Applied Foresight

A program of Sky(lark) Europe, Applied Foresight is a large scale NGO Accelerator for building Financial sustainability in the social sector in the EU. We are changing the way future international development work is being funded, alleviating the pressure on public budgets and creating a model for long-term, sector-wide sustainability.

Why? NGOs operating in the area of International Development  that are reliant on public and EU funding will see themselves severely impacted by massive budget cuts in the coming years.

Additionally, as major players like the US are reconsidering their investments, the field of International Development is also rapidly changing due to an accelerated influx of private sector interest. NGOs are losing market share. We need to catalyze a shift in perspective and prepare the field to be more agile, responsive, and retooled with innovative way of operating their day-to-day programming.

The pilot initiative is envisioned to bring together 10-20 NGOs from one identified market and training them as a cohort for 2 years with the following structure:

• Convene the group quarterly for 2-day workshops to design a financial sustainability master plan, implement it, and fine-tune it throughout the 2 year program
• Provide monthly individual training sessions to strengthen entrepreneurial skills and build a diverse funding pipeline while helping with the implementation of the plan
• Bring experts and strategic partners to transfer knowledge and provide an “edge”
•  Provide ongoing resources and support plus a Warm Line where NGOs can call in, email, text and have video calls, to get answers to questions and get “unstuck”

Things we need:

• Partnerships with NGOs and funders
• Seed funding for the 6-month Positioning Phase (this will pay for building curriculum, designing evaluation, and recruiting)
• Year 1 program operations funding (this will pay for 4 quarterly group workshops + 120 individual monthly sessions + ongoing support and expert-led training, as well as ongoing evaluation, food, supplies, and other operational expenses)
• NGO Stipends would be awesome! We believe that providing a small financial incentive for each participating NGO would increase the attractiveness of the program and would strengthen capacity for the organizations, enabling them to better carve time to attend the workshops, implement plans, etc.

APPLIED FORESIGHT is the transatlantic brainchild of two members of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Responsible Leaders Network: Katarzyna (Kasia) Hanula-Bobbitt and Cristina Gallegos. Two innovators with a passion for shifting economic paradigms and moving the nonprofit sector from bootstrapping to affluence, Kasia and Cristina met in 2016 in Budapest at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), Young Scholars Initiative.

Disclaimer: APPLIED FORESIGHT is an independent project outside the work of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, INET, or CONCORDEurope. Opinions are our own.