Fundraising through Crowdfunding and CSR Partnerships: A Training Workshop for NGOs’ in Patna (Bihar)

Dear Sir/Madam, 

NGOs need to identify new streams of funding for their projects and ensuring financial sustainability ‘Crowdfunding’ and ‘CSR partnership’ are the two new avenues of fundraising for NGOs as well as social businesses.

Crowdfunding for NGOs 
Crowdfunding’ is almost an unexplored terrain in fundraising landscape of India. ‘Crowdfunding’, a method of

raising capital/fund in small amounts from a large group of people using the Internet and social media, is becoming a common financing method for social entrepreneurs, activists, open-source software projects, artists and charities. A few of the big ‘for cause’ campaigns globally have been funded by raising money through crowdfunding. The last three to four years have seen a huge jump in number of crowdfunding platforms and funds mobilized through crowdfunding. The large-scale adoption of information and communication technology, coupled with the broad acceptance of social networks, has given rise to web-enabled crowdfunding.

A study suggests that USD5.1 Billion was raised through crowdfunding in 2013 and 50% of this was for charitable purpose. The crowdfunding market is in its infancy, especially in developing countries, but the potential market is significant. It is estimated that there are up to 344 million households in the developing world able to make small crowdfund investments in community businesses (The World Bank report) and donations.

Crowdfunding takes advantage of crowd-based decision-making and innovation, and applies it to the funding of projects or businesses. Using social networks, social profiles, and the viral nature of web-based communication, individuals and companies have raised billions of dollars in debt, equity and donations for projects over the last few years.

For most of the Indian NGOs haven’t yet explored the value of ‘crowdfunding’ as a mean for their revenue mix. Launch of a few India-based crowdfunding platforms have created a buzz for using this new medium for ‘supporting a cause’ through crowdfunding. People connected or unconnected with the campaign/cause invest simply because they believe in the cause. Donors have a social or personal motivation for putting their money in and expect nothing back, except perhaps to feel good about helping the project.

Even for social businesses, people do support the idea of a business that helps in providing solutions to the public problems. In fact, social businesses are the one of the biggest beneficiaries of the fund raised through crowdfunding platforms.

CSR Funding 
With the changing fund-raising scenario and potentials to enter into new partnership types, it is essential that NGOs do understand what they need to do to get funding through CSR partnerships with companies. The NGOs need to understand the ‘Business case’ in CSR partnerships and contribute to mitigating the business-risks of the companies, in addition to helping them in building brand-equity. Philanthropic foundations also have different expectations from NGOs and new M&E approaches are highly focused on quality of output rather than believing in just numbers.

The recently approved the Companies Act 2013 mandates that companies of a certain size do spend 2% of their net profit on CSR projects. The Acts says that activities need to be implemented in project mode in partnership with NGOs/Firms/Agencies/Govt. Bodies. This opens new opportunities for NGOs to leverage their expertise and presence in remote areas to partner with companies for CSR projects. It is estimated that annually there will be INR 22000 crore inflow in development sector in India through CSR spending by 10000-12000 companies. Further, companies that are not registered in India are also spending huge money on CSR projects to create social equity and promote sustainable development.

The NGOBOX Training Workshop on ‘Crowdfunding’ and ‘CSR partnership’ 
NGOBOX, the biggest development sector platform has developed an expertise on ‘fundraising’ for NGOs and social businesses. Our interaction with companies, CSR managers, NGO leaders, social entrepreneurs and fundraising experts have given us immense experiences and learning to package these all in a training module for the benefit of small and grass-root level NGOs.

We are organizing ‘Fundraising through Crowdfunding and CSR Partnerships: A Training Workshop for NGOs’ on 10 June 2014 in Patna (Bihar).

The workshop covers:                                 
· Fundraising scenario in India 
· New Fundraising options for NGOs 
· CSR Partnerships for NGOs 
· Fundraising through CSR 
· CSR provisions under the Companies Act 2013 
· Whom to approach and how to approach 
· Writing concept notes 
· Dos and Don’ts in CSR partnerships 
· Crowdfunding for NGOs and Social Businesses 
· What is Crowdfunding and how NGOs can raise funds 
· How to use/select crowdfunding platforms 
· What are the requirements/eligibility 
· How to design a campaign/cause 
· How to engage with online community

Who should participate? 
· Senior management of NGOs (CEOs, COOs, CFOs) 
· Fund-raising managers/executives 
· Project /Programme Managers 
· Communication Managers 
· Researchers and students

Date & Venue: 
Tuesday, 10 June 2014, Time: 09.45-16.30 Hrs 
Venue: Hotel Budha Heritage, 54, Pataliputra, Patna (Bihar)

For registration : http://www.ngobox.org/events/fundraising-crowdfunding-csr-partnershipsa-training-workshop-ngos-patna-bihar

For more information contact: 

Ms Ela Gupta 
Email: ela.gupta@ngobox.org 
Mobile: +91-9990256669 
Or call at: +91- 9560352170 
www.ngobox.org