Course on Resource Mobilisation Underway

Fredrick Mwaura, Project Manager Joy Divine Children's Organisation (left) and Millicent Awuor, Project Co-o-ordinator, Action Results for Change (right) at the opening of the Resources mobilisation seminar

Strathmore University's Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) in collaboration with Resource Alliance (RA) has organised a 20-day course in resource mobilisation targeted at staff involved in fundraising for their organisations. The course will run from July 23 to October 19 and especially targets Non-government organisations (NGOs).

The first tier of course began on Monday, 23rd July 2007 and will run until Friday, 27 July. The second tier will run from August 27-31, the third tier on September 24-28th, and the fourth and final tier on October 15-19.

NGOs will play a key role in helping Kenya meet the solidarity challenge spelt in Vision 2030. The challenge is to establish a fully caring society and a caring culture - a social system in which society comes before the individual.

But for NGOs to deliver on this challenge, they need to mobilise resources. However, it is increasingly difficult for NGOs in Kenya to mobilise support for their cause with the decline in global funding. The NGOs have to look at alternative strategies in order to sustain their respective causes.

This course will equip participants to mobilise a diverse range of financial and non-financial resources in order to improve their organisation's financial sustainability.

At the end of the course, the participants should be able to:

Understand the major trends in the legal issues and social/political environment in which they operate.
Critically analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the organisations existing resource base.
Formulate a plan on how to diversify the resource base.
Identify the main funding sources and appropriate techniques to secure them.
Appreciate the role of communication as a pre-requisite to fundraising.
Set up effective systems for reporting and communicating with donors.