On The Road Blog
Crucial Factor: Finding a Good Match
- By Vineeta Gupta on December 28th, 2010
- Category: Blog, South Asia
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Whether in the context of a personal, career, or social enterprise, finding a good match is one of the critical ingredients for full realization of goals. With the mushrooming of NGOs, the options for social investment partnerships are many, and vetting to find the right partner is important and requires expertise and experience, a considerable time investment, and structures that allow mutual learning.
The GFC model places emphasis on intense engagement, relationship building, and site visits to learn about GFC’s compatibility with prospective grantee partners. GFC invests time up front in order to save the time of community organizations and invites them to submit a proposal for funding only after GFC’s program officers have explored the possibility of a good match. The GFC model also provides flexibility to the program officers to integrate their own approaches and to develop recommendations based on prudence and diligence.
I planned my trip to Nepal and Bangladesh to visit existing grantee partners and explore new partnerships many weeks in advance. First, Farah Anwar (GFC program associate for South Asia) and I put together a list of community organizations working with children and youth in the region. To draw up the initial list, we utilized many sources, including referrals from our local contacts, existing grantee partners, and peers; Internet and media content; and suggestions from local networks. We then shortened the list to match GFC criteria. We reached out to the short-listed organizations by email or phone to share information about GFC and to request information from them. Following their responses, we set up calls to address any questions that either party had.
After I arrived in Dhaka, I met with the representatives of many organizations to discuss their work. These discussions helped narrow down the prospects. I am leaving for Nepal this evening and will be back in Dhaka next week. I am looking forward to visiting a few organizations to meet with the children and youth in their programs, learn about the community they work with, and be a part of their daily routine for a few hours.
This morning, I met with Anita Muyeed, director of StreetWise Education Foundation, a GFC grantee partner in Dhaka. “Didi (older sister), our new home is so clean and has lots of light,” said a kid when I walked into the StreetWise residential home for street children. StreetWise may be a small effort, but it is an effective one that has been able to keep children off the streets. Small has a large place in the one-step-at-a-time kind of social change!
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