The Emerge Programme
Everything You Need to Know
What is the Emerge programme?
Emerge is a capacity building programme that aims to help organisations to devise and implement a fundraising strategy that enables them to diversify their income sources and improve the prospect of long term financial sustainability. The delivery process is designed to help the organisations improve their resource mobilisation skills and strategic thinking and also enable them to critically assess other areas of organisational functioning, including governance, leadership and management. The change that Resource Alliance wants to see is that organisations take ownership of and sustain new resource mobilisation activities that diversify their income base.
The programme is delivered by Resource Alliance associates (consultants), who are carefully selected and matched with the organisation in terms of skills, experience and their location.
Who is the Emerge programme aimed at?
The main beneficiaries of this programme are small to medium-sized organisations who need help and support to diversify and grow their funding portfolio for growth and/or sustainability.
What are the benefits of taking part in the Emerge programme?
- Strengthened organisational capacity in fundraising and resource mobilisation, including, if needed, the development of appropriate organisational structures and processes.
- Enhanced resource mobilisation skills, competence and confidence amongst key staff.
- A functioning resource mobilisation strategy with plans and tools to support the process.
- Coaching and mentoring to support the organisation in increasing and diversifying funding in the short, medium and long term.
What happens during the Emerge programme?
The intervention combines the expertise of a consultant with local market knowledge and a diverse range of skills and experience matched with each Oak grantee, and an opportunity to participate in peer learning activities. They are then supported by the Resource Alliance through the following process over 12 months:
The ultimate aim of the programme being implemented is for the participants to become more resilient, sustainable and capable of affecting change in their areas of work. It also aims to make organisations more robust, less dependent on a small number of donors and better able to leverage funding from a wide range of sources for the changes they wish to make. The project focuses on the critical areas of leadership and resource mobilisation, which are crucial to an organisation’s survival and its ability to grow and bring about sustainable programme outcomes.
It seeks to:
- Foster confidence and skills amongst staff, which can be applied to other areas of fundraising and to ingrain a culture of strategic thinking with regard to resource mobilisation.
- Develop a fundraising culture within the whole organisation so that resource mobilisation becomes a collective effort and an integral part of organisational functioning rather than a silo activity that is the responsibility of a few.
- Help establish an exit strategy for the organisation so that the financial dependency on any single funder is reduced.
Who has taken part previously in the Emerge programme?
Since 2014, the Emerge programme has supported 42 organisations across 15 different countries across Asia, South East Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
“We benefited immensely from the Emerge programme. This has enabled us to set concrete targets and objectives, and we are engaged to follow up the strategy with concrete implementation. This will allow us to implement our three-year strategic framework”.
ALEX KAMAROTOS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE FOR CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL, SWITZERLAND
“We found the Associate you provided us on the Emerge programme to be highly engaging and knowledgeable, and she was quickly able to get under the skin of our organisation to appreciate what we needed and how we could develop our fundraising strategy”.
MARIA ALEJANDRA PAVICICH, COORDINATOR OF INSTITUIONAL DEVELOPMENT, MEMORIA ABIERTA, ARGENT
What do NGOs need to do to apply for the Emerge programme?
Organisations interested in the programme should contact Ajay@resource-alliance.org.
What can funders do if they’re interested in funding the Emerge programme?
The Emerge programme has clear benefits for NGOs requiring help with building their fundraising capacities. However, funders whose aims and mission concern the building of the fundraising capacity of their grantees may also benefit through investing in the financial sustainability of their grantees.
Funders and investors interested in finding out more about the Emerge programme should contact Ajay@resource-alliance.org.