Stop Trying to Shrink Your NGO Mission to Fit Funders
By Jose Ddiba
When you are starting out, you will hear a lot of noise from fundraising experts telling you to “focus on one thing,” “niche down,” and build a very clear theory of change. Over time, this advice can make you doubt yourself and your vision. Maybe you want to improve education for girls in your community while also supporting unemployed single mothers, but suddenly, people make it sound like those things cannot exist together. What I have learned, however, is that a holistic approach can be just as clear and impactful as a single focus approach. The key is understanding how all the pieces connect.
Funders will also test your confidence. Rejections will come, and if you are not careful, they can break your spirit and slowly make you shrink your vision into something that feels safer or more fundable. If you have followed my journey, then you know the work at Ba Nga Afayo Initiative Uganda was not always as clear as it is today. We started with one goal: to keep children in school. For over four years, that was our focus until we realised something difficult: children being in school did not necessarily mean they were learning. That realisation forced us to rethink everything and eventually led us to our “Cradle to Career” model.
The idea behind the model is simple: support a child from the early years all the way into a career. But once you start doing the work, you quickly realise education does not succeed in isolation. Children deal with health challenges, mental health struggles, HIV stigma, abuse, poverty, and cultural barriers that all affect their ability to succeed. That meant we had to think beyond education alone. At #BaNgaAfayo, education enrichment remains our core focus, but we also work around health and wellbeing, child protection, youth engagement through sport, and technology to help rural children imagine futures beyond what they see every day. Because if all a child sees around them are boda bodas, substance abuse, and survival-based livelihoods, then that becomes the limit of what they believe is possible.
Some donors understand this immediately. Others think it is “too broad.” But I often remind my team that if your dream can be fully achieved within one lifetime, you are probably dreaming too small. People are drawn to movement, not perfection. Conviction matters more than having everything figured out from the start.
In The 50th Law, Robert Greene uses the story of Joan of Arc to show how belief and persistence can reshape perception. Joan had no rank, no army, and no institutional legitimacy, yet she kept returning to powerful leaders with absolute certainty about her mission until they finally listened. Greene’s point is simple: fear weakens how others perceive you, while conviction reshapes it.
That lesson connects deeply to founding work. In the early stages, you are asking people to believe in a vision that is still taking shape. Most of the time, what keeps you moving is not external validation but your own conviction. Along the way, your inbox will fill with rejection emails. People will tell you that you are “doing too much.” You will look at organisations with singular missions and wonder if they are the ones who figured it out. But the key is to stay with the work long enough to understand and defend your own model.
In Winning, one of the best books I have ever read, Tim Grover (Michael Jordan’s personal trainer) talks about the “Four Rings of Winning”: talent, intelligence, competitiveness, and resilience. He explains that succeeding at the highest level requires a combination of all four. You are going to have to apply that mindset to your work because most answers do not come before action. They come through action. The path becomes clearer as you move. In the same book, Tim Grover emphasises that Rome was not built in one day, but brick by brick, day by day, for thousands of years.
So the question is: what is your brick today?
Whatever that looks like for you, the goal in the beginning is simple: find people who can help de-risk your vision early enough for you to prove that your model works. And many times, those first believers are not large institutions or famous foundations. They are people already within your extended network, your wealthy uncle, your father’s employer, your rich auntie, your pastor, a family friend, or someone who has quietly watched your journey over time.
One mistake many founders make is constantly looking far beyond their own circles for support, while ignoring the people closest to them who may actually be willing to take a chance on them first. Early support creates momentum. Once other donors see people already investing in your work and believing in your mission, they become more willing to join in.
That is why I often recommend individual donors early on, especially through platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. But visibility matters too. People cannot support work they do not understand or trust.
At Truth Design Academy, a social enterprise by Ba Nga Afayo Initiative Uganda, this is exactly what we help organisations do.
From website design and storytelling to report design and digital communications, we help early-stage nonprofits present themselves professionally and position their work for growth.
We also provide practical training in graphic design, film production, photography, website design, and digital marketing, skills that are increasingly essential if you want to compete for attention and funding in today’s world.
You can train your communications team, hire one of our alumni or work directly with us to strengthen your organisation’s visibility and storytelling.
Sometimes, the difference between being overlooked and being supported comes down to how clearly you communicate your vision.
(Jose Ddiba is a Ugandan community activist, Executive Director of the Truth Design Academy and Team Leader at Ba Nga Afayo Initiative Uganda)
