We are certain that many individuals, nonprofits and corporations around the World truly wish to help the African people. However, given the unstructured local philanthropic sector, they do not know where to start nor how to realize their philanthropic vision on the motherland.
We thus approach and match potential international donors, partners and sponsors with local African charitable organizations according to their:
- Philanthropic vision
- Sectors of operations
- Long-term goals as philanthropists
- Previous actions
- Mutual existing partners
- Emergency usual response time
- Resource capacity
- Other possible interests in the region: diplomatic, economic, business, etc.
Like in any other endeavor where results are required and expected, value must be at the center of every actions we deploy.
Thus before approaching potential international donors, partners and sponsors, we assess how a collaboration with them in any form can concretely and tangibly add value to the populations we all aim to assist.
Careful and thorough emphasis is directed toward the unlocking of potential via the addition of real value. Not every partnerships would nor could work. To avoid any waste on every sides we focus on detecting if yes or no value could be created or derived.
As most international donors, partners and sponsors do not have representations in many African states, we fully grasp the fact that we are their eyes, their ears and most importantly their working hands.
This means that we not only allow international donors, partners and sponsors to send funding, resource and/or equipment to African charitable organizations, we are on the fields for them. Making sure their efforts and contributions are used exactly as they were told and as they chose.
- We design cost effective and quick implementation plans with the nonprofits we work with as well as clear flowing expenditures schedules.
- We take care of the international banking transactions or transits either you decide to contribute by providing financial resource or by supplying equipments.
- On the fields, we closely work with the charitable organizations chosen by the international donors, partners and sponsors to diligently respect the timelines and milestones carefully put in place.
This allows for a better coverage and control of the donations spending, for higher transparency, for no corruption, for better reporting and then for better understanding of the results.
Measuring efforts and social impact is a must for charitable organizations. Not only it is necessary in order to identify their organizational strengths and weakness as well as to improve the quality of their work; It illustrates the core value of their activities. Indeed, measuring initiatives social impact is equally important to donors and funders as it clearly shows and demonstrates how their financial efforts toward charities are being used and how their use can be made more efficient, reach larger scales, creates more value, etc.
However, measuring the impact of their activities can be difficult for African charitable organizations:
- Difficulty in measuring outcomes: Many organizations aim to create transformative changes in the lives of beneficiaries, such as improving quality of life or providing education; results are often intangibles and thus difficult to measure.
- Longer time-scales for change: Some initiatives cannot be measured in the short-term.
- Lack of resources to test and implement impact measurement tools.
At Live Alive, for each charitable project we work on, we use our resources to design a clear framework that links inputs, outputs and outcomes, we develop the right tools and systems to gather and analyze information. This allows us to better advise charities, donors and funders.
Very often the two most important groups of the nonprofit sector are isolated from each other: indeed, beneficiaries and donors barely know each others.
In some instances, donors prefer to remain anonymous or choose not to have any type of link with beneficiaries. However, except in the later case, we try to maintain and create long-lasting relationships between the charitable organizations we work with and their local and international funders. On top of the frequent follow-up reports we submit to all stakeholders, we invite donors, sponsors, partners and any allies in the fight for better living conditions to visit the charities, projects, facilities we work on and to engage with the beneficiaries that keep trusting our work. This way, they can see first hands all the goods of their involvement overseas.
On the other hand, we value and promote the name of donors, sponsors and partners may they be individuals, corporations or nonprofit organizations in a way agreed with them. All while preserving the dignity of beneficiaries, we make sure they know the people or organizations that made their communities better.
Furthermore, we strongly believe that building deeper bridges between African charitable organizations and their international funders can only be beneficial for each stakeholder. Africa is the future. Having a presence and be known on the continent by the people and governments is a window to future potential business and/or diplomatic opportunities at the individual, corporate or state levels.