Strategic Partnerships: How can you stand out?

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) collaborates with NGOs and nonprofit organizations to increase their impact on long-term strategic goals. For the NGO or nonprofit organization, joining a Strategic Partnership usually means some funding for projects that support these goals. Additionally, organisations are provided with a strong partner who can share complementary expertise, technology, network and access so that programs can have a wider impact on people and society.

The current cycle of the Strategic Partnerships concludes in 2020. For this, a total of 65 organizations applied, yet only 25 were selected by the MoFA. With the end date of the current cycle approaching fast, now is the time to think about how to get selected for the upcoming cycle! We at Data4Development are happy to support you to make sure your application stands out and is successful.

The value of focusing on data in your proposal

With a focus on their programmes and urgent needs, many nonprofits miss out on opportunities for internal strategies such as digital innovation and information management. We believe that these strategies are a key component of your goal to reach impact while being adaptive and sustainable.

In order to get selected for a Strategic Partnership, organizations have to provide a track record of their past activities and build a case for their  future activities which are related to the Partnership. Therefore, being able to demonstrate results and experience with reporting transparently through IATI are important factors in the selection process. Additionally, the new cycle places special importance on innovation. Using open data and digital media are becoming key tools in allowing organizations to leverage digitalization and online collaboration. 

A focus on information management can therefore be a definite advantage for being selected! Let us help you out to make your proposal and programme data driven and fit for the changing environment you are operating in.  This can include (but is not limited to) dashboarding, IATI, data quality and designing your ICT strategy
Read more about how we can add value to your proposal.

IATI as a building block

Besides the hard requirement from the Dutch MoFA for stakeholders in Strategic Partnerships to publish in IATI, there is another reason for NGOs and nonprofit organizations to use IATI. It provides a pathway to take your data seriously and use it to create more impact. Successful use of IATI, or Data for that matter, has some important preconditions:

To start,  you have to be somewhat familiar with IATI. Joining the D4D IATI Hub on LinkedIn or booking our IATI Starter Training can help you with this. Next, having your publications up-to-standard is essential. Our Spreadsheets2IATI Converter makes this easy: You deliver spreadsheets, we make them IATI-proof. We also developed the free Data Quality Validator to get feedback on the quality of your IATI data.

An additional important step of the IATI process is sorting out your future publication processes and streamlining these. To benefit from IATI’s full potential, anchoring your data into your organizational processes is crucial. Turning data into usable information as a stable component of your work allows you to use your data as a valuable resource for your own work and your work with partners.

Data4Development has built a track record in helping organizations to make this happen. We would love to support your IATI journey.

Contact us

[advice_text_block]Do you want to get ready for the upcoming Strategic Partnership application cycle, and want to make sure you are hitting all the targets of the MoFA? Do you want to take full advantage of IATI for your organization? Get in touch with us to talk about your ideas![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]