Why We Need a Resource Mobilisation Strategy
Development of a Resource Mobilisation Strategy

Why We Need a Resource Mobilisation Strategy

A resource mobilisation strategy provides an essential roadmap and spells out how resources are to be leveraged to meet your organisation‘s resource needs.

You need a resource mobilisation strategy to:

• Have a planned and upfront pipeline of resources;
• Plan beforehand where resources are needed and assess appropriate possibilities for raising them;
• Coordinate how you contact resource partners and build a long-lasting relationship with them;
• Ensure coherent and clear messages to resource partners;
• Ensure that your staff’s role in resource mobilisation is maximized and their contributions as effective and efficient as possible;
  
• Have enough time to apply for interesting grant opportunities;
  
• Increase your impact through ensuring consistent programme delivery.

Development of a Resource Mobilisation Strategy

Goal Development – The Ideal Picture

In a team process, develop a common picture on the ideal resource mobilisation
approaches for your organisation. In the resource mobilisation strategy, you lay out the different approaches and strategies you will apply to reach your resource mobilisation goals in the various areas and using different communication channels.

You can do this by creating a best-case scenario for sustainable, attractive funding, based on the organisational and peer analysis conducted earlier. To look beyond current and established ways of funding, come up with a picture of potential income sources, amounts, timing, funding purpose and resource partner groups.

Tool 3: Creating the Ideal Picture

Stakeholder Engagement for Ideas and Validation

To meet the interests of your resource partners and to learn about potential new pathways of resource mobilisation, it is recommended to engage key stakeholders at an early stage and to collect their views and inputs on the most promising resource mobilisation strategies.

The findings inform the planned way forward and help to make appropriate strategic decisions. The stakeholder views are critical to help you understand the context of the planned actions better. Consultations also enhance ownership and support throughout the organisation for the pathway developed.

A short workshop with a limited number of participants representing programme, field offices, finance, management, board and potentially resource partners, has the following goals:

• Orient the stakeholders on the goal of the resource mobilisation strategy;
• Share the findings of the organisational analysis and the resource mobilisation strategy ideas developed so far;
• Collect more information about resource mobilisation options and ideas how people feel about them;
• Refine the resource mobilisation strategy with insights on audiences, messages, activities and communication channels.

Resource Mobilisation Strategies Decision Making

When you have collected the information from inside your organisation as well as the views and input from external stakeholders, the time has come to take decisions on the resource mobilisation strategies to be implemented in the long- and short-term. As a basis for decision-making, rate and rank the strategies identified according to expected benefit, costs, time until revenue, long-term sustainability and risks.

Tool 11: Resource Mobilisation Strategies Ranking

Having gained an overview of the resource mobilisation strategies and their priorities for the organisation, you have the basis for decisions on how much to invest in getting funds from the different sources.

While diversification of funding sources helps to keep your organisation’s funding base stable, the amount of time and resources available to engage in different sources has to be considered as well as the expected income gained within the timeframe that the funds are needed.

Once you have selected the strategies your organisation wants to engage in, it is time to set goals for each source on what you want to achieve and which resources you need to reach the targets.

For each strategy, set the following goals:

• Expected income and the number of resource partners you will target;
• Acquisition channels (e.g., number of proposals written, donor calls, donor meetings, event, social media campaigns, etc);
• Communication and Cultivation channels on which you will interact with the resource partners, which information you will share and how frequently you will be in touch with them;
• Human resources required to fulfil the goal;
• Cost for the implementation of the strategy (Media House fees, Airing costs, printing, spot production, etc);
• Timeline for the implementation of the resource mobilisation actions: By when do you expect to see the income results?

Tool 10: Resource Mobilisation Strategies Planning

When the income goals and expected investments for the different sources have been set, the total of expected funds generated from these sources can be calculated and also the resources which will be needed to achieve this.

Considering different investment and success expectations for the individual strategies, you can project varying resource mobilisation scenarios, giving your organisation prioritisation and budgeting options.

These plans and estimates give your organisation a solid foundation to base strategic resource mobilisation decisions on. When you have taken these decisions, you can develop an action work plan for the different sources as well as a monitoring plan. Monitoring helps to ensure resource mobilisation activities per source and expected income are on track or to check whether changes in approach are required to ensure funding targets can be met.

Writing a Resource Mobilisation Strategy

The writing process for a resource mobilisation strategy can already start once
you commence the ideal picture process. Collecting and analysing all necessary
organisational information and ensuring it is up to date will help you take well informed strategic decisions. The process will be eased by appointing responsible writing champions early on who take notes throughout the process and compile a first draft of their respective section. Appointing a coordinator can ensure that timelines are kept and drafts are submitted in an even quality.

There are many ways of writing a resource mobilization strategy, but the following key aspects can provide a framework for your plans.

• Keep it simple. The best resource mobilization strategies are simple and clear.
• Keep it up to date. To be successful, your strategy should be reviewed and adapted regularly
  rather than stowed away in the office drawer never to be looked at again.
• Track your progress. Setting targets and developing an annual calendar of activities is key to helping track and assess progress.

A template can be found in the tools:
Tool 6: Resource Mobilisation Strategy Template

Key Elements of a Resource Mobilisation Strategy are:

• Introduction;
• Mission, Vision, Values for resource mobilisation;
• Analysis of your resource mobilisation history
• Organisational Analysis
• Analysis of the annual budget and budget forecast to determine which amount of funding is already in place;
• Analysis of your case for support;
• External analysis (PESTLE);
• Analysis of organisational capacity (SWOT);
• Review of resource mobilisation strategies;
• Goals, Objectives and key outputs for resource mobilisation;
• Fundraising investment budget;
• Monitoring Framework;
• Annual Action Plan.