The first training on fundraing of civil society organizations in Goma DRC in terms of capacity building
Report on online fundraising training of youth led organizations in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo
During the training at our office On Tuesday 10th October the Collective of Youth Organizations for Solidarity known as COJESKI/DRC Coordination of North Kivu organized a training on online fundraising which brought together 20 participants from different youth organizations which are based in Goma.
Background information
The Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo is affected by various emergency humanitarian crisis and disasters caused by wars and other natural calamities. Since 1990 up to now the population in North Kivu for example has been at war and this has affected efforts for development and to rebuild their lives. The consequences are huge on the side of young people, women and other vulnerable groups.
However people are struggling to setup initiatives in order to adapt to the situation and solve some of the problems among themselves, young people are resilient through the creation of groups, associations, organizations in order to promote community interventions.
The ugly reality is that most of these initiatives are not financially supported, and people do not know what to do and how they can access funding in order to boost what they are doing for greater impact. This is why we organized the training session.
Objectives
The training aimed at the following objectives:
To share knowledge among young people about online fundraising opportunities,
To encourage young people to develop a career in fundraising,
To create an opportunity for young people to share ideas, information and learn from each other,
Introduction
After self-introduction of those who attended the training, the participants observed that they did not know each other yet they have activities they are working on and which can offer them opportunities to collaborate and partner even,
Learning from COJESKI
The training started with a live experience from COJESKI that embarked on this venture and which is being supported financially by the fund collected from GlobalGiving which is one among the online fundraising plate-forms. We shared with them our online campaigns since 2021 up to now, what we have failed to do and what we have managed to do.
Ignorance
To the participants, this was there first time to hear about online fundraising and not only the participants but also since last week there was a discussion in other WhatsApp Forums about this notion of online fundraising which people did not know much about. This issue on online fundraising does not exist and people do not know about, and it is one among activities we need to promote in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Skills
The training focused on interpersonal skills which the person should have, the activities a person should be involved in and the necessity to build the audience. The preparation in terms of planning and the need to come up with appealing causes.
The Cause/ Project/Idea
The training also explained about the projects and the people who are targeted in the project, the need to share ideas with the audience, the basic moral qualities such as being honest, transparent and credible enough.
The social media
We exchanged about social media and what people post but also the choice of which social media and the audience you need to have, how to engage your audience and how they know you. We observed that for the participants the following social media plate-forms are generally used here: WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Tick-Tock, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the mostly used. A debate also was generated on what people post in their social media, and the lack of community causes in these social media especially from this side of North Kivu.
Online fundraising plate-forms
We shared information about some online fundraising plate-forms such as Go get Funding, Go daddy, Give me, fund me, give away. We also observed that some of these plate-forms do require the host of the cause to be based in developed countries, the participants also observed that PayPay is not in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Introduction to GlobalGiving
The training session ended with the opportunities offered by GlobalGiving and encouraged participants to try it, we shared with them all the necessary steps they need to go through and the need to consider fundraising as one among the key activities of their organizations.
Cocktail
The training ended at 1pm with a cocktail and participants agreed to stay connected through a WhatsApp Group but also to create a common project which will be host on GlobalGiving by COJESKI and fundraise for it so that it can show them about this new venture.
We thank our colleague Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos who facilitated the training and encouraged the participants to also learn English and knowledge in Computer in order to be more successful.
Thanks
Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos
