Your work is good. Your mission is clear. So why does the funding keep going elsewhere? Every year, billions of naira and billions of dollars flow through foundations, corporate CSR programmes, and impact investors across Nigeria and Africa. Most of it goes to the same organisations, again and again. Not because they have better ideas. Not because their proposals are better written. Because they understand something most applicants don’t. Funders don’t fund projects. They fund alignment.
In The Funding Code, philanthropy strategist Sheila Ojei draws on a decade spent on both sides of the funding table as a fundraiser seeking support, and as a professional deciding where it goes to reveal what is really happening behind every funding decision. She breaks down how funders think, what they’re actually asking at each stage of a proposal, and how to shift from chasing opportunities to becoming the kind of organisation funding naturally flows toward. This book is for two people in particular: the young fundraiser standing at the start of their career, capable and ambitious but unsure of the unwritten rules of the game and the seasoned NGO founder or social entrepreneur who has built something real, done everything “right,” and still watches applications go unanswered. By the end, you will know how to research a funder so thoroughly that you understand their world before you ever write to them.
