ATypical day...

It has been a while since I blogged, and I have started receiving complaints about that...so here I am.

It has been a busy couple of weeks... At the initial briefing by AFiD back in London, I was asked to describe a typical day of a volunteer. Well, as typical days go, mine are probably not very usual ones for AFiD volunteers - I do not implement processes, review reports or even impart my all important knowledge on those who I work with. I sell! Never thought I would ever put that down as a description of what I do, but I have realised that most of the time regardless of what we do, this is exactly the activity we spend out time on. We sell products, services, our knowledge, ideas, concepts, ourselves...And the market varies too - it can be a client, colleague, boss, stakeholder or a random stranger who you are trying to impress. I think my typical daily activities include all of the above! I sell the concept of microfinance, and the idea of women empowerment through capability building and creation of employment, I sell the vision of social development through economic activity. Almost like selling a vision of a robust governance structure to an emerging markets company wishing to play with the big boys on the London Stock Exchange! In fact, very similar - I am also asking for money in return for that great vision. Alongside, I sell those who will bring to life these bright future snapshots - the MLF foundation, and myself alongside - seeing I am the one excitedly reciting the pitch in front of those who were unfortunate enough to not be out of the office when I popped up at their door!  Just like when we include the credentials of the team in the proposal for a new bid. This is my take of fundraising. So really, the only difference between working here and in my regular job back in the real world, is the sunshine and blue Namibian sky...Well, almost only that.

So a typical day for my first week would be best described by a famous song from a Russian movie: "A yaaaa idu, shagau po...Winduk, i yaaaaa proyti eshe smoguuu...". It is a good thing there is no sound effect on this blog! ;) For those who just did a double take at the earlier sentence - a lot of walking around the city! Apart from the traditional approach of setting up appointments (how boring!), I decided to just go the offices of the target organisations and try my luck - either see someone on the spot or set up an appointment. That approach went pretty well for the first week - flip flops on my feet and heels in the bag and ready to go. By now I know the city pretty well, and some of the streets which seems reallllyyyy far turned out to be around the corner!!! It does help that Windhoek isn't actually that massive, so most offices are within more or less walking distance. I have also learned to direct taxi drivers to where I need to go if the distance does not permit flip-flopping along - they do not even dare to ask me for N$20 for a trip anymore (all short distance trips cost N$8 dollars, but if you are not local, the price often seems to go up - as in most places).

Glimpse of the city 

German church. It actually is very pretty - the gloomy sky is not the best backdrop.

Another important part of the "typical" day, is walking into Government offices and demanding to see the minister! Well, may be not quite demanding, but gently insisting on the opportunity to have a chat... Secretaries in the Ministry of Youth, National Planning Commission and Ministry of Gender, Women affairs and Equality know me by name now...In fact, I have even managed to get the aforementioned meetings, and these were quite positive..As positive as they can be given that no decision is made on the spot.

Other than that, in the last weeks I have been to/spoken to quite a number of various organisations, from ministries to banks to FMCG conglomerates. I have had 3-5 meetings a day, apart from occasional walk-ins. One thing I have learned, among others, is to call a spade a spade. I am used to trying to avoid any mention of finance in the very beginning of the conversation for fear of scaring people off from the core proposition and the value. I had come up with a number of ways to introduce myself and purpose for call/visit, however it all ends up pretty much the same way - "So you want funding? Let me put you through to Mr X". Yes, I want funding. Show me the money! The system here works differently and everyone understand that everything revolves around money and requests for funds from various non-for-profit are normal and expected. So now this is exactly what I say - I want grants, funding or financial support.  Makes life so much easier! I have also learned that the address books and google in this country do not get updated...African Development Foundation moved out to an unknown location two years ago from the address they are supposed to be according to the local Yellow pages equivalent!

This week I have taken a different approach...just because I am tired of walking and taking taxis! I call and get rejected on the phone rather than in person. I still have about 3 meetings on average set up every day, and in between I find a cozy cafe equipped with the phone book and research results from the night before, and make calls to the organisations to see if I can fix a time to speak to someone or get an email address to send the proposal.

Cozy cafes like this

The second shift of the day involves researching additional organisations that I could approach for funding or partnership, which from my perspective is as important as just the financial relationship. The stronger our offering, the better the chances of securing the funds int he first place, but also the better the support we provide to our women will be. This is where I get overly excited=)

At this point I have a list of 105 leads and 31 out of these are still more or less untouched. I think about 30 of these are very unlikely to even consider parting with any amounts of money, so I am leaving them for later....