Diversify sources of funding

Addressing heads and representatives of eighty NGOs at a session of Scotiabank Insights at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, she said when the world was concerned about HIV and AIDS, she began to think about what would happen when another disease gains prominence.

She said that as NGOs they needed to think about the value they bring and what is the value that can be transferred to other programme areas. She said that the traditional donors are not there in the same way as before and this provides an opportunity to build new relationships with other organisations.

Hilaire-Bartlett said NGOs had to be prepared to do things differently in today’s world.

She added that working together to form partnerships was critical and observed that while funding for NGOs has been changing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the countries in the region had been rising and the global community uses this as a measure to graduate these countries from aid funding, thinking that higher GDP meant that the region was in a position to address its own social issues.

She said against this background the donor nations and agencies would shift their giving to the regions they think might be in greater need and night shift their donations to sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

“That is what the globe is seeing, so they are seeing that in the Caribbean we don’t need to put resources there any more, but is that the reality? The social issues remain.” She said the trend of diseases had changed to lifestyle diseases although HIV/AIDS remains a great concern and it is obvious that where the trends are going in terms of social illnesses the funds are not matching those changes.

She said that there are other issues such as inter-personal violence, ranked fourth by Google in terms of the burden of disease in Trinidad and Tobago; then there was also gender-based violence; gang-related violence; and self harm which was a critical social issue but said that while there were all these issues, the NGOs tended to deal with people as projects and this didn’t make sense.

Anya Schnoor, Senior Vice President and Head, Caribbean and East and South, Scotiabank and Chairman of the Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Foundation, said through the foundation, Scotiabank had been helping NGOs and charitable entities for more than ten years.

She said that through the foundation the bank last year contributed over $4 million, sponsorships and other forms of assistance, in the process impacting 21,000 individuals and more than 1,200 organisations, schools, businesses and NGOs. She added that in addition to providing financial assistance, the bank felt it had an obligation to help them become better off and become sustainable.

However, she said that a 2017 Fund-raising Effectiveness Survey report from the Fund-raising Effectiveness Project conducted by the Association of Fund-raising Professionals showed that it is more important now than ever to make smart decisions around fund-raising and retention efforts for NGOs.

Schnoor said the survey found that NGOs are losing 55 percent of their donors from one year to another which she said was not a sustainable strategy.

“If NGOs were a business where the majority of customers do not return, the business would soon be out of business,” she said, adding that “As an NGO, the work you carry out is critical. The role you play in society is of utmost importance and we want to help you to persevere as you continue to care