Question: What is the greatest challenge you five winners are facing in mobilizing resources? And what could the online community do to help you overcome that challenge?

Answer (from Robyn Taylor, Anti-Child-Prostitution Campaign): One of the greatest challenges is that most of our services are "invisible." The public cannot "see" the results of counseling and social work in the same way that they could "see" a new park or a rebuilt house for example. This can make fundraising difficult because many people prefer to get involved with organizations where they can be personally involved. Our clients and shelters must remain confidential and we cannot reveal any details about our client's identity, so that is not possible for us.

Another problem is that there is a one-way flow of finances (out!). Our clients cannot afford to pay for or even pay back the cost of services.

Also, the ideas of "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) and "social enterprise" are very new here. I wonder - Could online communities be mobilized in the same way as "letter-writing" campaigns to help business understand why CSR is important?

Could online communities be mobilized to allow funders/social enterprise projects to meet? By "funders" I don't just mean the big funding agencies. I mean even small business or local groups. For example, we have started a very small workshop to help clients set up their own handicraft business. We need to make contact with a business looking to import handicrafts. Even one, small business somewhere would make a huge difference to our workshop. In fact, it might fit our project better, because the local women do not have a large output. I think if we have this situation, other NGOs must face the same thing. Recently I saw a very informal "network" site for small business - suppliers and producers. Maybe this could work for NGOs, too.

Question: What motivated all of you winners to decide to pursue your citizen base strategy (instead of traditional fundraising)?
Answer (from Robyn Taylor, Anti-Child-Prostitution Campaign): Very early on, we realized that we would have to tackle the "market" for child prostitutes if we wanted to find a lasting solution to the problem. That meant educating the public about a whole range of issues - children's rights, girl's rights, sexuality. For example, some people still believed superstitions such as "having sexual intercourse with a virgin will make you stronger." Also, at that time child prostitution was one of the taboo subjects in society. We needed to put in a lot of work to raise awareness and educate the public on this issue.
We also needed widespread public support to have any chance of getting a law passed. To get that support, we need to let the public know who we were and what we wanted to do. That's where the media strategy was very important.
As I wrote in answer to the question about "generating community support and funds" traditional fundraising was possible after people learned of and supported our work. So, it was not really choosing a citizen base strategy instead of traditional fundraising. We needed both citizen support and funds, and citizen support later led to greater fundraising.

Question: How did the Mazuray campaign figure out how to generate both community support AND money? How do you balance between soliciting financial and non-financial resources?
Answer (from Agata Garbarczyk, Chance Foundation): Our own financial means are very faint so our main task here is to inspiring the decision-makers to spend money to fight unemployment, on development of local communities, to spend money wisely on projects which have public support and which offer measurable benefits to the surrounding environment.

Question: What is the greatest challenge you five winners are facing in mobilizing resources? And what could the online community do to help you overcome that challenge?
Answer (from Agata Garbarczyk, Chance Foundation): Thanks to Ashoka and Changemakers our programme became strongly promoted but still theres many to do. We have the favour of Mazurian community and we have good relationships with local councils. We need however founds to undertake our project. Online community could help us by providing contacts to potential founders, various contests and founds. Besides support from the whole world is an honour for us an highly motivating factor.

Question: What are the sources of some of your best ideas, e.g., listening to your constituents, external organizations/donors, collaborations/conferences?
Answer (from Agata Garbarczyk, Chance Foundation): Foundation Szansa was established by Andrzej and Aleksandra Stańskich. Both love to spend time actively in the country side such an ie Mazury region. Foundation is small non - governmental organization with several volunteers assembled. We try to get many things ie we lead cyclic Mazury action. We organize meetings and stay for youth and adult, we propagate the active forms of roundup of free time: kayak rafting , eko Marathons, eko picnics. Our ideas come to us spontaneously because we want to do something good and work for development of local communities. The author of the most creative ideas is our founder Andrzej Stański. Part of our Everyday life is looking for the sponsors, funds or possibility of winning finances - we are the NP organization and whole our activity it based on the donors' favour, generosity and goodwill.. We are looking for a partners around the world to act and to make our activity worldwide.

Question: How do you balance between soliciting financial and non-financial resources?
Answer (from Robyn Taylor, Anti-Child-Prostitution Campaign): The balance between financial and non-financial resources changes depending on the project.
For example, when we were working to pass a law we had to rely on non-financial resources (legal help, media strategy, volunteers) because we didn't have any money. But, even if we had had money for legal help and media ads etc, we still needed to show large-scale public support for the law. So, at that time, non-financial resources (general community support) was very important because without that wide-spread support we would not have succeeded in getting the law passed or carried out.
However, we really need financial support for our direct services such as the shelters, counseling and social work. This is because we need professional staff for counseling and social work, plus the identity and location of our clients need to be confidential, so we cannot use volunteers for this work. For these services, financial resources are more needed than non-financial resources. So, as these cases show, our organization uses financial and non-financial resources in different ways according to the project at hand.

