How to fund your NGO

By now, you’ve probably gone through my article on registering your NGO in Zambia and maybe you’re relieved because you’ve calculated what you need and how much you need to get started but, don’t unroll your sleeves just yet, there is more. Running an NGO takes a lot of grit and innovation, AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY. And I know money is hard to come by so I put together a short list for you to give you ideas on how best to fund your NGO. Feel free to mix, use them all if you have to, tweak them a little bit to suit your organization. Just make sure you secure that bag, ok? This article has some ideas on how you can raise funds to fund your NGO.
Shall we?

MEMBERSHIP FEES

I like to say, that we all can’t be founders. Find people who are passionate about what cause your organization is pushing and create space for these people to help you achieve your goals. As the saying goes, “if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to further, go together.”

Set up a weekly, monthly or an annual membership fee to raise funds for the organizations operations. Most non-profits I know are currently using this strategy, including churches.

Let’s take for a example you are an NGO that’s established a community school and your budget for operations is K5000. Coming by this amount by yourself would be difficult if you have limited resources, but K5000 divided by 10 people is K500 each, and by 100 people is only K50.

SET UP A NON-PROFIT BUSINESS
Have you ever heard of a non-profit business? This means that you will be running a full business, but all profits will go towards raising money to fund your NGO’s projects. My favourites are undoubtedly Francis Mwamba and the My Dreams Project and DAPP Second Hands and Shoes Project.
Francis Mwamba runs various charity programmes and guess what? He runs various businesses as well to be able to fund these charity projects. (You can read about him here)
Another absolute favourite of mine is DAPP ZAMBIA’s Second Hand Clothes and Shoes Enterprise, I’ve been to their stores many times and it gives me utmost joy to know that when I buy something from there, I’m helping solve various issues in one way or another. All their profits go towards funding some of their amazing projects. They contribute to climate change mitigation and providing employment and means of income to unemployed locals.

PARTNER WITH A FOR-PROFIT BUSINESS
This is also known as cause-related marketing, you basically pick a for-profit business and partner with them to raise money for your cause, in this case to raise money to fund your NGO operations in Zambia. I’m sure you’ve been to large supermarkets like Pick N Pay and Shoprite and they have these tins or a compartment at the till where you drop money for charities. You could do the same, although I feel that going to Supermarkets will soon be outdated and I’m sure the process is long and draining. You see, supporting charities is good publicity for any business, you could consider partnering with upcoming enterprises and even smaller ones (SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL TEAM AND YOUNG PEOPLE!)

CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
This is where you partner with a company in order to gain money, donations, advice and any kind of support to fund your NGO operations. Remember, anything you can use to go forward is wealth, it might not be money, it might be advice or even a service like website development or digital marketing. There’s a catch though, you have to give them free advertising and publicity so this means you have to display their logos or their services on website, your events. Give them an honourable mention on your social media. So this option isn’t entirely free, you have to work really hard to satisfy your corporate partner. (Please feel free to contact me, I can help you get started 😉.)

GRANTS
I had the rare privilege of touring Misisi Compound in Lusaka (I will be writing about it soon), and I discovered that most community schools are supported by government and NGO grants.

Alternatively, you may consider other grants such as grants that come from International Aid Organizations like USAID.

You may also check for opportunities to win grants on the Opportunities page.

DONATIONS
This is the most common form of raising funds for NGO’s in Zambia and I feel that not only is it an unreliable method, it’s also very unsustainable. Use it as a supplementary to any other methods, or you can use it to start and develop more sustainable and reliable funding methods. I will give you a few tips for going about this procedure;

Firstly, especially make donating easy for donors, register your organization and get a sim card registered with the name of your organization and open a mobile money account. This will make it easier for people to donate. People won’t always give though. Last year I decided to raise money for a friend of mine who wanted to go to school but didn’t have a bursary, I only managed to raise K300 out of K23,000. So you have to be really innovative about how you ask for donations and maybe insistent.

Remember to keep a database of all your donors, their contacts and what they donated. Make sure to let them know how their donation helped make an impact.

Also remember, donations is not just money, it can be clothes, furniture, services and so on, be sure to accept even what you didn’t plan to receive.

I hope this article has opened your mind in one way or another. I am looking forward to seeing you do amazing things, please let me know how it goes.