Up-Coming Coffee Talks 2026
JULY COFFEE TALK 2026: When Your Budget Is the Problem
Many fundraisers know that feeling when you have built a brilliant program, your donor loves the concept, and the conversations are warm, then the proposal stalls at the final hurdle, because the budget feels "too high," "too heavy on overhead," or just confusingly structured.
This session is aimed to tackle that friction head-on. We want to pull back the curtain on underpriced impact, defensive budgeting, and the tension between keeping the lights on and keeping donors happy. We want to reframe budgeting as an active growth tool that drives your mission forward, rather than a scary spreadsheet added onto the back of a proposal.
Session Take Away:
- The Full-Cost Confidence Framework: strategies to calculate and present the true cost of delivering an impact, without diluting operational realities.
- The "Overhead as a Value-Driver" Pitch: Simple, relatable language to explain administrative and institutional costs as necessary fuel for the mission, not as wasteful burdens.
- An Indirect-Rate Negotiation Guide: How to defend and negotiate your indirect cost rates using solid organizational evidence and confident positioning, rather than backing down and making concessions.
- Funder-Friendly, Honest Budget Blueprints: A look at how to structure a budget sheet so it is instantly clear and attractive to a donor, while remaining honest to your actual operational costs.
- The Finance - Fundraising Alignment Tool: Actionable steps to get your finance and fundraising teams on the same page before the proposal deadline, ending the classic last minute panic and friction.
Join a vibrant community of active participating professionals from across Kenya and the wider Eastern African region.
The audience is a mix of NGO Executive Directors, Finance Directors, Program Managers, and Resource Mobilisation professionals who are directly responsible for keeping their organizations sustainable.