A LONG-TERM VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE PATH FORWARD

Securing funding and learning to navigate donor expectations can be challenging for nonprofits. Pausing to reflect on your long-term vision can help you plan for a sustainable path forward. 

Krupa Patel is an Acumen East Africa Fellow and co-founder of Anza, which is a business incubator, investment readiness accelerator, and co-working space with a mission to drive job creation and scale businesses that provide life-improving products and services in Tanzania.

Krupa was born in the United Kingdom to parents who were born and raised in Uganda, and who left the country as refugees in the 1970s. She and her sister knew they would return to East Africa one day. In 2009, they sought out a gap they could fill in the market.

“We realized that entrepreneurs had a significant ability to drive improvements across all sectors of society and to provide access to basic services in healthcare, education, water and sanitation, energy, and the agricultural value chain,” Krupa said. “However, the entrepreneurial journey is a difficult one, even more so in an economy like Tanzania that ranks among the lowest on the scale of ease of doing business.”

To ease the burden on entrepreneurs, Krupa knew she needed to provide a range of meaningful services through Anza, as well as flexible and affordable capital. 

Before she could grow her social venture, Krupa needed to learn how to navigate the expectations of donors and understand when to say “no” to a funding opportunity, which is often challenging for newcomers to the sector.

After three years of growing Anza, Krupa was invited to her first meeting with a regional family foundation. She jumped on a bus and traveled to a coffee shop several hours away to meet with a program officer at the Segal Foundation, which funds grassroots leaders in Africa.

“By this point, we had a lot more clarity around our programs and the methods we used to support our entrepreneurs,” Krupa said. “However, I couldn’t respond to any of their technical questions. They asked about our plan for monitoring and evaluation, and I didn’t know what that was.” Many of the funder’s questions focused on the nonprofit’s finances, such as its operating budget and percentage of earned revenue (or self-generated income). They also asked about the nonprofit’s theory of change and how Krupa would know if the interventions resulted in the outcomes she expected.

“You could see they were not surprised, but perhaps more concerned,” she said. “I remember getting so flustered and thinking, this is way too early to start talking to these large, formal foundations. Let’s close our doors, go into hibernation for another year, figure out these technical terms, and get all these systems into place.”

Then Krupa received surprising news: The Segal Foundation decided to fund Anza. In the end, the foundation combined grant capital with training and technical assistance to ensure Anza would be ready for success.  “I think what I really appreciate about them — and what I now look for in any funding partner — is that they met us where we were,” Krupa said. “Over the years, I’ve learned that even the largest not-for-profits are a work-in-progress. We’re all progressing toward something.” 

“I think it’s important to be transparent in your relationships with funders, especially in the early days,” she continued. “It’s kind of like dating, right? At some point, they will wake up and understand the reality of who you are. I think our transparency at that early stage helped the foundation know our gaps, and then they could provide technical assistance around our needs.”

As Anza grew and took on more funders, Krupa learned the importance of having a long-term vision and a clear picture of her financial needs.

“You start by saying, ‘We want to be here in five years,’” Krupa said. “Therefore, these are our strategic priorities for the next 12 months, and we’ll need these programs and staffing. That is the overall scaffolding of an operating budget.”

By starting with her budget and strategic priorities, Krupa understood exactly why she was fundraising and how much she hoped to raise. She also learned when to say “no” to an opportunity.

“We’ve experienced one or two partnerships that overstretched us,” Krupa said. “It’s important to take on the right type of capital. It can be a difficult decision — for example, there may be a period of time where you need cash flow to make payroll and you will be tempted by a large grant.” “But unless it is truly mission aligned, it could end up taking you on a detour,” she said. “It might not seem like a terrible thing, but a few years later, you’re a very different organization from the one you initially intended to become.”

Today, Krupa sits on the Board of Advisors at Anza. One of the board’s responsibilities is assessing whether a funding opportunity is aligned with the nonprofit’s theory of change.

All in all, Krupa’s unrelenting focus on her long-term vision has helped Anza grow sustainably. When you’re clear about your resources, capabilities, and mission, you can build transparency with your partners and operate with greater impact.

ADOPTING A DONOR-FOCUSED STRATEGY IN A DIFFICULT CONTEXT

In rural and tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, India, many schools have been shut down or destroyed by violent extremism. More than 30,000 children are losing their opportunity for an education.

Ashish Shrivastava founded the nonprofit Shiksharth to improve the quality of education in these conflict-affected areas. Shiksharth is directly serving more than 6,000 children by creating academic resources that are appropriate for tribal areas and working in partnership with local governments. 

“We create solutions in three ways,” Ashish explained. “We provide access to schooling because it doesn’t exist. We create safe spaces for the children so they can express and experience compassion and empathy. Finally, we make learning contextually relevant for them. When teaching the ABCs, an airplane doesn’t make sense for a tribal child, but an arrow does.”

However, due to the nature of the work and its remote location, Ashish had to figure out how to win the hearts and minds of donors from afar. 

“We are in a conflict zone and the nearest city is 400 kilometers away,” Ashish said. “We hardly get visitors. Nobody can see what we do or validate our work. So how do you build credibility?”

“We don’t have access to corporate social responsibility because most corporates will avoid working in conflict areas and taking on any risks that might dilute or become a threat to their brand,” Ashish added. To overcome these challenges and fundraise successfully, Ashish needed to strengthen the ways he communicated with funders, including high-net-worth individuals, small donors, and corporate giving programs.

“At the beginning, there was no structure to our fundraising,” he said. “Whenever we needed money, we would reach out and say, ‘Can you donate?’ We didn’t have a strategy or engage with donors in between the gaps.” In his first year of fundraising, Ashish said his greatest mistake came from not differentiating Shiksharth in his communication with potential donors.

Ashish had to pause and reflect on Shiksharth’s value proposition: What made them different from others in their sector? 

Donors “have seen a lot of educational organizations,” Ashish said. “In India right now, every city has hundreds. But when I pitch that I am working for tribal children who are affected by conflict, this is something new that they haven’t been exposed to before.” 

But for some donors, the rural and tribal focus was not enough.  Ashish needed to create an emotional connection to the work.

“For any donor in Mumbai or Delhi, they can easily go to a slum near their home and support a child,” he explained. “What would motivate them to support someone in a tribal area?”

“Donors always connect through stories,” he continued. “If you say that every child deserves a peaceful childhood, then the donor should immediately remember his childhood and imagine what these children are experiencing. That personal connection is important, and initially, we didn’t do it well.”

Over time, Ashish learned how to pitch Shiksharth in a way that spoke to a donor’s motivations.

“Individual donors often have different motivations than corporate social responsibility initiatives,” Ashish said. While corporations are interested in the unit impact of grants — for example, $1,000 in exchange for reaching 500 children — many individual donors are seeking out solutions with systemic impact. 

“To these donors, I explain that our work is not only about these children, or this particular geography, but about building peace in the larger ecosystem,” he said.

Finally, to encourage small donors to support Shiksharth, Ashish illustrates the impact of their modest contribution. 

“A lot of small donors get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem,” he said. “Then they tend to get disillusioned. They think, ‘If I’m donating one thousand rupees, how is this going to change anything in this country?’ So it is important for them to visually see how even one dollar can have a transformational impact.”

By understanding his nonprofit’s value proposition and tailoring his communication for each donor, Ashish has managed to create reliable revenue streams — including crowdfunding campaigns, individual donors, and corporate giving — in the most difficult of contexts.