Agile, Entrepreneurial and Digital

1. The future NGO
Agile, Entrepreneurial and
Digital

2. WHO
Joseph Nelson
Senior Consultant
WHAT
We build better NGOs
We help them to be funded
better

3. TALKING POINTS TODAY
Agile
Pivot and change at speed
Agility
Do
Test new stuff and scale what works
Entrepreneurship
Digital
A work platform that works for you
Digital collaboration
We will never share client data
1. Where we mention a client‘s name, we
received advance, written permission
2. In all other cases lessons learned are
anonymized

4. Change & Disruption like never before
Over-reliance on a legacy donors not viable
+ Rapidly changing demands of stakeholders
+ Frequent global & more regional disruption
+ Rapid donor priorities change
+ Increased competition
______________________________________________
= a New Business Model & Organisational Design is needed
= Systematic innovation is for thriving

5. Change & Disruption like never before

6. Agility - a personal story
a. Pamela, Programme Director at INGO in primary
health care and WASH, USD25m annually
b. “Our programmes need to be super-flexible. I need to
be able to start working with new partners within 1
week - without HQ or red-tape holding us back”
c. “There is a ton of additional impact we could deliver, if
we were not so rigidly tied to the strategy from three
years ago”
MzN assessment: Siloed processes, approval bottlenecks,
key-person dilemma and little to no real-time learning.
Faster beneficiary change
+ Faster context change
+ Quickly appearing and
disappearing impact
opportunities
+ Changing donor demands
_________________________
= Need for agility at scale
= Need to turn data, into knowledge

7. Reasons for agile transformations
Diversified its funding in
2019, grew in 2020
Puts data at its core in 2020,
attracts substantial donor
endorsements
Fundamental restructure
undergoing to be ready for
recurring migration waves
and deploy globally within
weeks.
“We need to respond fast,
at scale, anywhere in the
world, within weeks,
whilst reducing costs.”
“We need our income to be
so diversified that our
programs & organisation can
continue even if core donors
don’t.”
“Data and knowledge is
the key driver of impact
here. We need a structure
that puts our expertise at
the centre ”

8. Lessons learned from agile transformations
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9. Change
Innovation - a personal story
● EU based, child focussed NGO, around USD60m
annual programming, programmes in 17 countries,
stable income from core countries, not much growth.
● Impact good, but only on less than 5% of affected
population.
● Courage to disrupt quickly gave way to static change
projects that did not really change the organisation
● Executive management was keener to change things
than Board “nobody wanted to break a thing that sort of
worked”
MzN: Process analysis identified bottlenecks and found that
innovation suggestion from HQ were disregarded by regions
and there was a lack of digital back bone to support change.

10. Innovate at scale
Quick Capture Delete by MVP Collaboration SPACE Drive to MVP
First
Management
involvement

11. Digitalize the Work
● Less office - more work! - move to virtual and digital
● Interact across time zones and teams - fast turnaround times
● Lift more! Ability to have a larger and faster moving pipeline
● Increase transparency across the organisation
● No dependency on individuals in the organisation - “the one person
who knows everything and has all the relationships”
● Easier collaboration with experts/ key people across the globe
● Digitizing funding can often have the effect to kick-start digitization
across the organisation

12. Why digitalize? To manage a faster, omnichannel pipeline
Opp Identification & Assessment
Scoping - Bidding strategy -
Partnership building -
Proposal building
Context analysis - Value for Money
proposition - Partner engagement
Contracting & Project Support
Negotiation - Project planning pre
contract - legal
Launch
Programme
staff
Business Development
Scoping Team
Advisors Donor
Business Development
Project Dev Team
Subject
Specialist
Project Finance
Specialist
Consortia
Lead
Value for Money
Advisors
Leadership
Team
Org Finance
Specialist
Donor
inception
team

13. • Design a simple pathway
• Analyse each aspect of your
funding operations
• Make a decisions about platforms
and tools
• Allocate time and resources, in
each step
• Don’t reinvent the wheel
• Keep it simple
How to Digititalize

14. STAY IN TOUCH!
CHRISTIAN MEYER ZU NATRUP
chris@mzninternational.com
Check out our blogs and upcoming events on
our website:
www.mzninternational.com
Upcoming Webinars
Digitization Acceleration:
Why It Matters for
Institutional Funding and
Grants
11 November 2021 @ 2:00 pm -
3:00 pm CET
10 Tips to Improve Your
Proposal Budget
18 November 2021 @ 2:00 pm
- 3:00 pm CET
Merging an NGO –
Experience and Reality
9 December 2021 @ 2:00 pm -
3:00 pm CET