Introduction
There is an oft-used saying that applies especially to the field of international development field: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Perhaps the only piece missing is that the man might also need a quality fishing rod! As a long-time program manager and fundraiser I have seen many donors interested in ‘teaching to fish’ but not as many willing to supply the tools, or the ‘quality fishing rod’.
(Ad) Are You Searching for Latest Grants, New Donors, Sample Proposals, Jobs and How to Apply Resources? fundsforNGOs Premium has all these and more at one place! Learn more.
In this guide we will focus not so much on the support to NGO programs (teaching how to fish) but on the tools needed to do so effectively and sustainably (the fishing rod). In short, how can we improve the basic tools of the NGO (cash, staff, training, equipment, housing, etc.) to ensure sustainability and long-term impact?
Types of Sustainability
(Ad) Stop getting irritated with excessing advertisements. View the information you want quickly on a clean, ad-free and exclusive Member Dashboard that offers tools to search for grants, view latest grant opportunities, upcoming deadlines, sample proposals, downloadable ebooks and also organize your favourites! Learn more.
There are different ways in which development experts define sustainability. A fairly typical definition is that sustainability consists of three components:
1) Financial: Where the project continues to attract funding from other sources when the donor withdraws. E.g. the NGO successfully receives grants from one or more other donors.
(Ad) Are you still finding it difficult to search for donors online? Join Premium and use our powerful Donor Search mechanism to find relevant donors based on your country and location or keyword. Our specially developed algorithm will search across the internet for the most relevant and useful donors of your interest willing to fund your work. Learn more.
2) Institutional sustainability: Where the NGO has the capacity to function and grow. The NGO has built structures that will allow impact to remain in place. E.g. they have the high-quality, trained staff and operational underpinning to excel.
3) Policy: Where the policy changes brought about by the project continue to exist when the donor withdraws. E.g. government legislation on child labor, which the NGO advocated for is adopted and implemented.
(Ad) Not able to keep track of so may different grant opportunities and their deadlines? No problem! fundsforNGOs Premium has a handy tool called "Deadline Calendar." This tool will help you keep track of all upcoming grant opportunities and their deadlines and view them in a beautiful calendar format. Learn more.
In this guide we will discuss ways in which donors can ensure that NGOs in the developing world will successfully meet the first two challenges: ensuring financial and institutional sustainability. Success in these two areas will support success on the programmatic and policy side. Donors that think long-term and spend time and resources to ensure that NGOs are continuously improving and building their capacity will have the best chance of accelerating long-term impact and survival. Those that do not will either shift the cost of doing so to other donors, or set the NGO on a path to failure.
Please visit here to view the top 12 tips.
(Ad) Are you looking for readymade proposals? fundsforNGOs Premium has a vast collection of Sample Proposals from successful grantees around the world. These proposals are available for viewing so that you can quickly get new ideas, best practices, lessons learned and develop your proposal in the perfect manner. Learn more.
