Fundraising from people and companies is an essential component for CSO sustainability. It helps to build closer connections between CSOs and community, and communicate their cause more conciously and to a wider audience.
Domestic resources are an essential component for the financial sustainability of civil society organizations in Europe. While CSOs in most countries cannot rely on domestic philanthropy as their exclusive source of income, it remains essential for building bridges and trust with constituencies, and securing sustainability through access to additional funding.
In Moldova, there are untapped opportunities for CSOs to generate income from domestic sources, such as private philanthropy and the recently introduced 2% designation mechanism.
In 2016, the Contact Center with the MPSCS project support carried out the study on Fundraising by Moldovan Civil Society from Domestic Sources. According to the report, 20% of CSOs in Moldova consider individual donations and private donations as an important sources of funding, while 70% of CSOs prefer participating in grant competitions. One of the conclusions of the report and further discussions was that most of the Moldovan CSOs lack fundraising skills and knowledge on how to solicit donations. The lack of fundraising capacity has a negative impact on further spread of domestic philanthropy and improving financial sustainability of CSOs in Moldova.
To facilitate knowledge and skills building on fundraising, ECNL in cooperation with the Contact Center organized a focused training in Chisinau on February 13-14, 2017. The training on “Fundraising Basics” attracted dozens of applications, with preference given to civil society organizations with little knowledge on fundraising. The training workshop introduced the basics of fundraising, its rules and principles and gave practical advice to number of CSO representatives. While for most participants having a full member of staff as a fundraiser is just a dream, all of them committed to launch a fundraising campaign within upcoming months.
The event was led by Mr. Jan Kroupa and Ms. Jana Ledvinova, trainers from the Czech Fundraising Center with over 15 years of experience. To support the training, they prepared the handbook Basics of Grassroots Fundraising under the MPSCS support, which helps further the Moldovan CSOs to overcome connected difficulties – such as inadequate financing, lack of full time professional workers, human capacity and space.
The training was organized within the framework of the USAID-supported program Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society, co-implemented by FHI 360 and ECNL.