Kenya Is Not Resource-Poor.

Last Thursday evening, a room full of fundraisers, CSO leaders, and development professionals gathered at Urban Woods, Kilimani, for KAFP's first in-person Coffee Talk since COVID. The topic was Domestic Resource Mobilisation. The conversation that followed was one of the most honest the sector has had in a while.

Here is what came out of the room.

The conversation we needed to have

The international funding landscape is shifting and everyone in that room felt it. Grants are becoming more conditional, more competitive, and for many organisations, increasingly out of reach. The question hanging over the sector has been: what do we do about it?

What Bena Amunga laid out clearly was this: the answer has been here all along. Kenya gave over KES 172 billion in private and corporate philanthropy last year. According to the World Giving Index, Kenya ranks first in Africa for helping strangers. Harambee is not nostalgia it is a funding model that predates every international grant that ever landed on this soil.

The problem is not that Kenya does not give. The problem is that most organisations are not set up to receive it.

Five channels. One ecosystem.

Bena walked the room through five core domestic funding channels, each with its own logic, its own entry points, and its own decision-making process.

●       HNWI Philanthropy - High Net Worth Individuals give based on trust, visibility, and personal connection. Access is relationship-based, not proposal-based. You do not apply your way in. You build your way in.

●       Philanthropic & Corporate Foundations - These organisations align funding with business priorities, SDGs, and brand positioning. To access them, you need to stop speaking mission language and start speaking value proposition language. What does your work mean for their goals?

●       Community-Based Systems - Chamas, SACCOs, alumni networks, diaspora giving circles, giving circles. These are rooted in Harambee traditions and social accountability. Small contributions, when structured well, generate significant value. This is not a small channel it is an underutilised one.

●       Faith-Based Giving - Tithe, Zakat, offerings, sadaqa. Faith institutions are some of the highest-trust, highest-participation giving systems in Kenya and they are growing even during economic downturns. Accessing this channel requires consistency, transparency, and genuine alignment with institutional values.

●       Individual Giving - Mobile money has changed everything. M-Pesa alone has made giving frictionless. Individual giving is growing in Kenya but retention is weak. Most organisations are good at the first ask. Very few are good at the second, third, and fourth.

The question that stopped the room

One slide asked three questions that every organisation in the room needed to sit with:

1. Is your operational structure built for continuous domestic fundraising?

2. Is your organisation financed for sustainability?

3. Are you prioritising the right channel?

Because the reality is, most organisations are not. They are structured for grant cycles, not giving relationships. They have fundraising staff who do everything,ie proposals, donor relations, data, communications, events and wonder why nothing grows. The shift to domestic resource mobilisation is not just a strategy change. It is a structural one.

What the participants in the room said

Boniface Mutua  put it well in his post after the session: "Harambee philosophy isn't just nostalgia, it is a strategy. It is locally rooted and runs deeper and lasts longer than aid does."

Dr. Asma Awadh  reflected on the shift from transactions to relationships: "We need to move from fundraising as one-off transactions to financing built on relationships and value creation."

Annette Miriti Arrogo captured the evening's takeaway in seven words: "You must be findable to be fundable."

Marion Ndeta Wasia, MPRSK said it simply: "It's not just about the money. It's about relationships."

What comes next!!

The room asked for more time. More depth. More sessions like this one and thursday was the clearest signal of all. The conversation on domestic resource mobilisation in Kenya is only just beginning, and KAFP intends to keep it going.

If you missed the April Coffee Talk, the presentation by Bena Amunga is available reach out to us at info@fundraisingkenya.org  to request a copy.

And if you want to be in the room for the next one - Join our WhatsApp Channel so you never miss an update. Our May Coffee Talk is coming, and after April, you already know what kind of conversations we have. 

The Kenya Association of Fundraising Professionals (KAFP) is the professional membership body for resource mobilization and fundraising practitioners in Kenya.