Fundraising and Networking Training for NGOs
By Widad EL HANAFI, E-Mediat Morocco Country Director
On May 5th, E-Mediat Morocco organised a training session on Fundraising and Networking in Ifrane. The training session gathered 30 NGOs’ members coming from different cities and rural villages from l’Oriental and Midlle Atlas regions.
We started our training session with a Networking exercise that consists of having each two participants meet and talk about each others’ work, interests and NGO. After that each participant needed to introduce his/her partner’s NGO and define a common interest or project they can work on together in the furture.
The purpose of this networking exercise was twofold: 1) helping participants learn about each other and 2) reiterating the importance of networks in the success of a fundarising campaign and any other project.
During the fundraising session, we focused on providing NGOs with basic steps to create a fundraising plan and to integrate social media tools into that plan. The fundraising session also shared lessons learned from some fundraising stories from the Arab world, United States and Morocco. During this session, we also provided a brief overview on E-Commerce in Morocco and introduced some institutions provided online payment services and fundraising platforms. More details on the fundraising session are available on Integrating Social Media tools into your NGO Fundraising plan blogpost.
On May 5th, E-Mediat Morocco organised a training session on Fundraising and Networking in Ifrane. The training session gathered 30 NGOs’ members coming from different cities and rural villages from l’Oriental and Midlle Atlas regions.
We started our training session with a Networking exercise that consists of having each two participants meet and talk about each others’ work, interests and NGO. After that each participant needed to introduce his/her partner’s NGO and define a common interest or project they can work on together in the furture.
The purpose of this networking exercise was twofold: 1) helping participants learn about each other and 2) reiterating the importance of networks in the success of a fundarising campaign and any other project.
During the fundraising session, we focused on providing NGOs with basic steps to create a fundraising plan and to integrate social media tools into that plan. The fundraising session also shared lessons learned from some fundraising stories from the Arab world, United States and Morocco. During this session, we also provided a brief overview on E-Commerce in Morocco and introduced some institutions provided online payment services and fundraising platforms. More details on the fundraising session are available on Integrating Social Media tools into your NGO Fundraising plan blogpost.
To practice skills learnt during this session, NGOs were divied into groups to prepare a fundraising plan sample.
Previously this year, Arkhabil Association of Cultures for Development in the village of Ait Oualla in Tigrigra near the city of Azrou launched a campaign to benefit 100 families in their Village. Abdelhaq Charrou, President of this NGO explains the way their NGO has benefited from the use of social media tools to collect donations for their village and the way they’ll improve their fundraising strategy in the future.
Abdelhaq says “Our NGO is located in a very isolated rural village in the Middle Atlas region and before using Social Media tools, our NGO and even village were not known. We started using Social Media tools to promote our NGO and region. Our NGO learned Social Media tools through our participation in E-Mediat Morocco program and thanks to these tools our NGO has been able to communicate with the Youth Citizen NGO in Rabat, which got to know our activities through our Facebook page and Blog.
Through our interaction with Social Media tools, this NGO learned about our organization, activities and village as well as our needs and thus proposed to provide us with social assistance by providing donations of clothing and blankets for 100 needy families and provided us with medical assistance through free tests and medicines for more than 70 beneficiaries. This NGO has also organized an entertainment session for more than 200 kid of the region.
Abdelhaq further explains “after attending E-Mediat training session on Fundraising and Netwroking this weekend, our NGO will work on preparing more fundraising campaigns in a more affective way by defining our campaign SMART objectives, mission, and target. We will design our fundraising plan that will be implemented through a team and according to a timeline. We will also define several donation methods to reach the maximum of supporters and of course we will integrate social media tools into our plan. This way we will be able to raise more funds in structured and organised manner and in a specific time.
At the end of the training session, NGOs were gathered in one final Networking exercise to encourage participating NGOs to consitute a network to support each other. NGOs were gathered in circle and needed to select the best topics they defined on the first networking exercise.
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- “Training session on Financial and Administartive managment for NGOs'” to be delivered by Namaa NGO and hosted by AGEF to benefit 20 NGOs in Oujda in June 2012,
- “ Training session on Human Development” to be delivered by the Association Lights of Theatre for Development and Culture in Azrou and hosted by Namaa NGO to benefit 25 NGOs in Meknes in June 2012,
- “Training session on Small Business Development” to be delivered by AMADEP and hosted by Omi NGO to benefit 20 NGOs in Berkane at l’Oriental in June/ July 2012
- “Training session on Small Business Development” to be delivered by AMADEP and hosted by Namaa NGO to benefit 20 NGOs in Meknes in June/ July 2012
