Capacity Building for Business Membership Organizations and CAPABLE M4P Partners in the Niger Delta
In 2020, the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) provided 10 organizations with virtual training on resource mobilization and proposal writing. Fast-forward to 2022, Ikore was engaged to build on the initial training by assisting the organizations in creating strong proposals and submitting funding applications. Ikore was also required to work with five BMOs from the target sector of PIND's MSD program to determine their organizational capacity needs and to deliver training on Group Dynamic, business development and financial Literacy. The first of the two broad objectives of our engagement with PIND is to support ten CAPABLE Organizations to apply for third-party funding to implement projects in the Niger Delta by facilitating training and mentorship on proposal writing and resource mobilization. The second is to build the capacities of five Business Membership Organisations to implement their mandate by conducting OCA assessments, group dynamics, business development and financial literacy training. Ikore has begun implementation of this project and over the next few months, our activities will be as follows:
Key Task One: Organizational Development Capacity Enhancement Program for five MSD Business Membership Organizations
- Review documents from prior Capacity Building training and debrief with the Capacity Building team.
- Co-design and adapt training curriculums to meet program objectives and capacity development gaps.
- Discuss the profile of selected Cofacilitators, Partners, and BMOs
- Develop and share workplan.
- Conduct scheduled OCA for 5 MSD BMOs to assess their organizational status and recommend actions for improvement. Carry out group dynamics training, business development, and financial literacy training for the 5 BMOs.
- Conduct pre-OCA engagement and share OCA expectations and required documents for sighting with selected MSD BMOs
- Using the Digital Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT). The OCA assessment is based on 5 areas of organizational capacity and four subcategories (Governance, Planning, Human Resources, Financial Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation)
- Compute the OCA scores and update the dashboard to highlight the areas for improvement
- Share results of OCA with the groups. Discuss and agree on action plans and timelines
- Align action plans to improve OCA scores
- Using Adult learning facilitation methodologies, and nurturing the concept of group action, deliver group dynamics & leadership, business development, and financial literacy training to the BMOs.
- Identify suitable financial partner in each location and conduct financial literacy training in partnership with the institution
- Collect feedback from BMOs on designed training activities and review training plans to reflect feedback received.
Key Task Two: Support PIND Co-facilitators and Partners with Capacity Building, Training, Coaching, and Leverage to Access Third-party funds
- Provide resource generation and leveraging support for the co-facilitators and partners through dedicated coaching and mentoring to catalyze third-party funding for economic growth in the Niger Delta
- Assess the 10 co-facilitators and partners to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in accessing third-party funds
- Develop a bespoke capacity-building plan for each organization based on needs assessment
- Facilitate virtual training/refresher on resource mobilization, proposal writing, partnership management, branding, and networking
- Support each organization to develop a master proposal that can be adapted for each grant application
- Assist organizations to develop necessary compliance/policy documents for accessing third-party funding
- Provide close mentoring and coaching on proposal writing and resource mobilization to CAPABLE M4P organizations to Access Funding for Project implementation
- Assign mentors and coaches to the organization to implement capacity-building plans and proposal development targets (3-4 organizations per coach)
- Create a virtual support group (WhatsApp or telegram) to share notice of funding opportunities and invite partners to networking events. `{`23 days`}`
- Facilitate general bi-weekly virtual review meetings for peer learning and team support
- Support PINDs co-facilitators and organisations to register with FundsforNGOs and other platforms to receive updates on available funds and prototype winning proposals.
Monitoring of intervention progress
- Develop monitoring plans and tools to track organization performance.
- Share milestones and indicators with PIND and group leaders for monitoring organizational development progress.
- Design sustainability and exit strategy.
- Incorporate business development/ grant writing roles and targets within organizational strategy
- Ensure involvement of relevant support BMO institutions and agencies that can adopt the training approach
- Support BMOs to lead the implementation of the OCA action plans and use the framework to track their progress
- Finalization/presentation of the reports
- Conduct a knowledge sharing/learning exchange session among the BMOs
- Facilitate final working group session with all co-facilitators and PIND representatives to share outcomes of coaching and mentorship.