Three things we’ve learned on CSO fundraising
As funding pressures continue to be a key challenge for civic sustainability, Wendy Trott and Murray Hunter reflect on some of the lessons and best practices in ALT Impact’s fundraising work.
In 2021 we launched ALT Impact, our division focused on strategic support for civic organisations.
In part, this decision was informed by opportunity: one of us (Wendy) had previously worked with a large international impact funder, which offered a bird’s eye view of best practice in civic initiatives, as well as an insider look at the funding landscape. The other (Murray) had over a decade’s experience in non-profit strategy and fundraising.
But the decision was equally informed by need: ALT has been able to work across multiple sectors and jurisdictions, with dozens of incredible non-profits and civic actors. These experiences gave us a deep appreciation of the challenges facing the civic sector, including funding constraints, hostile political climates, and capacity shortages. We launched ALT Impact with the aim of using this expertise to help civic organisations become more resilient, sustainable, and impactful.
Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest needs expressed among the organisations in our network is for fundraising support. (Note: this piece was written before the recent chaos and uncertainty sparked by the Trump administration’s suspension of international aid, but these events are likely only to make this need even greater.) While there are no easy fixes in the realm of organisational fundraising, here are a few reflections on best practices we have observed in our work.
- Every fundraising cycle starts with an organisational strategy
As obvious as it sounds, our fundraising process often starts with revisiting what the organisation does, how, and why. For many organisations, there is a clear set of answers to these questions, informed by a strong organisational strategy. But some organisations – even those who have been operating for years, with impressive accomplishments to show for it – need to start by revisiting these questions.
In these instances, before we start mapping potential funders, or developing fundraising materials, we often find it useful to start with a strategic planning process, bringing the team together to ensure there is a clear, shared vision for the organisation’s work and its metrics for success.
- The donor landscape is tight – but funding is out there
The competitive funding environment is well-known, especially as funding priorities shift from issue to issue – even before the recent disruptions to international aid threatened by the US. From 2011 to 2020, for example, the portion of human rights funding allocated to civic participation in sub-Saharan Africa fell by three-fold (from 9% of grant spending to 3%) and the portion allocated to expressive rights fell by six-fold (from 6% to just 1% of spending). And unfortunately, we know that even having a strong organisational strategy, excellent track record, and all the other components of a healthy organisation do not guarantee access to funding. But despite these challenges, many of our partners have continued to find success through a range of both traditional and more creative approaches.
Often this has still centred on traditional philanthropic grant funding – with organisations expanding their prospects by identifying new funding opportunities in overlooked sectors, or by refining their fundraising strategies to create new opportunities with existing funders.
But other approaches exist as well. Elsewhere in the sector, Gabriella Razzanno recently documented some of the insights that enabled OpenUp, a civic tech initiative, to move the organisation away from reliance on grant income.
Among ALT Impact’s partners, the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) is a commendable example of how to augment traditional grant funding with a solid base of earned income. PMG’s invaluable public record of the work of South Africa’s legislature enabled it to offer commercial subscriptions to businesses and organisations who want expanded access to its comprehensive reporting. Importantly, the organisation has managed this while staying true to its commitment to open access: Only certain niche content is paywalled, and the majority of PMG’s content is freely available to everyone. PMG also gives free subscriber access to NGOs, students, and academic researchers.
Another partner, the Health Justice Initiative (HJI), has taken an innovative approach to expand its work into the niche but critical intersection of health justice and climate change. By looking beyond traditional social justice funders in Africa to alternative funders in the US and UK, HJI has been able to bring in project-specific funding – for example, to hold a global convening for health and climate justice movements in Rio de Janeiro – that both served to get this work moving while also creating enough capacity to seek out longer-term funding to sustain it.
One caveat: where these approaches have succeeded, it is almost always the result of an organisation developing an income-generating initiative that was closely tied to its existing mission and purpose. We would urge caution to ensure organisations avoid investing limited time and energy in revenue-oriented “side projects” that take the organisation and its people away from their core work.
- Don’t neglect your Learning and Impact (M&E)
Sorry, we know this isn’t everyone’s favourite. (Note: we prefer the term Learning and Impact over Monitoring and Evaluation, to focus on the purpose of the activity, rather than the process, but what you call it matters less than how you use it!) We know it can be all too easy to treat this part of organisational work as a ‘grudge’ process when there is so much important programmatic work to do. Some organisations only adopt an evaluation process when it’s a donor requirement.
But we have seen that organisations who have developed a fit-for-purpose approach to Learning and Impact have better fundraising prospects, and – more importantly – are generally more likely to be making the change they want to see in the world. We also believe that part of the ‘M&E grudge’ stems from a belief that these processes are hopelessly onerous. But Learning and Impact processes don’t need to be so finicky. In fact, we always look for the simplest and lightest-touch way to ensure an organisation can keep track of the work it’s doing and see that this work is helping achieve its goals.
Needless to say, the best time to start developing these processes is long before a funding cycle starts – but the second-best time is right now.
Wendy Trott, head of ALT’s impact division, is currently on secondment to Power & Associates as a candidate legal practitioner. Murray Hunter is a senior associate for ALT Advisory.
