The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) will be organising another Resource Mobilisation Strategy Development (RMSD) Boot Camp from 14-17th September 2015, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The programme is one of AWDF’s flagship capacity building activities, which has become popular with fundraisers within grantee organisations as a critical step in developing their organisational financial sustainability. This year, 15 fundraisers from 15 organisations from South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana and Uganda will be participating in the 4-day boot camp in Johannesburg.
“I am particularly excited about this event because for the first time we have Malawi and Botswana attending this important event and hopefully they will also find the skills useful for strengthening their organisation’s financial sustainability efforts.” says Nafi Chinery, AWDF’s Capacity Building Programme Specialist. “AWDF is also grateful to the African Capacity Building Foundation for their continuous financial support to this project which is aimed at financial sustainability of women’s rights organisations in Africa”
Since its inception in 2013, 43 of AWDF’s grantee organisations from across the continent have participated in the RMSD bootcamp training aimed at helping them to develop effective fundraising strategies. The training has proven to be an invaluable resource to participants, a number of whom have experienced measurable improvement in their resource mobilisation:
“Amidst the unprecedented outbreak of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease, PIPA-SL Board and the Resource Mobiilsation Strategy (RMS) Committee have taken various steps towards marketing the RMS including organising four community engagement and dialogue forums targeting local authorities/stakeholders [.] [W]e have also engaged the local council authorities and have successfully discussed joint action plans geared towards marketing our RMS.” People’s Initiative for Poverty Alleviation-Sierra Leone (PIPA-SL), Sierra Leone and 2014 participant.
“Our annual operating budget before the RMS boot camp in 2014 was US$ 55,502. The RMSD training in early 2014 enhanced our capacity to increase our operating budget in three folds to US$ 171,387 [and] we are also in negotiations with donors to finance our 2015 operating budget of US$395,000.” Foundation for Integrated Development, Sierra Leone, and 2014 participant.
“We did not have efficient skills for writing good proposals and approaching partners. The RMSD boot camp gave us [the] insight that we don’t need to wait for calls for proposals [and] that we should look for funding and resources within our communities, which [can be] sources of support to our fundraising journey. We have secured new funding of US$53,295.5 from the World Bank through Akwa Ibom State Agency for the Control of AIDS (AKSACA) to provide an HIV prevention program in Akwa Ibom State” Heal the Land, Nigeria and 2014 participant.
This year’s would be AWDF’s third installment of the programme.