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How does articulating your change make you irresistible?




“We carry out 200 eye surgeries in villages every month.” This was my conversation starter with philanthropic organisations, but it often led to numerous questions and lengthy discussions rather than immediately sparking their interest or opening up a dialogue leading to a partnership.

 

I knew I had to change my approach so I examined how they communicated their impact and strategy on their websites and social media channels. I also seized every opportunity to learn from grant officers, trustees, CEOs, and others within the philanthropic organisation I was engaging with about the motivations, challenges, passions, and interests driving their work. For example, during a side coffee at a conference, I learned from a peer at the Ford Foundation about their approach to disability inclusion. This conversation helped me realise that it would make little sense to engage them on a project focused solely on disability inclusion in a single school in Africa.

 

I also changed my narrative. When I realised that numbers weren’t enough, I found a way to showcase transformation. By focusing on the change we create - like lifting women with disabilities out of poverty - I could communicate a deeper, more impactful story that resonated with philanthropic partners. Instead of saying, “We organise 15 workshops a year to inform women with disabilities about their rights to work,” I shifted to, “We’re working to lift women with disabilities out of poverty. As a result of our work, 80% of the women involved in the program have successfully advocated for their rights and are now on a path to generate income.” This shift led to more engaging and productive conversations with philanthropic organisations, as they could see the transformation we were creating.

 

My best and most recent learning came from Rania Fazah, a distinguished Impact Evaluator who taught me much about the importance of change, how to show it, and the context:

 

“Some of what is dubbed as change is not change, but actions aimed at limited and mostly individualistic improvement”; “change is a strategic conflict between that alternative future state and the status quo. There are always sources of power that keep the status quo in place, and that’s where the challenge lies. As long as those power sources remain, nothing will ever change. This means when philanthropic organisations design programmes, theories of change, and pathways of change, they need to engage in contextualised analysis of the institutions or agents with whom power and resources lie in the communities. We often see projects and programmes that are disconnected from the contexts they aim to influence.

 

For example, a project on Combatting Domestic Child Labour focussed on raising awareness amongst poor families to convince them against the odds of sending their children to work in houses; the project also provided courses and income-generating opportunities to some mothers and fathers. After 5 years, very minimal change had occurred in the percentage of children recruited to domestic labour. One main reason is that little was done on the level of the demand side; the project did not target the families recruiting these children to work as domestic helpers, nor did the project analyse the cultural and social values behind domestic work.

 

This manifests contextual realities, structures, relations, power dynamics, and resource distribution of the targeted communities. The programme's evaluation exercise identified these gaps due to its approach to incorporating local perspectives, understanding local dynamics, and ethnography of the problem."

 

Rania Fazah’s insights underscored the importance of engaging the entire community ecosystem, analysing the cultural, social, and power dynamics, and going beyond immediate actions to create sustainable, contextualised change.


In conclusion, articulating the change your organization drives is essential for building long-term, impactful partnerships. When philanthropic partners understand what you do, and how and why you’re making a difference within context, it becomes a powerful tool to communicate your unique impact and forge meaningful connections with those who share your vision.

 

Are you navigating similar challenges in forging meaningful partnerships? Rania and I would love to explore these questions with you in February. Drop us a line at joy@philanthropower.com to continue the conversation.

 


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