Not every client who calls in Blue Ninja truly understands the problem that needs to be fixed. They know that something isn’t working, but what it is? In other words, they are suffering the symptoms, but need someone to help them do some corporate triage and figure out what is causing the problems.
When we first met this client she had had to cease activity on the NGO part of her business for lack of funds, which wasn’t for a lack of trying. She had been consistently trying to build connections and find financing for her non-profit work, but with little to know results. So, why were here efforts not paying off? We needed to figure out where her fundraising efforts were bleeding her dry.
First, Stop the Bleeding
The first step when someone come to us with an issue like this, is to see if we can find some obvious issues and quick fixes. From our initial interactions and analysis of the business we realised that our client was losing money on some rather expensive advice, let’s call it misinformation, from an accountant. We helped her find and vet out an accountant who could help her create the right priorities on that side of her business. Finding the right people can always be tricky, but especially when you are an expat like our client and you don’t speak the language or are unfamiliar with local processes and legislation.
We also questioned her on the registration address of her NGO. She had registered the NGO in Rotterdam, as she thought her target market would be based there. As soon as we made some introductions for her to our own contacts in The Hague she learned that there were probably more valuable connections to be made there. So, we helped her with a postal address in The Hague and she updated her registration to improve her local positioning.
Now it was time to dig a little deeper and find out why despite all her efforts she had not been able to find funding for her NGO.
Diagnose the Underlying Issues
Through these first steps in helping our client gain her footing in The Netherlands and improve her fundraising efforts, we realised that part of the problem was that she wasn’t 100% sure on her targeting. She knew that she fit into the field of Sustainable Development, but how exactly? That did not seem to be so easily defined.
We didn’t necessarily have the expertise to help her figure this out substantively, and although we were happy to make useful introductions within our own network we were not active in this field and would quickly run out of people to connect her with. We might not be able to help her build a network, what we could help her with was to organise and stay on top of the connections she made as she worked on the positioning of her NGO and make sure that funding opportunities wouldn’t fall through the cracks.
By helping her explore certain connections and events and helping her set up basic lead tracking systems, we could help her become more effective in her business building, positioning and fundraising activities. Sometimes, part of what we bring to the table is an awareness of how you as a business owner can make your efforts more effective and so much easier.
By not having systems in place, we waste time and energy simply trying to stay on track. That’s true for any aspect of your business, be it fundraising, networking or accounting. Part of what my team can do for you in troubleshoot where your business is lacking such structures and making suggestions to stem the proverbial bleeding.