Workshop on advocacy and fund raising
12 – 15 June 2007, Jupiter, Romania
The workshop on advocacy and fundraising was held within the frame of the European Networking programme, civil society component Romania and Bulgaria „EQUAL CHANCES IN A BROADER EUROPE“. It was organized by the Foundation for Development of People/Romania, which is part of the Federation of NGOs for Child (FONPC) Romania together with the other project’s partners Association Roditeli Bulgaria, ESAN Belgium, AVSI Italy and AVSI Poland.
The overall obejctives of this project are:
- to improve the quality of actions of 70 Romanian and Bulgarian CSOs working with the most disadvantaged groups;
- to integrate the organizations in existing European Networks, to transfer European experience and know-how;
- to improve the cooperation between CSOs and policy makers.
The project work is organized in 3 working groups: Roma population, abandoned children and vocational and employment support for disadvantaged groups (Romania and Bulgaria). Experts and policy makers in each of these fields are regularly gathering together to discuss various issues, e.g. legal framework, social and professional inclusion for Roma youth, the role of public-private partnership, the educational system and Roma children inclusion, local resources mobilization, community development programmes etc. and to look for strategies to tackle these problems adequately.
This meeting was dedicated to the topics lobby/advocacy on the one hand, where different experts presented the advocacy experience of their organizations in Belgium, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Poland, mostly in the field of working with children at risk, Roma people, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and other socially, politically and economically disadvantaged groups. The second component of the workshop was dealing with the fundraising issues, where various methods and ways for raising funds in NGOs in the private and public sector were presented and discussed, e.g. on international level - AVSI Italy, but also from smaller organizations on national, regional and local level. Also the perspective of the business sector was represented by the Marketing Director of an Romanian SME. The methods discussed varied from communitarian marketing, organization of events, street campaigns and benefit performances, initiatives for businesses and individuals as “one hour work”, payroll giving to employees, tax reduction for companies, greeting cards selling, direct mail appeals, face to face solicitation etc.
Some of the lessons learnt during the workshop are:
- you need a clear and simple message when are advocating, lobbying and raising funds
- one single and simple idea, clearly summarized in a strong metaphor is better that ten complex abstracts
- give a human face to your message, if possible
- identify clearly the target groups you are addressing
- tailor the message if necessarily to the specific needs/interests of your target groups
The final conference of the project will take place at the end of the year in Bulgaria.
