By the Botswana Council of NGOs (BOCONGO) Secretariat, Programs & PR Departments, member of Forus in Botswana

Capacity building for fundraising

BOCONGO hosted a Capacity building training for its members on resource mobilization and negotiation skills on 18th to 21st January 2021. This came as a much-needed exercise because many development partners have since left the country due to Botswana being listed as an upper middle-income economy, to focus on other needy regions. The remaining few agencies are those that mainly work with Government through bilateral and multi- lateral arrangements with very little opportunities for direct funding to NGOs. Hence, a training in resource mobilization was necessary for NGOs to find other means of raising funds for themselves.

BOCONGO has noted that its member organizations share the common mistake of over- dependence on a single source of funding, when that source dries up, organizations struggle to generate new funding and their programs are compromised or terminated. Through the support of Forus, BOCONGO invested tremendous efforts in shifting its member focus from government funding subventions and donations to alternative sources, through resource mobilization in partnership with Business Botswana to access financing from the private sector.

The NGOs were equipped with the skills to engage with the private sector counterparts both as individual entities and advocacy coalitions. BOCONGO coordinators of thematic areas were capacitated on how to effectively organize themselves to access resources and to package their requests in an attractive and relevant manner. They also went through lessons and approaches to Corporate Social Investment (CSI) facilities and their requirements for access to funding including eligibility, priority areas and packaging requests.

The activity was focused on understanding and consolidating the support needs of the NGOs in their various thematic areas for sharing with the business community. The premise of the activity was to facilitate the NGOs to collectively develop a compelling case for support by the business community.

The thematic areas thus collectively compiled the support needs of the local civil society, and profiled them to enhance value accuracy. The discussions began the journey towards consensus of the support needs. The actual case for support was not concluded on the day, there is still need for further consultation, but support towards NGOs has already began.