Welcome back to this Global Health YouTube channel.
My name is Greg Martin, and in this episode
we're going to talk about money.
So if you're looking for funding,
be it for a public health intervention,
for technical support, or for a research project
perhaps, or even a scholarship to study further, stay tuned
and we're going to talk about how to get that.
Now, raising money is a gargantuan topic
and can't be covered entirely in a short five minute video.
So I'm going to divide this up into a number of episodes,
which we'll put together in a playlist that'll
be on YouTube channel page.
So this is episode one, an introduction.
And we're going to talk about how funding agencies are
structured, and about the life cycle of funding
decision-making.
Firstly, to quickly exonerate myself
from any undue chastisement, let me be clear,
I am not a professional fundraiser,
and I'm not an expert.
That said, I have worked for two major funding agencies.
I've worked for UNITAID at the WHO,
and they fund interventions aimed at impacting the market
dynamics for products for HIV, TB, and malaria.
And I've worked at the World Cancer Research Fund
where I was the head of science research
and oversaw a grant program.
I've also worked in roles where identifying funding
was a big part of the job.
So, for example, I worked as the director of EMTCT
at the Clinton Health Access Initiative
where I was working with funders,
and that was the major part of my arena.
So how do funding agencies work?
Well, to start with, most of them
are governed by a board of directors,
and they oversee the governance of the organization,
and sign off on broad funding strategies
that the organization undertakes.
Next, you usually have a secretariat,
and they are the full-time staff,
and it's their remit to implement the strategies
and decisions taken by the board.
And these are the nuts and bolts of the organization.
These will be the people with whom
you interact on a day-to-day basis.
Some funding agencies have an additional technical advisory
panel, and they don't work for the agency per se,
but they convene periodically to evaluate
the technical and scientific validity of funding
applications, and they provide technical and expert advice.
Right.
Now let's talk about process, the funding cycle.
Most organizations will have a board meeting
at least once or twice a year.
And at that point, they take decisions as to,
in broad strokes, what it is that they want to fund.
Now, this is important to know, because most organizations will
publish a strategy document, and that
outlines their objectives and their goals for the year.
So get hold of that document.
It's likely to be a chunky, clumsy document, filled
with garrulous platitudes designed
to mollycoddle their own stakeholders.
Remember, even funding agencies get money from somewhere.
But buried somewhere in the gaudy noise
of self-aggrandizing piffle, you'll
find there's a few paragraphs that actually tell you
what they're looking for in a funding application.
If your proposal doesn't line up neatly
with their stated objectives, you're
not going to get any money no matter how good your idea is.
So what happens next?
Well, the secretariat will publish
either a call for finding applications,
or a call for letters of intent.
Now, these letters of intent are basically a screening process.
Afterwards, the organization will
invite applicants who are more or less on the right track
to submit a full proposal.
In either event, there'll be a definite deadline
at which point you need to have your application submitted.
Once you've submitted your application,
the process is relatively straightforward.
They'll either review it internally
or send it to their technical experts to review.
And there might be some back and forth
and some requests for revisions.
But at some point, however, the secretariat or the board
will take a decision as to whether they're
going to fund your project or not.
If they're going to fund your project,
then you'll start the arduous process
of drawing up a memorandum of understanding, which
is essentially an agreement between your organization
and the funding organization that outlines
the schedule of payment, and corresponding deliverables.
Now, sometimes interim payments are
contingent on certain milestones being reached.
And quite often, a mid-term review of the project
is scheduled to check that things are rolling out
according to plan.
The take-home message here is understand the funding agency's
objective.
And then get your proposal either in line with them,
or cross them off your list and find
a donor who you more naturally align with.
Now, that can be difficult, especially if you've got
an idea that's genuinely novel or out-of-the-box,
but we'll talk about how to deal with that in a future episode.
In the next video in this series,
we're going to talk about the actual business plan and budget
that you're going to need to put together.
And in future episodes we're going
to talk about how to develop a fundraising strategy.
We'll start to look at specific funders
and try to understand a little bit about what
it is that they're looking for.
So that's all for now.
Please put your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, comments,
pontifications, and questions in the comment section below.
I really appreciate your feedback,
and I'm going to try and respond to all the comments
that are there.
Remember to subscribe to this channel
if you haven't already done so, and you'll
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Until next time, always do your best,
don't ever change, don't do drugs,
take good care of yourself.
I'll be back, so speak to you soon.