A Step-by-Step Approach to Secure Funding for Your Projects:

Just A Few Ideas to Get Started in the Philippines

Rey Ty

Some have asked me about possible funding sources for your projects. I have
been away from the Philippines for a long time now. So, things must have changed.
However, I am still writing own this unofficial guide which can serve as a starting point
for your fund searching. This list is based in part on (1) my academic work in the
Philippines during which I sought and obtained funding as well as (2) my volunteer work
with many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for which we sought and obtained
funding, or (3) both. I will try to list down everything I remember. I’m sure I forgot some
things. I’m giving away all my secrets! Remember, funding will not come to you. You
have to go and seek funding. Good luck!

I. Definition of Terms
For the purposes of this guideline, the term “funding agency” is used loosely
to refer to all legal entities that provide funding. They could be based in the
Philippines or abroad. They could be, among others, a foreign embassy, a
foundation, a church group, or a United Nations program.

II. Annually Revised Book about Funding Agencies

A. In the Philippines, a very thick book that gives detailed information about
funding agencies, which includes all their contact information as well as
their objectives and themes that they fund, is edited, revised, and
published annually. This book is a very helpful resource for non-
governmental organizations seeking funding. It costs less than 1,000
pesos. I highly recommend you buy it. Once you have this book, your
funding search would be very easy. For now, here are my pieces of advice
below.
B. There are books published abroad (such as the U.S.) that lists all the
funding agencies, their goals, and their contact information. You can find
them in libraries. Read and check who, where, and what projects they
fund. If they accept proposals from other countries, such as the
Philippines, then write and submit proposals to them.

III. Your Own Credibility

A. Credibility
For anyone or any organization to have faith in you, you need to have
proof that you have been doing, you are doing, or that you can guarantee
that you will be doing good work. How can you show that? Here below
are some ideas:
a. Prepare a well-written professional curriculum vitae or
biodata, which contains information about your professional work,
NGO work, organizational affiliations, achievements, etc. Use
simple English, have correct grammar and no spelling errors.

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 b. Prepare and submit your organization’s profile: with all
the important information, such as your organization’s name,
contact information (address, email, fax, and phone), vision,
mission, goals, objectives, past achievements (actual projects or
work), current projects, and future plans. Usually a three-fold
brochure is fine.
c. Collect news article clippings, write-ups on the Internet,
any publicities, media releases or writings about your work &
submit to prospective funding agencies
d. If your organization produces an annual report (formal or
informal, such as monographs or booklets), submit these
documents as well in order to boost your credibility. For example,
Sir Pogie has shown us two publications in colored pages, which
are also available as downloadable PDF files which can have URL
web address that can be given to funding agencies for them to
download.
e. If you don’t have most of the above items as your
organization is new, don’t worry. But, as a minimum, you still
have to prepare your own professional biodata.
f. Not necessary, but if you have a professional website for
your organization, that would be a great tool for publicity about
your organization’s work.

B. Networking
a. If this is your first time to get funding for your
organization, the best for you to do is to network with the funding
agencies.
b. For instance, you can formally invite prospective funding
agencies to come and visit your project sites in order to show them
the community needs you are addressing.
c. If you have an event coming, such as (a) an Indigenous
Peoples’ Festival or (b) a conference, then invite the prospective
funding agencies to attend the event so that they will be familiar
first-hand about your community. During their visit to your
community, you can discuss with them your community’s
situation, problems, and needs that perhaps they can help you
address.
d. From among your colleagues, as far as I know, the
following (and others) have direct contacts with funding agencies:
Sir Pogie and Shim. Network with them to give you some advice
or assistance.
e. Sorry, I have been gone a long time from the Philippines.
Hence, the contact persons with whom I have networked are gone
and have changed. Hence, I cannot give you names or references
as I don’t know the new persons in the funding agencies listed here

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 (either in the Philippines or abroad) with whom I used to be in
contact.

IV. Formalities
A. Organizational Support
1. For many funding agencies, they will only give you funding if
you meet the following criteria: First, you belong to an
organization.
2. Second, the organization must be registered in the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC), for example, as a nonprofit
organization.
3. To be registered, you must have elected officers (chair of the
board, secretary, treasurer, etc.), a Constitution and by-laws and
related paper work for submission.
4. You must pay a SEC registration fee, which is a few thousand
pesos.
B. Academic Support
1. If you are an academic, you don’t have to belong to an
organization. Your academic institution is your organization.
2. The funding to you as an academic will have to be channeled
through one formal unit of your academic institution.
3. Academics apply for funding, among others, to help them with
(a) teaching, (b) research, (c) professional development, (d)
publication, and (e) research utilization.
4. But if you are an academic working with an NGO and that the
request for funding is for your NGO (not your personal research
as an academic), then the funding will go to the NGO. For this
purpose, you have to follow all the requirements for funding an
NGO.

