The Role of Communication in Enhancing Fund Raising for Kenyan NGOs: a Comparative Analysis of Action Aid Kenya and Caucus for Women’s Leadership

Abstract

Communication with donors has become an important variable in fundraising for NGOs the researcher has noted that most NGOs receive funds from external donors and governments, but they don’t bother to communicate with the funding agency on the progress of their operations and activities. Donors have always provided a common proposal and reporting template and guidelines to all NGOs for programs they seek to fund or the ones already funded, but despite the availability of these templates and guidelines, some NGOs still do not secure funding while others continually receive funds from the same donor agencies. Donors usually want a good concept paper of about 4 – 5 pages yet some NGOs still present a more than 5 page concept paper, which are not perceived well by donors. Reporting to donors on the progress of the development activities that have been undertaken are either delayed, or not done. If they do, it’s not according to the standards set by donors. Therefore, this study sought to establish the roles of communication in enhancing fundraising for Kenyan NGOs by doing a comparative study of AAIK and CWL. Internal desk review approach was employed. Purposive sampling was used to select KCDF as a donor agency. Qualitative data collected was coded and listed to obtain proportions and presented using quantitative narratives. The findings of the study were: both NGOs are using digital platform in communicating with donors, only AAIK posts appealing stories about their beneficiaries on their website so as to attract potential donors, both NGOs give feedback to donors on status of activities, AAIK allocates more funds for communication in their budgets than CWL and has communication experts who disseminate information into simple forms that donors can understand. The study recommended CWL to adopt the same, the two NGOs should use social proofs which demonstrate that others have supported the cause and that money has been raised. Also, NGOs should utilize all key communications streams such as media, advertising, delivering consistent messages across all streams and demonstrate the purpose by making a personal connection to the target audience , use compelling images and some aspects of branding which people like to see so as to get more funds.