Building NGO Capacity While Supporting Local Farmers

For the past few months, the Annika Linden Centre’s NGO Training Series has been conducted online. This time, ALC collaborated with a local initiative called Dari Desaku (which literally means “From My Village”), to encourage participants of the NGO Training Series to give a donation to support this project.

Why this project? Dari Desaku is an initiative that buys fruit and vegetables from local farmers who are currently having abundant harvests but are unable to sell them to businesses due to restrictions caused by this pandemic. Hotels and restaurants in Bali have been closing down over the past few months, which means these farmers have no income either. Buying produce from local farmers at discounted prices helps them feed their family and continue their farming.  The produce bought is then distributed to the worst affected families, such as people with a disability and poor families, which could help them to get nutritious food during this difficult time. A total of 232 packages of fruit and vegetables were delivered to families with disabilities from the donations received through the NGO Training Series in June.

The last two training series explored two related topics for business startups: the first being Business Strategy for Startups and the second being 101 Content Writing for Startups. These topics were the most requested subjects by the participants of the NGO training series, which aimed to help them navigate and adapt their startups and NGOs amid this pandemic.

The Annika Linden Centre, which houses three of Inspirasia’s grantees, is an Incubator for Impact, applying investment incubator principles to high potential social sector leaders to maximise impact, and a regional hub for excellence for social entrepreneurship, non-profit work, and philanthropy, connecting global experts and supporters with outstanding local leaders and solutions. The Annika Linden Centre was built to meet the demand from donors of Inspirasia for ways to grant "more than money" - to grant mentorship, expertise, and training - to high potential local non-profit leaders.