As part of Peace Direct’s commitment to decolonising our practice, we are testing a process for creating shared fundraising appeals with our partners, to share the resources we have access to as a Global North INGO.
In 2023, we launched our first Co-Appeal with Chanan Development Association, a local partner in Pakistan. This year, we are working with Envision Zimbabwe Women’s Trust on a Co-Appeal to raise funds and awareness for Women Peace Champions in rural Zimbabwe.
Here are our reflections on the co-appeal process so far, and how we believe it could influence wider practice across the charity and peacebuilding sectors.
We began working on the Co-Appeal in February 2024 and are planning to continue our collaboration throughout the year. One of our aims is not only to raise funds for women-led peace in Zimbabwe, but to exchange knowledge and learn from one another.
As a Global North INGO, Peace Direct, we recognise our position of power when it comes to accessing resources. Although we are working to expand the scope of our public fundraising, we have access to technical knowledge, media platforms, and staff time to dedicate to raising funds and awareness for local peacebuilders around the world. Therefore, as part of the Co-Appeal process, it is crucial that we share skills and resources with our partner. The long-term aim of this knowledge exchange is for partners to expand their own public reach and fundraising potential, which will support them to continue their vital work.
For Envision Zimbabwe Women’s Trust, this is the first time we are exploring public fundraising. Until now, our access to funding has been limited to the funding we receive from Peace Direct and some other partners. When we don’t have funding, we don’t do the work – or we wait until we get the next round of funding. With an activity like the Co-Appeal, we have realised that public fundraising is something that we can do in order to continue our work without disruption. A big takeaway for us is to ask ourselves: How can we use the skills and information we’ve gained to do our own fundraising, even locally?
For the team at Envision, it was important to build the Co-Appeal around a specific initiative. We suggested Women Peace Champions as the focus because it is an ongoing initiative that needs funding to continue, and speaks to our mission as an organisation. By training Women Peace Champions, the goal is to empower women to take up leadership roles in a community where leadership is mostly male dominated. We have received funding to train women in the community as Peace Champions. Now the challenge is providing them with the practical resources to do their work.
When we started working on the Co-Appeal, we discussed why the work we do is so important and how to get this message across to the public. As part of this, we spoke to Women Peace Champions about what support they really need to do their work. The Co-Appeal was an opportunity to immerse ourselves in the work we do, and remind ourselves of just how important it is.
Having spoken to some of the Women Peace Champions about this Co-Appeal, it’s exciting for them too – hearing about the support and messages of solidarity they are receiving from the public is motivating them to continue their work.
For Peace Direct, this is still a new process, which we continue to develop and improve with our partners. One of the key learnings from our first co-appeal in 2023 was that co-creation takes time. While in 2023, we planned for the Co-Appeal period to mirror our standard appeal schedule, we soon learned that a shared appeal takes longer to develop and execute. Co-creation requires us to agree on a new way of working – across two teams, often across time zones, and with shared decision-making power. For this reason, we are working with Envision on our second Co-Appeal throughout 2024; publishing content in phases, and taking time to reflect together, to ensure the process is working well for both organisations.
For Envision, we were learning throughout the Co-Appeal process. Through working with Peace Direct, we learned a lot about how to communicate our ideas with a public audience. Initially, we would collate as much information as possible about the Peace Champions’ work and find it challenging to condense this in an email or letter to supporters. But we worked with the Peace Direct team to make it more engaging for a public audience by using creative formats like video clips, quizzes and surveys. And the results were pleasantly surprising for us – like when we received 100 messages of solidarity from Peace Direct supporters on Zimbabwe’s Independence Day!
We look forward to continuing our Co-Appeal throughout 2024. So far, this collaboration has helped us to grow individually and strengthen our relationship as partners because we are walking together in every aspect of the work. The Co-Appeal process will inform both organisations’ future practice and by sharing the process, we hope it will encourage other INGOs to explore shared and equitable approaches to public fundraising and engagement.
You can find out more about how to support our co-appeal by signing up to our newsletter, and you can donate to support this work here.
