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A Successful Funding Partnership

Zippy’s Friends is now extremely successful and well known in Lithuania, with some 35% of all six to seven year-olds taking part in the programme. But ten years ago, this wasn’t the case at all, and times were tough for our NGO, Vaiko Labui. Lithuania had just joined the EU and donors were either leaving, or hadn’t yet arrived, so it was really hard to raise funds.

Then an opportunity came up to present Zippy’s Friends at an annual meeting of the British Chamber of Commerce, Lithuania.

That evening was a great success, and a game-changer for Lithuanian Zippy’s Friends and its partners. Our long-lasting friendship with the BCC Lithuania started here, and in the audience was one of the owners of the retail chain IKI, which duly became the general sponsor of Zippy’s Friends in Lithuania. IKI has been supporting the programme ever since, and last year we held a conference “Zippy’s Friends – for the child, teacher and school” to mark the 10th anniversary of IKI sponsorship.

Our relationship with the BCC has continued since then, with their financing of our website development, and support for the translation of the Zippy’s Friends Special Needs Supplement. And this year they have provided funding for the publishing and printing of this Supplement.

We are very grateful to the BCC for its support and for all the opportunities they have created for us. And we are grateful not only for the material assistance, but also for their trust and confidence in us, for their overall support and belief that our activities are important.

Aurelija Okunauskiene

Director, Vaiko Labui

 

Note from PFC:

Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, International Women’s Groups and British Embassies all have pots of funding for local NGOs.

In addition, charitable trusts and foundations are a good source of funding. Some trusts that fund international work include:

The Peter Cundill Foundation

Medicor Foundation

The Herrod Foundation  

Aurelija Okunauskiene
23 May 2017