Funding Formula Stage 5

Why build relationships?

1. Why build donor relationships?

Of all six Resource Mobilization Outputs, the building and strengthening of donor relationships is perhaps the most important. Relationships are the glue which holds together all the other outputs; without strong donor relationships your Member Association will not be able to increase its funding.

1.1. Personal relationships

Formal relationships exist at a formal level between organizations; however, connections between people are even more important. Your relationships with your donors, potential donors and other partners are an important part of Resource Mobilization because people give to people they know – and to people they like.

1.2. Better intelligence

If your Member Association wants to bid for funding from institutional and government donors, you need early – and local – intelligence to prepare a successful proposal that meets donor requirements. Close relationships with donors will give you the opportunity to secure that intelligence, and enable you to research and design the project, assemble the bid team, develop a consortium and submit a winning proposal. The project may even be designed by the donor to match your ideas. The gold standards is that the donor designs its project with you in mind.

1.3 New funding streams

Building relationships also brings better intelligence about new entry points: a successful Resource Mobilization programme needs a diverse funding base that is not reliant on a small number of donors. You should therefore actively seek out funding opportunities that are not just for sexual and reproductive health projects, but also – for example – women’s rights, income-generation, gender-based violence, empowerment of youth. These different funding streams could be new entry points within existing donor agencies, or within new donor agencies.