Building Financial Independence:

What We Learned from the UAP Umbrella Reserve Fund Session

In a learning session hosted by CivFund, grassroots partners moved sustainability from a buzzword to a practical pathway, exploring how civil society organisations can shift from surviving between grants to building financial independence through unit trusts and reserve funds. Framed as both a technical and feminist conversation about money, power, and autonomy, the session unpacked unit trusts as stable, collective investment schemes that pool funds into lower-risk instruments such as government bonds, treasury bills, and fixed deposits. Partners learned that unit trusts can be accessible and flexible, offering competitive r

eturns, daily compounding, and quick liquidity, while also requiring strong governance, donor consent where applicable, and clear internal investment policies. Personal testimonies from participants helped ground the learning in real experience, reinforcing a key takeaway: financial resilience is not reserved for big institutions, it is attainable for grassroots organisations too, when approached deliberately, ethically, and collectively.

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