We believe that non-profit organizations play a critical role in society. By responding to the challenges and needs that government and business sectors are unable to address, non-profit organizations contribute to improving the lives of people and creating better communities. One of the most critical issues that non-profits face is how to ensure their financial sustainability for their good work to continue and expand.
In the late 1990s, non-profit organizations in the Philippines began to feel the impact of reduced foreign funding as grant-giving organizations began channeling their resources to other countries. Recognizing this challenge, a group of development professionals came together to discuss effective means to address this trend. These dedicated visionaries dared to dream of a future where non-profit organizations have access to diverse funding sources, are more professionally-run, and have a critical mass of committed donors and volunteers. Their collaboration led to the establishment of Venture for Fund Raising in March 1999.
Driven by our mission to “teach the joy of giving”, Venture provides consulting, training, research, and public information services to people and organizations across the globe. To date, we have helped over 1,269 organizations throughout the Philippines, the rest of Asia and the world by providing various training in several Asian countries, consulting assistance programs in Indonesia, Cambodia and Georgia, and speaking engagements throughout Asia, as well as in the Netherlands, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Australia, and South Africa.
Our clients and partners advocate for and work in a wide array of social development issues such as education, environment, the arts, alternative law, healthcare, religion, human rights, research, and many more. We regularly conduct our standard public courses. To date, our best-selling course, the Basic Course on Fund Raising, has had 75 runs. We also develop sector-specific customized courses and provide client-focused consulting services that have recently expanded to involve the implementation of specialized projects on behalf of our clients.
Apart from training and consulting, we also provide research and public information services and publications to non-profit organizations. We were the proponent of the Nationwide Survey on Giving in the Philippines in 2006, and our other commissioned research services include the conduct of Fund Raising Market Studies and potential donor research. For public information, we are the convenor of the Fund Raising Congress, a biennial event that began in 2004, that serves as a venue for fund raisers to share best practices and encourage mutual learning. The Fund Raising Congress is also the home of The Kyra Awards, the pioneer in celebrating outstanding programs and campaigns in non-profit fund raising.
In recent years, a number of corporations have sought our assistance on various aspects of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs. By addressing this need, we are able to capitalize on our extensive non-profit network, knowledge of and experience in development, by forging mutually-beneficial partnerships between corporations and non-profit organizations in creating an ideal CSR partnership, in which corporations are able to achieve their business and social goals, and non-profit organizations strengthen their community development programs.
Thus, to “teach the joy of giving”, we have evolved into an organization that bridges both the “givers” – specifically, individuals and institutions that do good by partnering with non-profit and non-governmental organizations; as well as the “askers”– specifically, the non-profit organizations that do fund raising (asking) to support their programs.