OUR CHILDREN MAY LEARN ABOUT THE HEROES OF THE PAST. OUR TASK IS TO MAKE OURSELVES ARCHITECTS OF THE FUTURE.

It has been several decades since Jomo Kenyatta uttered these famous words whilst he was president of Kenya. Since then, the country has thrived economically, gained higher life expectancy rates, and seen a transformation of land, health, and education sectors.

But apart from the many achievements, there have also been significant challenges. This has placed much pressure on the civil society sector to prop up and support social development where the statutory or private sectors have fallen short.

Most of the funding for Civil Society Organisations (CSO) in Kenya comes from non-Kenyan sources, be they aid agencies, international organisations, international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), or foreign missions. CSOs in Kenya have started to think about sustainability but those that have been successful in implementing strategies to diversify their resource mobilisation are very few. CSOs’ engagement with the private sector is relatively new and there is a need to overcome the disparity concerning a lack of mutual values or interest in sustainable development and an understanding of how each sector engages in development.

However, partnerships with the private sector are becoming increasingly critical. Development and humanitarian actors are finding these partnerships necessary. By combining and providing complementary resources and skills, knowledge and expertise, these partnerships can drive innovation, impact, and scale the positive gains that contribute to effecting systemic change needed for sustainable development.

Private sector partnerships provide NGOs and CSOs with an opportunity to drive social-economic interventions, improve approaches to solution creation and implementation and leverage on mutual strengths to accelerate impact. On their part, NGOs find these partnerships to increase social impact for their communities as a drive to develop sustainable and scalable solutions. The private sector brings in strong expertise across disciplines such as technology and innovation, agile and lean methodologies, strategic communications, and knowledge management. On the other hand, private sector companies are often keen to engage in partnerships that align with their core business priorities, such as access to new markets and value chains. Partnerships with NGOs and CSOs can provide companies with the opportunity to unlock new markets, create new products and services, and reduce risks in their value chains.

em4 works with civil society organisations in Kenya to help them be stronger advocates for social and environmental issues, promoting sustainable resourcing, creating, and strengthening spaces for dialogue, building their capacities in resource mobilisation, strengthening networks, and promoting inclusion and equity.

em4 works globally with local capacity building experts and organisational development specialists, who share their skills and business acumen with organisations enabling them to achieve their missions sustainably and deliver greater social impact in the communities they serve. Currently operating in India, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Argentina, Brazil, France and Switzerland, numerous organisations have benefited from developing a roadmap to sustainability.
Our aims are to work with organisations to build stronger, more sustainable structures, enabling them to develop and implement long-term planning and strategies. em4 does this by focusing on key capacity areas that are critical to enabling the organisation’s wellbeing and which ultimately lead to better outcomes for its service users and donors.

More than ever, organisations need the assistance, guidance and inspiration to plan for financial sustainability and accelerate their impact. This in turn should help funders to develop stronger relationships with their grantees and bring about collective change.

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