Question: How did the Mazuray and the Anti-Child Prostitution campaign figure out how to generate both community support AND money?
Answer (from Robyn Taylor, Anti-Child-Prostitution Campaign): The Garden of Hope's Anti Child-Prostitution Campaign needed to build community support in order to tackle the problem of child prostitution and to generate financial support. Of course, we needed money (and still do!), but first we needed to build public awareness, change public opinion, and thinking about child prostitution.
Public awareness became public support, which we used to generate more awareness and more support. Eventually, this became more and more financial support. So, raising money, passing the anti child-prostitution law, and the success in carrying out the law all followed from community support.

Question: How do you get the trust of your community? For example, how did the Second Hand Tools or School-to-School project convince donors to want to give goods; and how did the Remittance project encourage workers to send their hard-earned money overseas?
Answer (from May-an Villalba, Unlad Kabayan Davao): Shared experience and sharing risks: I was a member of the first savings group in Hong Kong and together we developed the MSAI strategy and the mechanics of saving and investing.
Shared commitment: The immediate impetus for my decision to return to the country was to build opportunities and incentives for migrants' savings and investments at home and to establish Unlad-Kabayan and develop formal and safe mechanisms for transfer of savings to the Philippines. Unlad Kabayan met the challenge of finding and later on building profitable and socially responsive investment channels.
Transparency and credibility: Information and reports about the progress and also the problems from both ends were regularly exchanged. Formal channels for safe transfer of savings and banking service packages were being provided by banks and other financial intermediaries for migrant workers as a result of advocacy and negotiations of Unlad Kabayan. At least three banks have been convinced to open special windows-package for migrant savers and savings groups.
Shared vision: Continuing discussion on the issues and challenges of the local economy as we experience them in the field as well as the patterns and pitfalls of migrant work, a common understanding on the dynamics of MSAI was achieved. Through education, the migrant and local community understood the logic of sharing the benefits of migration with the broader community, and reintegration becomes more productive and purposeful in a changing economic and policy environment. It was the migrant workers who proposed 'social investments' or 'investing in development' or 'migrant savings for community development.'
Benefits: Trust becomes more solid as benefits start to accrue were realized: migrant workers and their families were able to build and sustain their own enterprises and created jobs for themselves and for others in the community; local government unit realized the potential of migrant remittances on local economies even as revenues were received from community enterprises; new products were developed and the academe saw their research benefit communities as products are commercially translated.

Question: What are the sources of some of your best ideas, e.g., listening to your constituents, external organizations/donors, collaborations/conferences?
Answer (from May-an Villalba, Unlad Kabayan Davao ): Some of the best Ideas came from a process of analyzing inputs from and with constituents, partners, donors, external organizations/friends and tested practical experiences of Unlad. These ideas are continuously distilled and refined and the process saw the emergence of new ideas.
Migrant Savings for Alternative Investments (MSAI), the mother of all ideas, started with the dilemma on how to effectively assist migrant victims of sexual and physical abuse to return and rebuild their lives at home. They were without any practical plan and means to return and were compelled to try their "luck" with other employers and risk the possibility of another round of abuse. MSAI is the outcome of hard thinking on how to make remittances-resources work for long-term and enduring benefit for migrants who were on short-term job contracts. Inputs came from various quarters: friends in the cooperative movement who introduced savings mobilization, from migrant workers determined to save and to engage in income-generating projects at home. Studies on "Income, Expense and Savings Patterns of Migrant Workers from Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh" by the Asian Migrant Centre showed that migrants can and do save and some of them can and do engage in income generating projects at home.
It is through the building of enterprises that the core benefits of savings and investments were realized, e.g. job creation, income generation and creation of new products and stimulating economic activities in the community. Unlad adopted in its MSAI the strategic direction of building an enabling environment for enterprise and community development (community development and reintegration) or MSAI for CDR.
In trying to find good practices in enterprise development, Unlad learned about and studied the working of "Business Assistance Center (BAC) and Business Incubation (BI)" provided by governments and business sector in developed countries and in Eastern Europe. With some modifications, the community based business assistance center was developed, which Unlad called the Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development Services or SEEDS Center. Through education and training SEEDS promotes entrepreneurship in the community and through provides services to help build and sustain small community-based income generating projects including micro-enterprises. Business incubation was likewise modified and is employed to help the more complex and 'capital and technology intensive' enterprises. Conferences helped to further sharpen and enlarge the ideas even as new partnerships and collaboration came into being.
The concern for enduring impact and sustainability [as also required by donors] can be integrated in the approaches and mechanisms towards institutionalization of MSAI-CDR, SEEDS, BI and CSIF (Community Savings and Investment Fund) and the enterprises. CSIF is a most recent idea the concept and mechanics of which are still being worked out.

