Fundraising / Donor support
Increase your financial support through storytellingCompelling stories are one of the most powerful tools for fundraising, as they create a lasting connection between your organization and its supporters.
Case study 1 – UN Relief and Works Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
In 2007, Lebanon’s armed forces destroyed the Nahr el-Bared (NBC) Palestine refugee camp in the north of the country. Approximately 27,000 people were made homeless. UNWRA, the UN agency mandated with providing essential services to all Palestine refugees, was now faced with an extra burden: the reconstruction of the camp from scratch. But the cost of any reconstruction way outstripped UNRWA Lebanon’s standard budget requirements, and a substantial increase in funding had to be secured as a matter of urgency. Geopolitical considerations were also stalling reconstruction.
In 2009, I was tasked with writing a series of donor papers that succinctly yet forcibly explained the context and challenges of reconstruction. I told the story of the crisis from ‘start-to-finish’, with each paper focusing on different elements of NBC’s predicament. This allowed donors to focus both on specific needs and the broader picture of reconstruction, an approach that allowed for highlighting the unique plight of NBC’s refugees. Each story was in both Arabic and English.
The papers were distributed to donors during their visits to the camp. As a result of these visits, funding increased substantially and reconstruction could begin in earnest. It is now the largest project that UNRWA has ever implemented in any of its five fields of operation, and by the middle of 2023, 86 per cent of the population had returned to NBC.
Case study 2 – UNICEF
UNICEF’s West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) covers one of the world’s poorest regions. Stretching from Mauritania to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many of the countries that make up WCARO have funding requirements that go well beyond UNICEF’s core budget allocation. Any extra funding could help provide essential services for those children most at risk from disease, poverty and violence.
Throughout 2022, I was commissioned by the children’s UN agency UNICEF to write a series of compelling papers to help persuade the business sector to fund specific WCARO projects. These projects ranged from schools’ programmes, to water and sanitation interventions, to moves combatting gender-based violence. Each paper focused on the specific needs of a given country or region within West Africa, outlining UNICEF’s track record of success, along with a detailed costing of the project itself. Several of the papers also included individual stories about the beneficial impact of UNICEF’s previous interventions.
The papers were then deployed by UNICEF’s resource mobilization teams in WCARO and Geneva head office, helping to raise several million dollars of funding from the private sector. These new donors were able to ‘visualise’ the vital contribution they would be making, as well as offering them the assurance that their funds would be tracked at all times. This meant the papers also helped to maintain UNICEF’s reputation for high levels of transparency.
