Grant Writing – Internaut Consulting

Capaciteria

Online Nonprofit Administrative Resource Directory

Capaciteria.org was a comprehensive, searchable database directory of administrative resources for nonprofits designed to assist them in leveraging their own capacity using a trusted source networks of information and resources they could rely upon. It was available from 2005-2015 until merging into the 4good.org resource directory in a bid to aggregate programmatic and administrative resources. It promoted peer review by allowing members to comment on and rate individual resource links. The system became more useful to users every time someone rated or commented on a resource. Capaciteria had over 120 major categories and over 2500 nonprofit resources (links, articles, books, research, forms, etc.). They ranged from finance to facilities management and included significant resources on the most popular nonprofit queries such as volunteer management, philanthropic services, fund raising services, nonprofit jobs and technology resources. Resources came from the nonprofit, commercial government and educational sector, and all could be rated and commented on.

Deliverable:
The Principal of Internaut Consulting developed Capaciteria.org on a sabbatical from the Open Society Institute to demonstrate the ability to create a useful directory focused on administrative resources for nonprofits at a reasonably low cost. Internaut Consulting’s effective fundraising for continued support and outreach activities received a number of grants from Mario Morino, the Blue Ridge Foundation in New York and a two year grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to broaden its audience. An initial project involved developing an open Fiscal Agency list by category, further adding content resources and developing strategic partnerships with other organizations.

In an effort to consolidate and aggregate capacity resources for the benefit of the nonprofit sector, Internaut Associates agreed to merge its resources with IdeaEncore’s in an equity agreement. One Year later Nonprofit Direct, IdeaEncore and and Capaciteria all agreed to a merger with the Good Done Great Network to further aggregate both administrative and program resources on a new online platform: 4good.org. Internaut advised IdeaEncore on strategy during this period.

Open Development Mekong Project

The East-West Management Institute (EWMI) works to strengthen democratic societies by bringing together government, civil society, and the private sector to build accountable, capable and transparent institutions. EWMI first developed and pilot a country platform called Open Development Cambodia (ODC) to better organize, share and analyze economic and environmental development and land conversion data among a network of related grassroots organizations in Cambodia using a unique open data platform to facilitate this collaboration. The platform addresses urgent areas of concern including: deforestation, land grabbing, water/food security, access to information, and freedom of expression. It also challenged critical, debilitating threats to data transparency using an approach that separated factual data from advocacy to protect it from government censorship, which is a significant issue in the region. Once the ODC pilot was proven, with tens of thousands of users accessing it per month EWMI initiated Open Development Mekong to do the same regionally in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

Deliverables:
Internaut Consulting was initially retained to research and develop grant proposals for potential donors related to the ODC web platform and to advise on its technical developments and program strategy. Funding from proposals written by Internaut Consultimh came from MacArthur Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Global Vision, American Jewish World Service, Open Society and Spider (a Swedish SIDA affiliate). Internaut Consulting also assisted in the development of a USAID technology incubator and entrepreneurship proposal in Cambodia for USAID.

As the Cambodian pilot evolved into a regional platform, Internaut Consulting’s mandate was extended to help identify a management team, find programming resources and project manage the complete overhaul of the platform deployment which included redoing the entire front and back end interface; deploying data harvesting and data sharing extensibility; allowing for native multi-lingual capability; making it accessible/responsive via mobile; cleaning up and adding thousands of records; converting the original Open Development Cambodia (ODC) platform to this new open data platform developed in WordPress and CKAN; and finally, converting the 33,000 ODC users to the new platform.

Proposal Evaluation/Grant Writing

Internaut Consulting was retained to evaluate and write part of a social entrepreneurship proposal for the Middle East for IREX. IREX is a US-based nonprofit organization committed to international education in academic research, professional training and technical assistance.

Deliverables:
Internaut’s contribution distinguished the difference between social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility, both elements of the proposed program. It also articulated the common elements of success that promote scaling in a social enterprise, and the associated training needed to be included in the program.

Global Library Program Eastern European Expansion Strategy

A program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation designed to provide free public internet access in libraries for the general public and particularly the disenfranchised in rural and urban areas. The program needed a full spectrum of support for its entry into Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

Deliverables:
Internaut Consulting was retained to provide in-country research, create and review country proposals, and engage in strategic and implementation planning to evaluate the potential for a number of new countries in Central and Eastern Europe to participate in the program. Work also included refining program administration and procurement RFP’s once countries were selected, and then reviewing and selecting 3rd party country program implementers. Internaut Consulting was additionally contracted to provide ongoing strategic advice related to the entire program in Central & Eastern Europe and did on the ground pre-program assessment in Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria and the Ukraine as well as desk research for Poland, Romania and Mongolia.

Internaut Consulting separately retained to assist the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with their ICTD internal information gathering initiative by creating research reports for them on the state of non-profit capacity and the state of ICT in Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia including Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia.