From 30th May to 7th June 2022, the second part of the Empowering rural youth organisations training took place in the picturesque small town of Pogradec in Albania. The theme of this part of the long-term project was fundraising.
Leaders, staff and volunteers from the twelve participating organisations gathered at the Lake Park Hotel on the shores of the oldest lake in the world, Ohrid, to learn more about how to implement fundraising in their work and what fundraising options are available to them over six working days.
But it was not only about work, there was also enough time for the participants to get to know each other, share experiences, pass on cultural customs and peculiarities, or to visit the small town of Pogradec, or the Monastery of St. Neum in North Macedonia (where participants went not only to discover the local sights, but also to carry out their public opinion survey on personal motivations for supporting various fundraising activities).
The whole program started, of course, with introductions of everyone to the others and the first task to test the group's ability to work as a team was called Mission: impossible. After the introduction of the program, the attendees took to sharing in pairs their experiences with fundraising, what good or bad experiences they had and if they had to overcome any obstacles.
To get a slight taste of what it's like to be a fundraiser, participants were able to try their it by individually approaching donors (other participants) with a wish to earn one to three of their candies. Even though everyone already knew each other at least a little, it was challenging to figure out what would interest “the donor” and how to engage them as an applicant for their "contribution".
And it was a while later possible to try out in practice by creating a media product. The challenge was to conduct a short interview with one other participant about what their passion is and to elaborate this in the form of an article, video or photo-story. I wrote an article with Ajla about creating podcasts of young people about what they are interested in, and she created a video about why I find the Erasmus+ programme such a good choice of spending time and why I would recommend it to others.
But because fundraising is not only about the creative and visually interesting outputs, but also about a lot of hard work, we had to work in groups to create an official letter to the donor, a call for volunteers, create a logo or a poster for our fictional project, and then one selected of us had to present it all at a press conference. It was interesting to see how many different ideas and concepts each group had, and how we each understood the assigned activity a little bit in our own way. This also showed us that there is no one best and right way to do fundraising successfully, and that it all depends on the specific event, the approach and the involvement of the team.
One whole day was also dedicated to communication and how its form can make the fundraising process difficult. Many of the activities were conducted in the form of non-formal education, so instead of a lecture we could experience them ourselves and then in the subsequent discussion set a mirror to realize if we are actually repeating common mistakes or unconsciously applying some manipulative tactics even in our individual behaviour. In fact, we tried communicate in our mother tongues in pairs in order to understand, while one did not understand the other, and another activity where two groups tried to reach a territory of a third group not knowing that the third group had to first complete a given puzzle before it could welcome them, so, they did not understand why they could not let them in. Or there was an interesting activity simulating a hierarchy of communication where we had to exchange cards wordlessly so that everyone ended up with four of the same symbols – which we failed at, because it was a huge mess at the end. These were all valuable lessons illustrating how important it is to convey a message clearly.
Throughout the week, there was also always a so-called family meeting in the early evening. A time to evaluate the past day and review it in dialogue with four other people. I think, our Glashi family always did very effectively, because we produced a lot of positive feedback and points for improvement every time. However, we were also happy that our suggestions were taken into account and we managed to fix what was not to our satisfaction.
And as the cherry on the cake, after seeing some examples of good practice, we created our own fundraising campaign. My group decided to run a crowdfunding campaign for a Living Library event with refugees from Ukraine. We created a name, a goal and a budget for the event, necessary texts and a video, as well as rewards for contributors and a timeline. It was enjoyable and motivating work and I hope to be able to put it into practice one day.
On the last day it was time to conclude the whole educational process, to evaluate it both individually and together, and to creatively express participants feelings from the week with a picture collage or drawing. The official handing over of the YouthPass certificates was not missed and the training could be considered closed. One last cuddle with the little kitten that was hanging around in the second half of the project, and then it was just a matter of travelling together to Tirana and from there back home.
Thank you to Youth for Social Changes for organising, to trainers Ilona and Catalina for guiding us through the whole process, to the association Cesta rozvoje for sending us, and last but not least to the Erasmus+ programme for co-financing.
Empowering Rural Youth Organizations This project is funded by European Union under the Erasmus+ Program. #EmpowerRuralYouth #ActivateRuralYouth #ErasmusPlus
This project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The content of the publication is the sole responsibility of the publisher and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information.
Lada Matyášová
Photo credits: Ajla and Ilona