The Fundraising Story of Kariobangi Women Promotion Training Institute
June 26, 2025
KCDF Participates in the International Training of Trainers Workshop in Cambodia
July 4, 2025
On June 26th and 27th, 2025, KCDF held a two-day workshop to train seven community partner organisations supported through the Mott Foundation under the Strengthening Community Foundation Movement, to equip them with the necessary capacity to transition into fully fledged community foundations.
A community foundation is a grant-making public charity dedicated to improving the lives of people in a specific local area. It mobilises financial resources from individuals, families, and businesses to support practical nonprofit work within its community. Community foundations are key drivers of local philanthropy, and grant-making is central to their mission, supporting community-based organisations (CBOs) and other registered groups to champion community-led development.
During the workshop, Caesar Ngule, KCDF’s Programmes Director, led a session on understanding the grant-making framework. He emphasised the importance of developing transparent, structured processes before issuing grants. Caesar highlighted essential components such as preparing accessible and transparent guidelines, publicising calls for applications, establishing effective feedback mechanisms, and creating inclusive vetting processes.
“It’s imperative to consider how you receive feedback from the partners you fund,” he noted. “Your guidelines must be clear and easily understood. Ask relevant questions, be open to revising your processes based on applicant feedback and involve your entire organisation in the selection process, perhaps through a Participatory Organisation Capacity Assessment process, because every voice adds value and brings unique perspectives to your decision-making.”
Kennedy Odera, KCDF’s Programmes Coordinator for Capacity and Systems Strengthening, guided participants through the grant-making ecosystem from a community foundation perspective. He underscored the importance of understanding stakeholder dynamics, establishing robust monitoring and evaluation systems, developing a supportive policy environment, and remaining grounded in community foundations’ core tenets.
“Our goal is to ensure impact flows from the grassroots up,” Kennedy explained. “From a recent KCDF impact survey, we’ve seen that our community capacity-strengthening efforts have helped raise over KES 56 million, primarily from local resources. We are confident that the grant-making processes will be successful with strong systems in place.”
Gabriel Kihara, Team Lead for Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning, guided participants through measuring results effectively within their organisations as grant makers. He emphasised the importance of setting clear and SMART objectives to ensure high-quality outcomes.
“An indicator is a quantitative or qualitative variable that reliably measures project performance,” he explained. “To achieve this, each partner organisation must define clear output and outcome expectations. Consider holding an induction workshop to communicate your expectations to partners.”
Key Takeaways from the Workshop:
- Grant-making is both relational and strategic.
- Power dynamics must be acknowledged and carefully navigated.
- Vetting processes should be inclusive, participatory, and fair.
- Clear targets help define impact and identify ideal grantees.
- Understanding your target group is essential to reaching the right partners.
- Effective results measurement begins with setting SMART objectives and defining clear outcome and output expectations.
- Using well-designed quantitative and qualitative indicators ensures reliable performance tracking.
- To align understanding, induction workshops can be valuable in clearly communicating expectations to implementing partners.
As a community foundation, KCDF is committed to promoting the development of sustainable and resilient communities. This is achieved by entrenching community philanthropy, enhancing institutional effectiveness, advancing community-led development, and promoting an enabling environment for local giving and self-reliance. Through initiatives like this workshop, KCDF continues to build the capacity of its partners to become grant makers, empowering them to serve their communities with purpose, transparency, and long-term impact.
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