Sandbox

Since 8 months I have been in Nigeria trying to set up business plans and assist in obtaining funding for local projects. I do this work without being paid and my expenses at the time being are covered solely through my generous brother.

I personally believe that the fastest way of development aid is developing the economy. People need jobs. With jobs people are able to buy food, send their children to school, etc, etc. And by developing the economy the country will be less depending.

Governments in these countries have a bad track record in developing their economies. In my opinion it would be much better to enable the local people to set up their business. Why this is not happening? Money flows out of these countries big time, to be invested in the west, to sit on western bank accounts. Local banks are reluctant to give loans as they have been thought by the governments to only invest in big scale exploration projects (mining, oil, government projects, etc.). And if a loan is given it is usually to conditions that are unfavorable (25% + interest, short term, etc.). 

As it has proved to be very difficult to obtain funding I came up with the idea of obtaining funding through the internet. This is currently an idea by one person (me). I set up an initial internet site using joomla (http://www.africafunding.com) and now I am kindly asking for help:

- what you think about the idea?
- how to get this going
- site development
- making the site known
- legal advice/aid
- assistance in business plan development
- accountability issues: how to, guarantees, 3rd party control
- ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas.....

I will be grateful for any ideas/help/advise/input. Please write me at [email protected]

I think you're going to find it difficult getting support. Firstly as an individual people are less likely to trust you than if you were a registered charity or not for profit organisation of some sort accountable to more than 1 person (and preferably with local representation). Your other big problem is that Nigeria is famous for being related to endless email scams about claiming money and business schemes etc. so you'll need to convince people that this is for real.

That aside I think the principle of what you're saying is probably right. I've never been to Nigeria so don't know anything about it but we recently ran some community stuff in Tanzania and one of things I was thinking out there was that there didn't seem to be many local people running the medium and big businesses - probably a combination of richer foreigners investing in their own businesses and only employing local people - rather than local people being able to build up their own business and employ foreign labour/consultants etc!

If you manage to sort out the structure and are able to convince people its for real and their money will really get to where its supposed to - I think the other thing thats needed is something that shows how much money is needed to achieve different things eg. overheads for a market stall, production costs, labour costs and so on and what this equals in currencies throughout the world - 20 US dollars will allow a business to employ this many people etc. that sort of thing or an idea of what living costs are and how much is needed to send a kid to school/the cost of a good family meal.

The other obvious thing is profiles of potential businesses- where they are, whos involved, their story and so on. Its a lot of work without knowing if you'll actually raise any cash though so maybe you want to run the idea past a few potential investors first?

Our sites totally different to yours so not sure its much help for design ideas but in case it does its http://www.yomo.co.uk we're also a long way from finished but starting to get to grips with Joomla now at long last!

Good luck

Dear wwwerickje

You are reinventing the wheel there are organisations are doing this work so you would simply deliver projects an organisation that is already doing such work and deliver as part of their unit. 

We currently have an organisation that is active in such projects in countries in Africa.  We partner with local organisations to secure delivery.  In development it is not like business people do not compete with each other and build good networks so work is not duplicated and costs are not run up to a silly level due to replication of management and administration costs. It is a waste of time setting up organisations that do the same activities and a waste of resources.  Most people in development understand that. 

Our site is here http://www.tesda.org.uk

We have a new capacity building resource for NGO's that are based in Africa, but I would seriously think long and hard if you are under an umbrella organisation and cutting down on administration costs and not reinventing ongoing capacity building which may be much more developed in terms of capability. You will be less likely to have problems with fundraising.

Most funds do not come from the net in all honesty, most funding comes from other sources that is why you have to partner with established organisations to deliver.

Thank you so much for your rplies. These are very much appreciated.

First of all I want to state that I am searching for help as it is not my intention to run this as a one man show. Further, I am fully aware of the problems of scam. That is another reason I am looking for help.

Major reason for starting this is that I am TRYING to help the people here. I have no personal interest other than the satisfaction I will get by delivering on one of these projects

I have no opposition to work under an umbrella or in cooperation with another organization. In fact, if I would find any organization that would like me to prepare these projects for them so they can review them for funding I will be happy to do so, i I don't want anything for that.

If the only option to get these projects running is through my proposed internet site it's fine too!! I am searching for solutions. These are commercial projects. These people want to earn money by setting up there business and I have found it very difficult to get funding for these kind of projects. I myself have found people willing to do funding but as they often want payments upfront I am very reluctant to deal with them as I do not want to be another casualty of scam myself.

Looking forward to hear more. Am willing to discuss any viable ideas or suggestions.

Eternity wrote:Dear wwwerickje

You are reinventing the wheel there are organisations are doing this work so you would simply deliver projects an organisation that is already doing such work and deliver as part of their unit.   

just because some organisations are already doing stuff like it doesn't mean they're doing it everywhere - in fact they're def. not its not possible to cover the whole world. Yes you should work with other organisations and yes you should learn from them and maybe in some circumstances it might be better to work under their umbrella - but not always. Have a look at the big houses and the massive brand new cars used by staff from big umbrella charities in Africa and then talk again about how they cut down on admin costs!!!

The small things that people do matter too so give it a go and if along the way you end up working within a bigger organisation because its better that way then do that - but don't not do it just because its 'reinventing the wheel' - if the wheel wasn't reinvented we wouldn't have got far would we?!

Do agree that raising funds online is quite fruitless though.