For your Grassroot Networks
Capacity Building and Communication Tools Development: To enable grassroot Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in their fundraising efforts by creating communication tools and building their capacities on 'Basics in Communication for Donor Engagement'.
Insight
Upon interacting with these grassroot CBOs, we noticed a piece that was hidden in plain sight - the quality of their interventions & the power of their ‘everyday’ stories!
Every intervention was carefully thought through and informed by needs that arose within the community, but somehow these were not coming through in their conversation or their reports.
We realized that they had all the raw materials to WOW any donor, but they just did not know HOW to communicate their stories!
Context
Numerous community based organizations (CBOs) have been working in the field of HIV prevention and treatment support through funding from various agencies in the last few decades. With the decline in funding, there is significant support provided to these CBOs to build their capacities in different areas so that they become self sustainable and independent.
Challenge
Emerging from the grassroots these CBOs were devoid of any capacity to develop even the basic communication tools such as a brochure or an annual report. A website for their organization was non existent. Furthermore, they struggled with being present on digital media, let alone being active. These challenges posed a barrier for them to approach any donor for funding.
Results
Solution
We co-created a powerful solution to help these CBOs meet their potential via a comprehensive and holistic capacity building program that would help them to find their voice and communicate their work and the stories more powerfully. The program consisted of:
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Immersion & Insighting visits: To understand the founders, the organization’s purpose vision, mission & field projects and innovation in their interventions
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Revamp of their social brand: Visual & verbal language that resonated with their ethos, vision & missions.
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Basic Communication tools: Development of key CBO Brand assets like Websites & Annual Reports, that would showcase their programs and impact stories effectively
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Fundraising Assets & Fundraising Collaterals: Developing Project Brochures for their key projects & leveraging social media such as LinkedIn in for outreach & communications with potential donors
Most importantly we over-indexed on THEM. We ensured that what they took away from the program, outlasted our intervention. We supported each of the above with a complementary Communication Capacity Building for Sustainability which involved:
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Telling powerful field stories: Effective Story-telling & other qualitative techniques to teach them how to gather field stories &report impact in the most effective way. These were supplemented by tangible techniques on Mobile Photography so they can generate high quality ‘raw material’ for their impact stories.
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Content repurposing: How to use this information as a common denominator to create multiple content & reporting requirements like Social Media, Impact Reports, Testimonials, Brochures & Annual Reports
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AI Automation & Social Media: How to use AI tools like ChatGPT & Canva from an implementation lens. And tips & techniques to generate communication collaterals that can suit different purposes with least effort.
CBO Outputs Delivered
For each of the 9 CBOs, we developed a Communication & Fundraising support toolkit consisting of:
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Refreshed Brand logos
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Websites
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Annual Reports
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Fundraising Brochure
CBO Knowledge and Skills Delivered
For each of the 9 CBOs, we conducted four capacity building sessions, breaking down the fundamental concepts of donor engagement:
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What is Branding and Why it Matters
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Creating Engaging Social Media Posts
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Learning the Basics of Photography
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Social Media Posting Guidelines
