January 02, 2017
If your organization is based in a developing country, you may be unable to secure funding directly from some foreign donors. Many donors, while supporting projects in developing countries, will only fund projects led by nonprofits headquartered in the same country where the donor itself is located. Local partners — that is, organizations in the country where the project will take place — must join the project as subrecipients or subcontractors (“subs”).
For example, a U.S.-based foundation might be interested in funding projects in India. Instead of funding local organizations in India to conduct the work, the foundation will award grants to U.S.-based organizations with the expectation (and sometimes the requirement) that the U.S. grantees will partner with local organizations to carry out the work.
For U.S. foundations, funding U.S.-based organizations makes grantmaking easier. For organizations based in the country where the work will take place, it can be frustrating to have to rely on foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for partnership opportunities.
The Importance of Identifying Partners Early
If your organization is interested in tapping into the international donor community, you’ll want to identify potential partner organizations early, well before you learn of a funding opportunity. To get a sense of the funding landscape in your country, you’ll need to do some homework to find out which foreign governments fund projects in your country and how they fund them. Do they give money to local organizations, or do they limit funding to large international NGOs or nonprofits headquartered in their country? In addition, some donors don’t fund NGOs at all, local or otherwise, choosing instead to give money at the country level (e.g., to the government of Tanzania), allowing the government to decide how to spend the money and who the project implementers will be.
Let’s say you want money for a community project. Through your research, you learn that one of the donors funding similar projects in your country is a foundation based in the U.S. However, the foundation only funds U.S.-based organizations. To gain access to this funding, you have two choices. You can either wait and see if a U.S.-based organization approaches your organization about partnering on a project, or you can take the initiative and reach out to U.S. organizations active in your country or region to propose a partnership. Regardless of who initiates partnership discussions, you’ll want to research your potential partner carefully. You’ll rely on this organization to submit a strong proposal and represent your interests to the donor.
Because most funding opportunities have a short window, usually less than two months, to prepare and submit a proposal, identifying and cultivating potential partners is something you’ll want to do on an ongoing basis. If you wait until you see an opportunity to reach out to a potential partner, in most cases, it will be too late. Either the organization will already have partners lined up, or there won’t be enough time to develop the relationship before the proposal is due.
Finding Potential Partners
Below are four steps to learn more about potential funders and project partners.
Visit the funder’s website. When reviewing a funder’s website, go to the section on program areas to see what the donor funds and whether they work in your country. If they don’t fund work in your country, you can cross them off your list of potential leads and move to the next funder on the list. If the donor does fund work in your country, explore a little bit more. See what their programmatic interests are. If the funder funds work in your country and funds work in your area of focus, the funder may be a good fit for your organization and should be researched further.
Find out who the donors have funded in the past. Once you narrow your list to the funders that support projects in your country related to your area of focus (environmental, health, population, etc.), you’ll want to conduct more in-depth research into each donor’s history. Most donors list past grantees on their websites. As you go through the list of past grantees, make a note of any organizations that you know or recognize, along with any points of connection (i.e., people you know at the organization).
Research nongovernmental organizations based in the donor’s home country. To find partners that have the potential to be a good fit, research international organizations that work in your geographic region or country on projects related to your organization’s area of focus. You’ll find lists of past and current grantees on donor websites. To identify other potential partners, you may need to follow several lines of research. This could include Googling the country’s name plus keywords such as NGO, nongovernmental, nonprofits, and civil society (e.g., “Finland NGOs”). You may also want to research universities in the donor’s country; many partner with foundations and government agencies to conduct international projects. Another place to look, regardless of whether the donor you are interested in is a government agency, is the country’s government agency that oversees development spending. On government websites, you’ll usually find a list — sometimes even an extensive database — of the organizations the agency has funded in the past, organized by programmatic area and country. Many of the past grantees are likely to be nongovernmental organizations based in the donor’s country.
Create a plan for reaching out to past grantees and potential partners. You may find organizations on the past grantee list that you recognize because they are based in your community. Schedule a meeting with these local groups to learn more about the donor and any international NGOs the organization has partnered with in the past. To learn more about an international NGO, check to see where the organization has its offices. Many international NGOs have physical offices in the countries or regions where they work. If the NGO has a local office, try to arrange a meeting with the organization’s local staff. If that is not possible, or if the organization does not have a country office, another option is to try to connect with the organization’s representatives at a conference or donor-sponsored event. Another option is to see if the organization has any active projects in your country across any field, not just the one you work in. If they do, it may be possible to meet with a representative from the organization during one of their periodic field visits.
Main Takeaways
The key points to keep in mind are that (1) you may not be able to apply directly to all funders, and (2) you shouldn’t wait until you hear about a funding opportunity before you begin researching potential partners. Research potential partners and donors as soon as possible and start scheduling meetings with organizational representatives. When a funding opportunity arises that requires a local partner, making these early contacts increases the chance that your organization will be approached about a potential partnership.