What if the future of freedom and democracy depends on something as everyday as a donation? In this talk, fundraising consultant Ilja De Coster wears his other hat — that of a passionate political philosopher and revisits leading 19th-century thinker philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville’s enduring insight that democracy requires decentralisation of power, and that independent funding is the lifeblood of counterforce. From this foundation, he builds a bold thesis: no democracy without civil society, and no civil society without fundraising.
At a time when civic space is shrinking across the globe, the talk explores how funding given directly by citizens empowers organisations to act as critical watchdogs against political and economic power, to meet societal needs where the welfare state falls short, and to weave the social capital that holds democracies together. It is an invitation to fundraisers to see their jobs not as a technical marketing exercise, but as a profoundly political act of democratic renewal — and to rethink the role each of us can play in sustaining a free society.
