By Mr. Mange Ram Adhana, President of the Association For Promotion Sustainable Development, India, and CIVICUS member.
My colleague and I attended a 5 day Local Fundraising training organized by Change the Game Academy, Wilde Ganzen, and local partner SMILE Foundation, on June 4, 2018. The intention was to test the training as pioneers among the CIVICUS Community, to discuss ways to potentially open up these types of learning opportunities further to more CIVICUS members.
This full time training included 20 sessions. It was a really enjoyable and new learning opportunity for all of us. The trainers were very good at conducting the sessions and the facilitators helped to keep the participants continuously energized, throughout the sessions.
The inputs and new skills which we have gained will go a long way in our journey in the field of fundraising.
These are the key lessons I learned:
- Love your work, not the organisation per se.
- Know the need of the donor
- Understand the mindset of the donor
- Build a strong elevator pitch.
- Maslow theory - a central theoryof what drives human behaviour
- 9 key steps for preparing for project
- Prepare a database of key contacts.
- Know your strengths and weakness.
Above all, the games we played and the learning we experienced have given us new dimension and new vision all together.
I am now planning to re-frame our organisation with new guidelines and the new learning I have received. I deeply express my heartfelt thanks for the opportunity to take part in such an informative and enriching skill development training course.
I wish that in the future, these new learnt local fund raising techniques, once adopted, will enable us to not depend on foreign funding anymore. True sustainability comes with strengthening our own self first locally and then globally.
Photo Credit: SMILE
