Best Fundraising Pitch Ever

Last month I spent a few days in Yirol, a town in Lakes state where we deployed a resident team in April.  Last year, we initiated a series of mediations between tribes in Lakes and the neighboring state of Western Equatoria who had resorted to armed conflict. There has been no resumption of violence since an agreement was struck 12 months ago.

Two executive chiefs came to visit me.  Amid pleasantries one of the chiefs interrupted me and said, “We don’t trust why you have come here.  We think that you might be here to close your programme.”  He went on to tell how NP was saving lives and that the two of them represented a council of chiefs who were waiting to receive assurance that the NP team would stay in Yirol.  “We are not fools.  We would not have come to meet with you if we did not want NP here,” he added.

I recited a rather feeble commitment that we would work as hard as we could to continue funding. He interrupted again, “If you try to close this programme I will have my boys arrest you.”

I have done a lot of fundraising in my life, but I have never heard a more compelling pitch. Please help keep me out of jail.

Mel Duncan