Since its creation in 2000, the Urban Poor Child Organisation (UPCO) has experienced some resource mobilisation challenges.

This impeded their ability to locally mobilise resources to sustain their mission and ensure that needy children of school-going age are provided with quality education and training through the effective and efficient management of resources and to make education delivery relevant to the manpower needs of the community.

The identification of its challenges urged the organisation to apply to participate in a training on Local Resource Mobilisation for Civil Society in Ghana. The programme was organised by the West Africa Civil Society Institute and Change the Game Academy from 16-20 April 2018 which was followed by a mentoring phase from April to June 2018.

Bertha and Emmanuel, secretary and administrator respectively from UPCO testified the training was relevant for their organisation.

“Before the training, we had little or no knowledge about stakeholder mapping when mobilising funds. Neither did we consider the role our stakeholders played in projecting our work which would help improve our visibility and eventually increase our local resource mobilisation network”, they said.

Today, the story has changed significantly. UPCO has taken charge of their affairs. They have redefined their approach to executing projects. Additionally, they have set-up an effective fundraising committee to support their fundraising activities.

“During the training, our proposal writing capacity was sharpened which has translated in our ability to raise an amount of GH¢38,000.00 from the Church of Latter-Day Saints for the completion of our proposed four (4) classrooms block project in Dansoman”, Bertha and Emmanuel from UPCO shared boastfully.“During the training, our proposal writing capacity was sharpened which has translated in our ability to raise an amount of GH¢38,000.00 from the Church of Latter-Day Saints for the completion of our proposed four (4) classrooms block project in Dansoman”, Bertha and Emmanuel from UPCO shared boastfully.

“Our project was commissioned on the 11th of August 2018 towards the end of our participation in the programme”, they added

Reflecting on their ability to raise funds from the community they serve, Bertha and Emmanuel attested that they have made a 100 per cent increase in funds raised locally.

“After the training, we have successfully raised an amount of GH¢1,500 as compared to a range of GH¢500 – 700.00 previously raised from our community simply by practicing what we were taught during the programme”, they said.

This has never happened in the history of our organisation and could not have happened without us participating in the local resource mobilisation capacity strengthening programme”, they confirmed. Currently, UPCO implements projects only after developing an action plan; one of the key lessons they learnt from the training. They have also harnessed their fundraising skills to attract more donors; by being precise when developing proposals and succinct in situations where they have to articulate their work.

UPCO was created to ensure that needy children of school-going age are provided with quality education and training through the effective and efficient management of resources and to tailor education the manpower needs of the community.

WACSI and the Change the Game Academy designed this programme to boost the local resource mobilisation capacity of community-based organisations in Ghana and hone their skills to develop resource mobilisation strategies that create multiple funding streams through utilising local assets and mobilise support for their action

his Local Resource Mobilisation capacity building programme has become necessary due to the dwindling donor funds that threaten the sustainability of organisations that heavily depend on donor funding.