This session included ‘pitches’ from wide ranging interests and pursuits – all with a clear understanding of either what challenge they were facing or had a clear idea of their desired objective, but needed help thinking through the right questions to develop a model to achieve these objectives. 

What business are we in?

The challenges faced ranged from needing to decide and focus on which business we’re in – distribution or in the provision of technology in rural areas.  The challenge is perpetuated by the fact that it is extremely hard to deliver technology to rural communities without adequate distribution systems – a challenge even the biggest multinationals face. 

The panel encouraged the delegate to understand their own capability constraints and if limited, to seek an external partner who could help with aspects needed to run the initiative outside of their core competence. 

What is the right platform for my idea?

Another challenge was how to deliver the objective to creating a market place for sharing mobile phone applications – applications that can be used for social impact.  This to ensure that supply and demand is matched, but also that good ideas and initial work is progressed by collective work.

The panel encouraged the delegate to think about existing platforms available to allow developers to share their applications within their intellectual property right constraints, if any.

Do I need a revenue model outside of traditional aid to grow my initiative?

An initiative to empower low income labourers with soft skills (communication, negotiation, conflict resolution, etc) faced wanting to grow and expand to reach more people is struggling with whether to take the model to corporates to generate income or to seek aid/ donor funding.

The panel had two strong, somewhat contradictory pieces of advice:

1.       It is very hard to move away from being dependant on donor funding, so try to avoid it.

2.       Moving to a model that generates revenue from corporate training might detract from your original message.  If this is the case – approach with caution.

The overriding consensus was that whilst donor money is hard to let go of and not become dependent on, it is equally important to stay true to your organisation’s mission.  The challenge is to create a revenue model that sustains this mission.

How develop a scalable model?

Two project sought help with scaling their projects to match the supply and demand and scale the project to attract more of projects seeking Diaspora skills or more funders to contribute to NGO needs. 

The panellists’ response to both these requests was broadly that there are many organisations that are doing this or those who have tried to do and failed.  Learn from them.