By: Sanele Ntshingana
This week was insightful to me in highlighting the connection between the rationale behind NGO’s, their mission, values, funding and sustainability models. We saw different organizations, coming from different places, advocating and advancing diverse social and environmental issues. It was great to learn from the experience of these American organisations, in terms of how they came about, their challenges, the successes and their funding models. I was very attentive especially when it came to the funding part. Because no matter how much we may have passion about the burning issues we’re addressing, without a clear funding model, there are threats to the sustainability of that organization. So, for me this was my highlight, I was frantically typing every bit of information I could get on this. I liked the Books for Keeps project which collects and donates books to children to read for enjoyment. I like it because it has been proven all over the world that children who read for fun improve their literacy skills. In my country (South Africa) the majority of children and the majority of black children are illiterate and this threatens the development of their country. In 2016, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) revealed that 78% of grade 4 pupils in South Africa fell below the lowest level on the PIRLS scale: meaning, in effect, that they cannot understand what they’re reading. Obviously, the reality in South Africa consists of many, many reasons that go beyond what the statistics are showing. It includes issues persisting structural marginalization of the downtrodden black children. I was obviously drawn to this organization’s work because I do similar work as them, but slightly different: fighting illiteracy and dislocation of identity through small initiatives like this the Afrocentric Walking Library in my country. As I mentioned earlier, what was really a new lesson for me during these talks is some aspect pertaining to the funding/grant-making, especially the importance of collaborating with similar organizations when applying for grants. As a managing director in my organization, who has been working on tons of funding application without ever submitting one, I learned valuable lessons of how to actually making it work. So, I will be taking this to my organization and I will start up the grant application process by partnering with organizations doing a similar kind of work at home.
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