Before You Write Another Proposal, Build This First

Before You Write Another Proposal, Build This First

By Dr Lucille Abruquah

A few years ago, I had a conversation with Rakesh Rajani that I have never forgotten.

Rakesh is one of Africa’s most respected civil society leaders, the founder of Twaweza and HakiElimu in East Africa, a former Director at the Ford Foundation, and currently leads JustSystems. He has spent decades building organisations that funders trust, and thinking deeply about what makes that trust possible.

In a conversation we had, and in a publicly available video he later shared with me, he talked about something he called strategic coherence. The idea is deceptively simple:

“Rather than writing multiple proposals for different donors, we built one 3–5 year strategy document that defined our own goals, our theory of change and our results. That document became the anchor for every funding conversation we had.”
— Rakesh Rajani, reflecting on Twaweza’s approach to fundraising strategy

I sat with that idea for a long time because it described something I had seen in the most fundable organisations I had worked with and the absence of which I had seen quietly undermine organisations that were doing genuinely important work.

Strategic coherence, in simple terms, is knowing who you are, where you are going and why, before any donor asks.

The Problem: Most African Nonprofits Are Donor-Led, Not Mission-Led

Here is a pattern I have observed more times than I can count:

• A funding opportunity opens; the organisation reads the call.
• The team asks: can we fit our work into this?
• A proposal is written, tailored, adjusted, reframed to match what the donor wants.
• If funded, the organisation delivers. If not, the cycle repeats with the next opportunity.

This is reactive fundraising, and it is how most African nonprofits operate.

The problem is not that these organisations lack good work or genuine impact. It is usually that without a clear strategic anchor (a document that defines where the organisation is going on its own terms), every funding opportunity looks like a possibility. With everything looking like a possibility, organisations say yes to the wrong things, drift from their mission, burn out their teams and eventually find themselves delivering work they never intended to do for funders who don’t fully understand what they’re actually about.

Rakesh put it plainly: when you don’t have your own strategy, you end up implementing someone else’s.

The Decision That Taught Me This Personally

I previously shared a story about saying no to a donor.

A funder approached us with an opportunity. We applied, passed due diligence, and were ready to proceed, but when we reviewed the terms, something was wrong. The funding amount wasn’t sufficient, and the conditions would have compromised our independence. Accepting them would have meant delivering work that didn’t align with where we were trying to go.

So we said no. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever been part of, but here is what made that no possible: we had a clear enough sense of our own direction that we could recognise misalignment when we saw it. We knew where we were going, what we stood for and what we were not willing to compromise.

Without that clarity (a strategic anchor), we might have said yes, and we would have been the worse for it.

Strategic coherence is not just a planning tool; it is a protection mechanism.

The Three Interconnected Documents That Create Strategic Coherence

Most nonprofit leaders think of a strategic plan, a Theory of Change and a fundraising strategy as three separate documents, produced at different times, by different people, for different purposes.

The most coherent organisations treat them as one integrated system. Each document informs and reinforces the others. Together, they create an anchor that guides every decision, including who you approach for funding, what you apply for and what you decline.

The sequence matters. Strategic plan first, Theory of Change second and Fundraising strategy third. In that order, every time.

A Practical Guide to Building Your Strategic Plan

A strategic plan does not need to be a 60-page document produced by an expensive consultant. For a small to mid-size African nonprofit, you can build a clear, useful strategic plan in a focused planning process over two to three days, and it can fit in 15 to 20 pages.

Here are the core elements every nonprofit strategic plan needs:

1. A clear mission and vision statement: Not the aspirational language for your website but a genuine statement of what you do, for whom and what the world looks like if you succeed. If your team cannot recite it from memory, it is not clear enough.
2. A situational analysis: An honest assessment of your internal strengths and weaknesses, and the external opportunities and threats in your operating environment. Include your funding landscape: who currently funds work like yours and how that is changing.
3. Three to five strategic objectives: The specific, measurable outcomes your organisation will pursue over the plan period. Not activities, outcomes. What will be different in your sector, community, or ecosystem because of what your organisation does?
4. Key strategies for each objective: The broad approaches you will use to achieve each objective. Not a work plan, a direction. What kinds of activities, partnerships and investments will move you toward each strategic objective?
5. A resource mobilisation framework: A high-level picture of what your strategic objectives will cost and where that resourcing will come from (donor funding, earned income, partnerships, in-kind support). This bridges to your fundraising strategy.
6. A monitoring and learning framework: How you will know if you are on track. The key indicators for each strategic objective, how you will collect data and how you will use what you learn to adapt. This bridges to your Theory of Change.

Building Your Theory of Change

A Theory of Change answers one question: why do you believe your approach will produce the outcomes you are aiming for?

It maps the causal logic from your activities to your intended impact, showing the assumptions underneath each step. Donors who fund systems change, institutional strengthening, or long-term development increasingly require a Theory of Change not just as a document, but as evidence that the organisation has thought carefully about how change happens.

A simple Theory of Change includes:

• Inputs: What you invest ( funding, staff time, expertise, relationships).
• Activities: What you do with those inputs.
• Outputs: The immediate, tangible results of your activities.
• Outcomes: The changes that result from your outputs (for people, communities, or systems).
• Impact: The long-term, sustainable change your outcomes contribute to.
• Assumptions: The conditions that need to be true for each step to lead to the next. This is the most important part and the most commonly omitted.

The assumptions layer is what separates a genuine Theory of Change from a logical framework. It forces the organisation to be honest about what needs to be true (contextually, politically, socially) for its work to produce the change it intends.

From Strategic Plan to Fundraising Strategy

Once you have a strategic plan and a Theory of Change, your fundraising strategy practically writes itself. Because you now know:

• What you are trying to achieve (strategic objectives)
• Why your approach works (Theory of Change)
• What it will cost (resource mobilisation framework)
• What evidence you have (monitoring and learning framework)

A fundraising strategy built on this foundation does three things that reactive fundraising never can:

• It identifies aligned donors: Not every donor funds nonprofits, but the specific funders whose priorities, geographies and theories of change align with yours. Alignment, not availability, is the starting point.
• It positions you as a partner, not a supplicant: When you approach a donor with a clear strategic plan and a robust Theory of Change, you are not asking them to fund your survival. Instead, you invite them to invest in a coherent strategy. That is a fundamentally different conversation.
• It makes saying no possible: When a misaligned opportunity arrives, and they will, your strategic plan gives you the language and the confidence to decline it. It becomes less about turning down money and more about protecting your mission.

Rakesh’s video on strategic coherence – watch here:

Final Thought

The most fundable organisations in Africa are not the ones that write the best proposals; they are the ones that have done the strategic thinking that makes every proposal a natural extension of a coherent vision.

Donors fund strategy: organisations that know where they are going and can show, clearly, credibly, and consistently, how their work gets them there.

A strategic plan, a Theory of Change, and a fundraising strategy are not administrative documents. They are the architecture of a fundable organisation. Build them intentionally, in the right sequence, and your fundraising conversations will never feel the same again.

Remember what Rakesh said: when you don’t have your own strategy, you end up implementing someone else’s.

(Dr Lucille Abruquah is a Ghanaian sustainable development expert, Adjunct Lecturer and Director of Grants Development at Nobel International Business University, and Grants Specialist at the Ghana International School. Subscribe to her The Systems Edge newsletter for more thought leadership insights on funding and fundraising issues)