From our discussions on the Blog it emerges more and more that nonprofits might need more than passion for motivation. This sort of training suggested here might be necessary in a world with seriously spreading financial crisis.

My question to you is how you intend to sell your craft to organizations that are perpetually strapped for cash and hardly see their internal structure and focus as contributory to their inability to raise funds for their often great programs.

I currently live in Charlotte NC, USA, but I am very interested in this dimension of the society. I will appreciate updates from you.

Thanks for the concern, and this is exactly why we set out with this training.

If you look at my earlier articles (“Social Enterprise in Africa: An Emerging Concept in an Emerging Economy” at http://www.academicjournals.org/INGOJ/introduction/introduction/introduction2006/Oct/Gbenga%C2%A0%20Sesan.htm; “Of Youth Advocacy and Proof” at http://www.gbengasesan.com/blog/?p=139; and “Last Day at Junior Achievement” at http://www.gbengasesan.com/blog/?p=145), you will see where I argued for social entrepreneurship as a model that should replace the beg-now-get-later model that many non-profits adopt today.

This, however, does not discredit the need for institutional support when it comes, but new models require that each non-profit should understand its social mission and not compromise such either because it lacks the means to do so or because it has some “international donor pressure” holding it down.

I am also sad about how the idea of non-profit has either become a natural abode for those who consider it an alternative to well-built careers (its easy to start a campaign these days — as long as you mention a downtrodden group — and this has been seriously abused) but I also recognize the role played by non-profit actors and social entrepreneurs who (like Ashoka loves to put it) will not give fish, will not even teach others to fish, but will not stop until they revolutionize the fishing industry!

I will be glad to make some short videos and sample materials available through the PIN website (www.pin.org.ng) and other online channels after we host the first few sessions — and I believe that this will revolutionalize the way non-profit actors see the career and call we have CHOSEN to respond to. Capacity building and motivation will reach into the inner recess of these core values and make a demand on their need to rise to the challenges that we need to bring to book!

Best regards,