significant financial power but are often disconnected from the lived realities of the communities they should serve.

Understanding and being honest about how power presents itself can give us pathways for a more equitable distribution. Those with greater formal power must be intentional about sharing that power and creating space for marginalised voices.

This can be confronting as it involves us acknowledging where we unduly benefit (and should not), and potentially ‘giving up’ our power to step aside. This can be done through participatory decision-making, like the team above, which can help bring in new perspectives. If these voices represent the communities and people for whom you work, that can go some way to helping empower smaller organisations to grow and scale their impact.

How to Better Understand Your Own Power

Once you have a clearer understanding, here are some steps forward:

Power Mapping can help identify where power lies within a system. By understanding how power flows within your organisation or network, you can identify opportunities to amplify marginalised voices and distribute resources more equitably.

Alliances can be developed with across different groups and positionalities, supporting each other. This involves creating authentic relationships with individuals and groups who hold different kinds of power, or who occupy different social positions, working together to address shared challenges.

Share Power – including formal or informal power. Think critically about how you can share it. This might involve delegating decision-making authority, creating spaces for others to speak and lead, or redistributing resources to support grassroots projects.

Practice Self-Awareness and Reflection on an ongoing basis. This involves recognising when your power is influencing a situation, and being mindful of how it affects others. Use it to act with empathy and responsibility.

The goal is not to reject power but to understand it and use it intentionally for the benefit of the communities we serve. This can help us build a more inclusive sector.