V. Embassies
We often think of embassies having personnel who are only high-level folks
who only deal with high-level Filipinos, such as Filipino Department
Secretaries, Filipino politicians, and the like. For the most part, that is true.
However, things have changed slowly but surely. Many foreign embassies
based in the Philippines have folks (from the ambassadors themselves to
lower rank embassy personnel) now go down to the middle and grassroots
levels to talk and deal with them. In fact, many embassies based in the
Philippines have offices inside each embassy that directly deal with the
middle and lower level Filipinos. For example, I used to have regular dinner
appointments with personnel from the U.S., Australian, Japanese, Belgium,
Dutch, Russian and other embassies (as well as Ford Foundation). I did not
seek them out. They in fact “found” me and contacted me. Their purpose is to
collect data for their reports, based on interviews with me. They openly say
that they are talking with people from the government, military, NGO and

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 others to prepare and write their reports. Some offices within embassies from
which we had success in getting funding include, among others, the following.
1. U.S. (Use your network contacts to begin with. That’s your entry
point).
2. Western Europe: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany
3. Australia

VI. Foundations
A. Philippine Based Foreign Foundations
1. U.S. Foundations
a. Asia Foundation
b. Ford Foundation
2. Oxfam Philippines: It was in Quezon City (run by Filipinos).
3. German Foundations in Makati:
a. Conrad Adenaeur Stiftung
b. Ebert Naumann Stiftung
c. Frederick Ebert Stiftung
4. Toyota Foundation (I forgot if it’s Philippine or Japan based
only)

B. Philippine Based Philippine Foundations

1. Ayala Foundation
2. Metropolitan Bank Foundation (for education at least, especially
teacher. MetroBank has an annual Best Teacher’s Award. I
believe all our teachers, Pearlita, Beto, etc. are more than
qualified to win this. You have to write the remarkable stories of
your sacrifices to make learning possible, especially for poor and
marginalized students)
3. many, many others.

C. Foreign Based Foreign Foundations

1. Netherlands: NOVIB
2. Denmark
a. Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA)
b. Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (RCVT)
3. Sweden: Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)
4. Canada: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
5. Japan: Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
6. France:
a. Fondation France-Liberté
b. Terre des Hommes
c. Frères des Hommes
d. Centre national de recherche scientifique (CNRS)
7. United Kingdom
a. Oxfam U.K.
b. Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)

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 c. Defence for Children International (DCI)
8. U.S.A.
a. The Asia Foundation (San Francisco): I know they have a
book drive. They will be happy to ship books to the
Philippines for free.
b. National Institute for Democracy
c. Heritage Foundation
d. Oxfam U.S.A.
e. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to protect wildlife, especially
endangered species
f. etc., etc.

VII. Churches and Church-Based Funding Agencies

A. Churches work on the whole range of social work, including working with
non-Christians, on such matters as relief, development (including
education), and advocacy work (interfaith dialogue, human rights, etc.).
Churches tend to be hierarchical. Hence, the higher up you go to see
people who have access to funding and programs, the greater your chances
of applying and succeeding to get funding.
B. Philippine Based
1. Go to see the major Catholic religious superiors of each
congregation, such as the Franciscans, Redemptorists, Jesuits,
Divine Word (SVD), etc., etc.
2. Go to the National Council of Churches in the Philippines
(NCCP) for mainstream Protestant churches. They are based in
Quezon City near Quezon Blvd & EDSA.
3. Talk to bishops and presidents of Catholic or Protestant
schools. Present your ideas about your projects to them.
C. Foreign Based
1. Australia: Australian Aid…
2. Denmark: Danish Church Aid (Danchurchaid)
3. France: Comite catholique contre la faim et pour le
développement (CCFD)
4. Germany: Justice and Peace Commission (Cologne/Köln)

VIII. United Nations Offices

A. United Nations Offices in Makati
1. United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
2. United Nations Information Center (UNIC)
3. United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)
4. United Nations Women’s Program (UNIFEM)
5. And many more U.N. offices in Makati
B. United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland and New York, U.S.A.
1. United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture
2. etc.

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 IX. Local Government
A. Talk with your local government officials. Some will be happy to help you
in cash or in kind, as long as you have their names announced or printed in
a banner or souvenir program, etc.
B. Contact from the lowest to the highest level: your barangay captain,
assemblyman/ woman, governor, representative (“Congressman/
women”), etc.

X. Rich Politicians, Rich Families and Rich Clans

XI. Large Corporations

A. Large corporations have some budget for donations, relief, development,
and charity work. Check their listings and websites.
B. In addition, large corporations have “corporate social responsibility”(CSR)
and fund projects that match their CSR.
C. For instance, these are some CSRs of big corporations.
1. McDonald’s Foundation: children’s organization, college
education, human rights, sustainable future
2. Reebok: human rights
3. Target: children; giving back to the community
4. Wal-Mart: zero waste; sustainability; giving back to the
community
D. Check the CSRs of Philippine and Philippine-based corporations.
1. Shoemart
2. Rustans
3. Tesoros
4. Nestle
5. etc.

XII. Selling Your Soul?

Remember that each funding agency has its own agenda, vision, mission and
goals. If you think the funding agency’s agenda and view of society is not
compatible with yours, then you must not apply for funding from those
agencies.

XIII. Project Proposals

A. Last, but most importantly, you must prepare a proper, well-written
project proposal. The template I let you use for writing your action plans,
for instance, was primarily based on the actual format that the British
Council requires, if you present a project proposal to them.
B. Follow all the guidelines and fill out all the required entries. If you miss
writing about something that the funding agency requires, they will not
even consider your proposal for funding. Note that funding agencies
receive a lot of project proposals which have to compete for the fixed
amount of money that will be distributed to fund proposed projects.

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 C. Write in simple English, with no grammatical errors, and no spelling
errors. Use Microsoft’s Spellchecker, which is usually (not always!)
correct, except for names and proper nouns.
D. Submit based on all the requirements of the funding agencies, including
budget and deadlines.
E. Most information, templates or guidelines are now available online. Go to
the websites of each funding agency.
F. Usually, funding agencies will not give funds to pay for immovable and
permanent fixtures, such as the construction of a building or the purchase
of expensive equipment. For these items, you usually apply for loans to be
paid back.

Remember, funding will not come to you. You have to go and seek funding. Good luck
and continued success in all your endeavors!

© 2010 Rey Ty 7