Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Fundraising is no different to building any other relationship or managing an existing one by leading a team or recruiting volunteers : it is an exercise in helping someone understand you, see your specific problem area, intent and solution through your own eyes and understand it well enough to be incentivised and driven to play a role in it.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Cohorts of people, teams and organisations are trying to achieve brilliant great things, but waste a lot of energy doubting, debating and in perennial frustration of what they should or shouldn’t do. These three things that have truly revolutionised my life and business and they can do the same for you. Change starts with the individual and lazer-sharp decision making requires honesty and awareness.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
I have often reflected on why in some cases the work and effort that goes into tackling a problem is sometimes disproportionate to the value created and is not always reflected in the ultimate result. I believe that Systems Practice, instead of linear cause and effect thinking, can really help us achieve better stronger results with less.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Too many NGOs are stuck in a vicious cycle: wasting time and effort trying to attract donors that are not a good fit and struggling with programmes that leave no time to build long term community ownership or build in-house expertise.
Ultimately despite the best intentions, NGOs are stuck in prolonged financial uncertainty with no control over the future of their organisation or ability to continue their important work. A new balance between donors and NGOs must be restored and this is how.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Resilience is personal because our perception of value is. Our needs and goals, determine what obstacles, risks and changes we are most vulnerable to and threatened by and frame what it means for us to be resilient. Today I am adding “fractal resilience” to my glossary of jargons, to help describe a fundamental challenge with achieving resilience.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Skills and knowledge of local problems and context are NGOs' greatest asset and are what will enable you to achieve the results that numerous stakeholders want. Without a good understanding of an organisation’s unique position in the system and differentiating skills, NGOs will never achieve their full potential. These are 5 reasons why NGOs are better off investing time in their own skills and knowledge.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
I see this dilemma a lot. Do I work for the profit or the non-for-profit sector? I am here to remind you that you can do both. The focus on profit is counterproductive and instead we should focus on innovating how we equitably distribute and recirculate value created.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Working across India, the UK and Africa, I have been receiving questions about how easy it is to work across locations remotely. I have noticed an underlying assumption that you need to see and experience things in person in order to be able to understand them and work to solve them. Do you need to see it to fix it? No you don’t, and this is why...
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Mark Twain once said: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”. Our current communication methodologies in the development sector leave us stuck writing long letters. The cost of this is that our information and hard work, do not always have the impact we hoped for and our audiences loose sight of the key information amidst the lengthy “other” information provided.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Repeat business in consulting is common, but after the completion of the first scope of work why is an external consultant needed again? With unrestricted funding budgets being typically a very small portion of an NGO’s income (sadly!), the decision of how best to spend that money is a difficult one. If a prospective partnership is not business critical, does not enhance your value proposition, does not help you solve an urgent problem, does not strengthen your ability to progress towards your vision quicker, then it is likely a waste of your time.
Written by Anna Bruni Sabhaney
Rejection is always disappointing, but it really doesn’t have to be and if we learn to fail better, we can transform disappointment and frustration into inextinguishable motivation to learn, do better and progress towards our goals quicker. Here are three questions you can ask yourself when funders reject your proposal to help you get the maximum learning possible from the experience.
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