Joining us from London is Luke Wreford, Deputy Director, Business Relations Team, British Council.
Luke is covering a key finance element of project development, ‘Raising sponsorship from business’.
According to Luke, there are five stages in raising sponsorship:
Identifying your offer (essential before moving on)
Writing proposals
Targeting the right companies
Approaching companies
Managing sponsors
What is ‘Sponsorship’?
‘The payment of a fee or payment in kind by a company in return for the rights to a public association with an activity for mutual commercial benefit’.
This is in contrast to a ‘gift’, which is simply a donation given to an organisation with no regard to return benefit.
I asked Luke what the challenges are for ngo’s and non-profit organisation’s raising sponsorship funds from business.
Click to download his response or press play below:
As a follow up, I also asked where approaches to business sometimes fall down.
Click to download his response or press play below:
A short group excercise looking at both benefits and risks when looking for ‘business’ money for projects revealed:
Julie is talking with the group about following a process to achieve change. She emphasises the point of maintaining professionalism at all stages of the project cycle, especially during the fund-raising process.
Any project cycle includes the following:
The aim of the project. Often aspirational. (Aims)
What do you want to achieve in order to meet the aim? (Objectives)
What are you actually going to do? (Activities)
Often people will start thinking about the activities before the the objectives and aims. Something to avoid!
The activities should relate directly to your outputs. Objectives should relate directly to outcomes (the change you are expecting to achieve). Aims and impacts are one and the same.
AIMS -*- IMPACT
OBJECTIVES *-* OUTCOMES
ACTIVITIES *-* OUTPUTS
Always ensure that all these factors are linked strongly.
Julie gave an example of this methodology in action using ‘Reducing illiteracy in the Lebanon’. If you can’t see the video player below, click here.
I will update this post with a diagram explaining the project cycle shortly.
Julie is explaining to the group methods for affecting non - violent social change. Participants have been presented with a worksheet detailing these methodologies.
One such example is ‘Threat of a good example’. It’s based on a learning process development model. The storyline behind this is as follows:
Change is achieved by showing how ‘it can be done’. Localised success creates the belief and safety for individuals, institutions and countries to follow suit. Can happen through working existing systems, or by breaking off.
Examples of this ‘good example’ change include:
An improved health system in Cuba.
Better literacy campaign in Nicaragua.
UK government leading on debt relief.
And ’social economy’ projects such as the public smoking ban in Ireland, which led to smoking bans either being or will be enforced across the UK.
I spoke with Farah who cited a couple of examples in her own words. Shortly, I will receive a copy of the document Farah and Julie have been referring to, and will upload here.Here it is!
Click to download Farah’s statement or press play below:
The group are posing a series questions to both Farah and Julie about
Q: Do we over complicate youth projects in the UK, which might explain why so many fail?
A: Julie says, ‘If young people are running the projects, they will run them in a way that works for them. It can get problematic if older people start telling people what works and what doesn’t’.
‘Retaining idealism from youth into adulthood is often critical for bringing about change as you mature’.
Q: ‘How do you rate the dynamism of UK youth in general?’
A: Julie says, ‘A lot of youth in the UK are materialistic. Civil society plays less of a role here than Asia. This is coupled with a depth of cynicism within UK communities with regards to organisations ‘coming to help”.
Amna Ahmad steps in to say that people are becoming more conscious of ‘civil issues’ in the UK. Awareness raising on energy and environmental issues, she feels, is starting to have a positive effect.
What do you think? Are UK youth just apathetic and materially obsessed, or is there another reason for apparent lack of engagement within civil society projects?
Julie Jarman (UK Country Director) and Farah Kurji (Youth Team), from Oxfam UK are running todays workshop.
Julie starts by introducing the work of the Oxfam UK poverty programme, who work towards alleviating poverty in the UK. Click on the slide to the right, to better understand what Oxfam UK do.
I asked Julie what Oxfam were planning to do with the group today.
Click to download a short statement from Julie or press play below:
Julie Jarman, Oxfam UK:
Farah starts explaining the work of the Oxfam Youth unit. In simple terms, their mission is as follows:
To enable and empower young people to be active global citizens
Their ‘wants’ are two fold:
Young people to have the values, knowledge, understanding and skills to respond effectively to global issues & influence the environment in which Oxfam campaigns.
Young people to take effective action as part of the global movement to overcome world poverty.
The complete set of slides used by Farah and Julie are available here.
Team, British Council.
