The fund raising challenge

My role with the Most At Risk Populations (MARPs) Network is to facilitate the building of a stronger organisation. As readers of this blog will have discovered by now I am hugely impressed by the organisation and the colleagues in the Network Secretariat team that I work with. The previous post describes the achievement of the Network moving into its own offices for the first time. There's a tangible feeling of "now we can really crack on and achieve something!".

A key factor in being able to secure the new office was that the Network received a set-up grant from a large donor agency. The funding received has allowed for 6 months rent to be paid, for the office building to be cleaned and decorated and for some additional basic office furniture. As well as setting up the building, there’s two months worth of funding for salaries, travelling and office expenses.

Two months worth of running costs! In January the donor was talking about 6 months worth of running cost support but when the crunch came it was just two months - and the first payment arrived on the 29th day of the first month - and this first payment had to be used by the 30th day (it was April). The team managed to achieve this and then complete all the very detailed claim sheets 100% accurately otherwise no second payment. Well that hurdle has been achieved but we’re still awaiting the second payment - due in May but we’re now at 22 June and the money in the second payment has to be spent by 30 June.

From what I understand this donor’s funding practices are not completely unusual - many are (maybe understandably) cautious because they do not want their funds to be misused. However from where I observe matters I feel that the MARPs Network team are actually being close to being humiliated by this donor’s process. Sam, the Finance and Admin Officer seems to have done little else in the last six weeks other than run backwards and forwards to the donor’s local office to provide incredibly detailed reporting which then gets fed up to the donor’s regional HQ in Nairobi. It feels like MARPs Network is being funded to jump up and down for the donor rather than to get on with the task of supporting organisations working to support Most At Risk Populations.

I want to make it a priority in my work to assist the MARPs Secretariat team to seek out and secure funding support from organisations who have an approach which although appropriately robust will however leave the recipients feeling that they are dignified partners rather than wretched surfs. It’s also important to the effective working of a Network Support organisation to have access to money that can be used flexibly and promptly to support a particular priority or urgent issue that emerges. So much of current funding is strictly administered and tied to detailed historical budgets that may well be out-of-date by the time the money arrives.

I have noticed in my research that many or most of the potential British and European donors who appear willing to fund organisations like the MARPs Network will only do so through a British / European-based Trust or Foundation that is working with or linked to a Ugandan-based organisation. This is, for example, certainly true for Comic Relief who in every other respect are celebrated for having a brilliant relationship with the organisations that they fund.

So what can we do?

In the past months we have been busy setting up good systems within the MARPs Secretariat and we have now achieved “PADOR” status with the European Union - deemed theoretically suitable to receive EU Aid. We are exploring a particular avenue at the moment. However that funding, if we get it, will be very tightly focused.

So we’d like to get a UK Trust established that can be linked to the MARPs Network. We imagine that any such UK Trust would have: (1) a UK / focus of interest around positive sexual health - perhaps focusing on young people; and (2) a focus of supporting the MARPs Network in Uganda by acting as a fund raising vehicle and a conduit for funds from other grant-making bodies in the UK / Europe.

Having two such focuses will open up the possibility of joint working / exchanges and mutual learning.

Are you, dear reader / follower of this blog able and willing to help?

It would be great if someone could do the research needed to set up a Trust and to co-ordinate the recruitment of some Trustees.

We’ll do loads from this end to supply information and photographs explaining the importance of the work - especially in Uganda at this time.

If anyone feels inspired to respond to this (gentle and loving!!) challenge please send us a message on ianandrenate@gmail.com and we can take it from there.

Sorry if this has seemed a bit of a long and ‘ranty’ post!