Page 39 - Sustainability and entrepreneurship for CSO's and CSO networks Cambodia 1 November 2018

Government
Governments finance specific projects implemented by CSOs, paid from external funding, concessional loans or tax revenues. Public funding depends on government policies and its possibilities. Applying for public funding can be a time consuming and complex affair. On the other hand government funding may provide you with a structural fund that will run for many years. To be successful it requires a lot of reading policy papers, networking, good relations and reliable track record and organisational capacity, to run government subsidised programs. At this moment we don’t have information on specific government subsidies for CSO’s and CSO networks
Grants from INGO’s
Many non-profit organisations cooperate with international and sometimes national funding agencies. Unfortunately, funding agencies increasingly leave the country for various reasons: Cambodia having reached the state of a (lower) middle income country, urgent human and natural disasters in other countries, shrinking civic space and government policies restricting CSO actions. Other agencies prefer to manage and to implement projects by themselves or seek long term strategic partnership with a few preferred strategic partners. Less budget will remain available for local CSOs. As a rule, funds in general, pay for specific sectors and projects. Operating costs and other overheads may not be included in funding or only partly. Since most funds finance single projects for a limited period, these resources can be best used as investment capital for a limited period, 3 - 5 years to develop your services. This period should be agreed upon with the donor(s).
Crowd funding
Crowd funding (sometimes called crowd financing, crowd sourced capital), describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet. Crowd funding occurs for a wide variety of purposes, from disaster relief, to citizen journalism, for artists seeking support from fans, political campaigns, funding a startup company or small business or creating free software. You may organise your own co-funding or link up to crowd funding websites like: www.Kiva.org, www.symbid.com and www.kickstarter.com. What you need is a good idea that can be sold to people you know and share sympathy and an interest for your project. Ask people to contribute and offer shares, gifts/goodies, services or feel good moments.
You have to prepare well: crowd funding requires research, good preparation and the amounts generated are generally small, so you need to access to many potential private donors. Realise that competition is high. Crowd funding works mostly the film industry, music industry, IT sector and environment.
For information: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/crowd-funding/8-crowdfunding-sites- which-is-best-for-you/
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