Question: What motivated all of you winners to decide to pursue your citizen base strategy (instead of traditional fundraising)?
Answer (from May-an Villalba, Unlad Kabayan Davao): A citizen base strategy of MSAI is a process of people empowering people, generating pool of capital for creating local enterprises, jobs and increasing income and productivity within the country. As they save and invest, people learn more about becoming managers in their own right and becoming partners in development. MSAI generates savings and investments from migrants who have the capacity to save in bigger amounts and have actual disposable income compared to the farmers and urban poor. Based on proper motivation and understanding, migrants can alter their expense and savings patterns, instead of spending on building big houses, jewelries, appliances and other consumables. We say "A business can build a house but a house cannot build a business."
For a long time now, our economy had always been dependent on foreign investments, aid and debt. But the economy has remained in the doldrums. Compared to foreign investments, which are into short-term investments and readily flies out in times of instability, actual or perceived, migrant remittances invested in the country would remain and increase economic transactions. Migrant savings-investments is also viewed as a stimulant, so to say, for local communities to develop the value and practice of saving and investing. a returned migrant from Singapore, whose sewing shop was growing remarked: "There is money in the country if only we look hard and work hard enough. If I have realized this then I would have been around to care for my children and did not have to lose them to drugs."
By creating jobs and increasing productivity, MSAI hope to stimulate the productive capacity of community, help to reduce the pressure for out-migration and mitigate some of its social costs.

Question: What is the greatest challenge you five winners are facing in mobilizing resources? And what could the online community do to help you overcome that challenge?
Answer (from May-an Villalba, Unlad Kabayan Davao ): Unlad Kabayan faces the proverbial "chicken and egg" or "catch 22" situation. It is disheartening to hear comments from many quarters that "nothing is happening in the Philippines." Even our own people [20% in a survey] given the chance would choose to go abroad because they have lost confidence in the government and hope in the economy. The greatest challenge is generating resources from our own people, migrants and local communities to support the socio-economic pre-requisites of enterprise building, e.g social preparation and business incubation.
On one hand, most migrant workers want their hard earned money invested in secure and profitable businesses, on the other, Unlad Kabayan would also like to see that such enterprises are socially responsive and empowering to migrants and community. To realize both social preparation and business incubation - a package of social programs and services, e.g. education, advocacy, business environment scan, feasibility study, etc. must be done. There is support social preparation, education and training (we refer as software) but only a few would provide funds for business incubation (hardware), e.g. physical infrastructure, machineries and equipment, usually in the form of soft loans but fewer still would provide grants. Traditional donor agencies view migrant workers as the "lucky ones who got away before the going got rough" and supporting projects for migrants is taking precious aid away from the "poorest of the poor."
Moreover, Unlad Kabayan as a new entrant in social enterprise development and its strategy even though it is getting some results is perceived as "untried" by many "out there." Mutual trust is the foundation that made possible initial savings and investment mobilization. It continues to be built-strengthened among current savers-investors and partners. But there many more migrants "out there" who can and would share the challenges and the risks with Unlad but who are as yet unreachable. We would like to see them make the leap from investing for financial returns to investing in people-social returns.
By entering and winning, Changemakers is making it possible for Unlad Kabayan to be visible and add to its credibility. Through the on-line community, we hope to reach to more Filipino-American community, to know us, and know more about the challenges and benefits in building sustainable enterprises in a highly competitive business environment and unfriendly policy environment of the country. We would like to see online community spreading the word about Unlad Kabayan and for us together to develop mechanisms whereby they ?out there? become engaged and contribute to "us here."

Question: Trust of the community
Answer (from The second hand tools project): You have to have the broader community involved in CBI resource mobilisation. The biggest donors in the world are from individuals and this is where the focus has to be. The second hand tools project involved community by asking for second hand tools rather than money. Then we sent a thank you letter. These names are all placed in a database that receive regular newsletters and direct mail letters. The people who gave tools have become the people who support the project in resources, use our services, and speak kindly about us

Question: Source of best ideas
Answer (from The second hand tools project): The best ideas come from being creative. Non profits do not focus so much on creativity than on their "work". The sources of the ideas are from individuals who think in a very creative and lateral way. It is important to either consult with these types of people or draw them into your organisation.