Reports indicate that civil society organisations are facing challenges in finding resources for their work which is central to development.
Traditional sources of funding for this aspect of development is said to be decreasing over the years.
It has become urgent for the CSOs to increase the amount, quality and access of resources for their work and to transform the way in which they relate with the issue of resources, from a logic of scarcity, to see funding and resource mobilization as a critical aspect of their agendas and key for building strong CSO movements.
A four week Certificate Course in Resource Mobilization for civil society executives and programme officers is underway at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).
The course is a joint programme being organised by the African Women Development Fund (AWDF), Resource Alliance (UK) and GIMPA for fifteen participants from Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Togo and Liberia.
They are determined to sharpen their skills and gain a better understanding of funding trends for their work and how best to expand the resource base vis-à-vis the many challenges of the current funding landscape.
Course content covers topics such as communication and relationships building, researching and sustaining donors, resource mobilization techniques and strategy planning.
A member of the Council of State, Mrs. Gifty Afenyi Dadzie at the opening the training programme at GIMPA advised NGOs to go beyond writing proposals to donors, be creative and look within their own communities for the needed resources, as well as find ways of mobilizing resources to enable them continue to render services to humanity.
She noted that there is a growing middle class in many African countries that can be mobilized to support the non-profit sector.
“Even where local communities do not have financial resources, they can provide physical space, human resources and in-kind services. They can however contribute if and only if they are involved as partners and not just recipients of aid.”
Mrs. Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, Executive Director of the AWDF said her organisation is providing bursaries for ten of its grantees as it is important to build their capacity to add value to their grant-making scheme.
“It is important for CSOs in Africa to move away from being dependent on few sources because they do not have information. Building a broader base of support targeting individual donors, corporate sponsors and building a constituency to support our work is necessary.”
She hoped that after the training participants will be able to use their skills to strengthen the work they are doing and result in a change. She added that plans are afoot to organise the training programme twice a year.
