The Tale of Two Meetings
I have not written a blog post since 2022 and can’t believe here we are in 2024! It’s good to be back.
A quick story….a month ago I found myself in back to back meetings. Not an unusual thing for a regular Tuesday morning, but unusual in the similarity yet dramatic difference between the meetings. The first meeting was with four other funders to discuss supporting the newly formed African Disability Collaboration- one of the most exciting efforts we have supported. All five funders on the call were chomping at the bit to support the Collaboration and within minutes we had close to $75,000 committed to the work. The decision was easy: 1. It was in Africa, 2. Large funders already supported the organizations involved in the Collaboration, 3. It focused on systems change. We all committed the funding and the Collaboration is up and running and doing incredible work which is not at all discounted by the next part of this story….My second meeting was with a disability organization in Guatemala, similar to the ones that we were supporting in Africa. We have a translator on the call because the executive director only speaks Spanish and two other peer funders of the organization. The call is to discuss how the organization will make up a $75,000 gap that they have because their main funder has decided to move out of Guatemala. The gap is about 30% of their annual budget and they are panicked. We brainstorm ideas and other funders to whom we could introduce the organization, and we’ve got NOTHING.
I leave these meetings knowing Tawingo Fund has to do something, which brings me to our current state….
Tawingo Fund has been busy continuing to support our 50+ existing and new grantees and expanding our portfolio in Latin America and Southeast Asia. We are focusing on small organizations, whether they are early stage or have been around for a while but haven’t been able to grow (and want to). Between funding in geographic areas that have fewer funders and funding small organizations that larger foundations can’t afford to fund based on starting grant size, we are hoping to begin to fill a void. We are connecting our grantees to other funders (where possible) with the ultimate goal of helping them to grow, enabling them to get access to larger foundations and ultimately no longer needing the Tawingo Fund.
On a recent board call I proposed “graduating” two grantees next year for the first time. The grantees are doing incredible work and when we started funding them their budgets were around $200,000. Now they are over $1m in annual budget and have a strong funder base and they don’t need us anymore. And we couldn’t be happier.
I recently received an email with this quote from the founder of Wandikweza, Mercy Chikhosi Kafotokoza:
“We are really thankful, Tawingo Fund trusted us in our very early stages when most partners could not. You believed in our vision and walked alongside us, holding our hand, watching our baby steps. Today, we are no longer babies, we are up and running. You found us when our budget was around $200,000 but now it is over a million USD. Thank you for the connections and for being our voice out there. Wandikweza is a 100% local organization and we could not have been where we are today if it was not for your support, advocating for us, being our voice. Words fail to express how grateful we are. We are so excited to see this day come into reality, graduating from the Tawingo portfolio.”
Not all organizations want to grow and for those who don’t, we completely support this and will continue to support them for years to come. And for those who want to grow and who we can help in our own small way, we walk alongside them.
Thanks for reading and if any of this resonates with you or if you know of funders in Guatemala that might be interested in talking, please reach out! Mollie@tawingo.org
