Cold emails……and what's next?

I sent an email to the International Alliance of Women yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to receive their reply early this morning. My message was about exploring collaboration opportunities to help implement our initiative. Unfortunately, they clarified that they do not provide direct financial support or grants. This helped me better understand the role of a political organization. However, they did share information about other organizations, such as the International Budget Partnership, which might offer fundraising guidance, which may open new possibilities for our initiative.

Honestly this journey is tougher than what I thought before and bring up some self-doubts of course.

But I won't bind myself in this self-doubt circle. More importantly, I’ve begun to reflect on the effectiveness of cold emails. I’ve sent many in recent days but receive very few replies. Reaching out to organizations without having a legitimate entity behind me undermines my credibility. Currently, I only have a presentation outlining the initiative and a comprehensive 53-page document detailing it. Unfortunately, neither contains an leagl organization’s name or other materials to establish legitimacy, and I lack sufficient visuals to showcase our work. With countless initiatives and NGOs emerging every day, if I have something unique and compelling to stand out, that would be great. It’s essential to provide concrete, feasible, and operational proof to potential sponsors that we will maximize their support to achieve our mission and deliver the best benefits to the community.

My next step will be to search for and gather a group of like-minded individuals who are passionate about making an impact in the NGO sector. Together, we will enhance our outreach materials, creating essential visuals like a logo and brochure. I believe establishing our own website would be beneficial, but this depends on how many people I can bring together to collaborate.

Ultimately, all these improvements are aimed at implementing this initiative to provide single mothers in Makuyu Town with sustainable jobs, to ensure they have enough food on the table, that their children receive adequate nutrition, and that they recognize the susstantial opportunities available to them.

Good luck to me in finding comrades!