CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMME – REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
Aga Khan Foundation East Africa (AKF(EA)) is pleased to announce a request for consultants to develop and deliver capacity building under the Yetu Initiative (Yetu). The capacity building programme targets civil society organisations (CSOs) in Kenya, and will cover the following key training areas: Philanthropy in Kenya, Marketing and Communications, and Local Resource Mobilisation and Fundraising.
About the Yetu Initiative:
The Aga Khan Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are together supporting a four-year project called the Yetu Initiative. Yetu strengthens CSOs in Kenya to cultivate a culture of community philanthropy. Community philanthropy occurs when citizens take the lead in addressing their community’s needs by mobilising their own capital, including both financial and non-financial resources. Community philanthropy enhances local ownership and empowerment, reduces donor dependency, and creates greater and more sustainable impact.
The Yetu Initiative will work with Kenyan CSOs to strengthen their assets and capacity, and support them to build community trust. Building trust between CSOs and the communities they serve provides a lasting foundation of local support into the future.
Currently, Yetu is supporting six Kenyan CSOs to build and deliver targeted community engagement efforts, with accompanying awareness-raising materials, fundraising drives, and capacity building aimed towards their organisational sustainability.
Training Objectives:
In early March of 2016, Yetu intends to conduct a week-long training workshop in Nairobi for its CSO partners. It is anticipated that a total of 20 participates will attend the workshop (at least three (3) persons from each partner organisation).
The goals of the training workshop are to capacitate Yetu CSO partners in areas that will prepare them to:
- Design and implement a Yetu-supported fundraising/awareness building campaign
- Develop and maintain strategic communications and marketing plans and activities
- Develop and maintain strategic resource mobilisation plans and activities
- Improve organisational sustainability
Therefore, the primary focus of the workshop is marketing and communication skills, and the secondary focus is capacity building for other areas that impact organisational sustainability.
The training should be designed to maximize CSO engagement through practical application of skills learned, and include a mechanism for regular and customized mentoring and coaching beyond the initial training (for a period of up to twelve months). The training should also encourage CSO partners to network and identify opportunities for cross-collaboration.
Proposed Training Topics:
The following is a list of proposed workshop topics, based on gaps identified during organisational assessments conducted for each of Yetu’s CSO partners. Suggestions for additional topics and/or sub-topics that will help achieve workshop objectives are welcome.
1. Marketing and Communications:
- Why communications is important to sustainability and fundraising
- Developing, implementing, and evaluating a communications strategy
- Telling the organisation’s story
- Determining the organisation’s value proposition
- Understanding different audiences, and tailoring the story and/or value proposition
- Presenting the organisation’s story
- Engaging with media
- Paid media vs. earned media
- Use of social media
- Use of traditional media – print, broadcast, etc.
- Managing negative publicity
- Marketing
- Understanding how a marketing (fundraising) campaign works
- Planning, research, identification of target market, realistic goal setting, creative development, and implementation
- The importance of post-campaign follow-through
2. Resource Mobilisation and Fundraising:
- Developing, implementing, and evaluating a resource mobilisation strategy
- Internal engagement
- Engaging staff in resource mobilisation
- Engaging the Board in resource mobilisation
- External engagement
- Building sustainability with existing donors (managing relationships)
- New business development
- How to connect with, communicate to, and generate support from various audiences
- Individuals (general public)
- Diaspora
- High net worth individuals
- Private sector (corporates)
- Foundations/institutions
- Government
- Managing the business development pipeline
- Relationship management systems
- Local fundraising and community-based fundraising
- Online fundraising/crowdfunding
HOW TO APPLY:
Who Can Apply?
Consultant(s) must demonstrate past successes with curriculum development and training in the aforementioned topics. Consideration will be given to those with experience training organisations in Kenya, specifically CSOs/community based organisations (CBOs). The trainer(s) will need to establish and maintain a close working relationship and consistent communication with Yetu CSO partners across Kenya, and the Yetu team. This includes periodic post-training field visits by the trainer(s), to reinforce skills. The trainer(s) must be organised with the ability to work independently, develop and refine training agendas based on the needs of Yetu CSO partners, and monitor and report on the impact of training workshops with recommendations for further training and development.
Yetu will consider engaging multiple consultants to achieve its training objectives. Therefore, consultants with strong experience in only some of the proposed training areas are still encouraged to apply.
Application Process:
Proposals should include:
- Overall approach to organisational capacity building
- List of recommended modules (with detailed description of module content) to fulfill training objectives
- Proposed training agenda
- Proposed follow-up schedule, including description of activities to be conducted during follow-up sessions
- Proposed budget
- Relevant past experience, including trainer profiles/credentials
Full proposals must be submitted to yetuinitiative@akfea.org by 1600 hours (EAT) on 17th February.
