Call for Applications

Strategic Planning for Sustainable Impact (SPI) Project

Building Long-Term Strategic and Business Plans for Resilient Organizations

1. Background

Increasing global uncertainty, including wars, geopolitical tensions and economic disruptions, has placed many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), foundations, cooperatives, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under significant pressure. Following recent donor funding withdrawals, a rapid global survey by UN Women in March 2025 found that 90% of surveyed organizations were experiencing financial distress, 47% anticipated closure within six months, 72% had already laid off staff, and 51% had suspended programming.

At the root of this vulnerability is the lack of a well-defined long-term strategic and business plan that can cope with external shocks, or the failure to follow through on existing plans. Without a clear strategy, organizations react to external pressures rather than anticipate and prepare for them, often resulting in short-term, uncoordinated efforts that fail to address long-term needs. The gap is even wider among businesses, as numerous enterprises operate without a business plan, largely because most are informal.

It is against this background that The Result, together with a dedicated team of experts, is implementing the Strategic Planning for Sustainable Impact (SPI) Project. This five-year initiative (2025–2030) aims to assist 100 organizations across East African Community (EAC) countries to develop long-term strategic plans or business plans that strengthen their resilience and enable them to achieve their aspirations in a fast-changing world. The Result is therefore inviting interested organizations to apply.

2. Project Objectives

• General objective: To assist 100 organizations to develop long-term strategic plans or business plans that strengthen organizational resilience and enable them to achieve their aspirations beyond external shocks.
• Specific objectives: The project will support each participating organization to:
• Assess its organizational capacity and establish strategic baselines, including clearly defined long-term aspirations. 
• Develop evidence-based strategic objectives aligned with its mandate and with national priorities, regional priorities, continental aspirations, and the global development agenda. 
• Strengthen and diversify resource mobilization, including domestic resource mobilization that complements external funding. 
• Establish financial resilience and emergency funding mechanisms that sustain essential operations and programmes during funding disruptions or external shocks. 
• Develop practical, technology-enabled implementation plans with clear actions, responsibilities, timelines, performance indicators, and resource requirements, using a customized Power BI dashboard to track implementation in real time.

3. What Participating Organizations Will Receive

This is a hands-on, organization-centred process: each organization works with our experts on its own institution and ends with practical documents it owns and can use immediately. Specifically, each organization will receive:

• Organizational assessment and baseline report: a clear picture of current operations, institutional capacity, performance, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, risks, and priority areas for improvement.
• Costed strategic plan and/or business plan: a validated plan with vision, mission, strategic pillars, objectives, theory of change, results framework, indicators, and targets. We also work with the organization to establish a data collection plan and share with it our methodology for setting genuine baselines and realistic targets.
• Alignment with national, regional, continental and global priorities: clear links between the organization’s strategic priorities and the national development strategies and sector policies of its country, regional priorities (EAC Vision 2050), continental aspirations (AU Agenda 2063), and the global agenda (Sustainable Development Goals), strengthening its credibility with government, partners, and funders.
• Resource mobilization and funding diversification strategy: including a mapping of domestic and international funding opportunities, partner engagement plan, funding pipeline, and alternative financing options.
• Emergency reserve fund set-up: we work with each organization to establish a dedicated emergency reserve fund that sustains its essential operations and programmes for at least one year during periods of financial hardship. 
• Implementation plan and monitoring dashboard: annual workplans, responsibilities, timelines, budgets, milestones, and a customized Power BI dashboard to monitor and evaluate implementation in a timely manner.
• Strengthened resilience and sustainability: an organization better prepared to pursue its long-term aspirations, sustain essential programmes, and respond effectively to a changing environment.

4. Support Process and Deliverables

The project adopts a participatory, evidence-based, organization-centred, and results-oriented approach. Recognizing that organizations operate in different institutional, financial, and operating environments, the support is tailored to each organization rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach. The process is organized into five phases:

Business plan option: Organizations that choose a business plan, such as cooperatives, social enterprises, and start-ups, will receive a plan covering the company description (background, legal structure, problem to address, environmental analysis, vision, mission, values, objectives, short-term (1–2 years) and long-term (3–5 years) goals, unique selling proposition, and milestones), market analysis (industry overview, target market, market size, customer needs, competitors, positioning, barriers, regulation, and trends), products and service offerings (the problems they solve, current alternatives, and competitive advantage), marketing and sales strategy (pricing or cost recovery, marketing channels, promotional materials and budget, and distribution), operations plan (locations, facilities and equipment, staffing and processes, materials, and sourcing), and financial plan (growth and sustainability, projected income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet, break-even analysis, and emergency reserve).

Notice: Organizations that already have a strategic plan, business plan, or related policies are encouraged to share them, so that the process can build on existing work rather than start from scratch.

5. Added Value

Beyond producing a plan, the SPI Project offers participating organizations the following added value:

• Emergency fund: we work with each organization to establish an emergency fund that enables it to keep working for at least one year during a crisis. 
• Strategic alignment: we connect each institutional strategic plan with sector, national, regional, continental, and global priorities.
• Digitalized and automated plans: we digitalize and automate the strategic or business plan, enabling real-time monitoring and evaluation of implementation, using a simple set of tools:

▪Collect: KoboToolbox or Microsoft Forms.

▪Track: Microsoft Planner. 

▪Automate: Power Automate. 

▪Visualize: Power BI.

• Domestic resource mobilization: we promote investing in domestic resource mobilization.
• Financial management toolkit: we share a financial toolkit developed with a team of experienced partners, covering every aspect of financial management.

6. Who Can Apply?

This call is open to organizations operating in any East African Community (EAC) country, specifically:

• Local NGOs and civil society organizations (CSOs) 
• Foundations and faith-based organizations 
• Youth- and women-led organizations
•  Cooperatives and associations
• Social enterprises and start-ups with social impact mandates
• Community-based organizations (CBOs)

Applicants should be legally registered and demonstrate the commitment of their leadership to developing and implementing a long-term strategic or business plan.

7. Mode of Delivery and Commitment

Support will be delivered over a period agreed with each organization, combining on-site work, field visits, stakeholder consultations, and virtual sessions with our team of experts. To benefit fully, each participating organization is expected to:

o Designate a focal person or small team to work closely with The Result throughout the process.

• Ensure the participation of its leadership, and where applicable its board, in key workshops and validation sessions.
• Provide relevant documents and information, such as existing plans, policies, financial statements, and programme reports.
• Facilitate access to staff, partners, and beneficiaries for consultations.

All information shared by participating organizations will be treated as strictly confidential and used only for the purpose of developing their plans. 

8. Contribution

To foster ownership and accountability, each participating organization makes a modest contribution, determined by its size and the scope of support. The Result and its strategic partners cover the majority of the cost, including travel, field visits, data collection, stakeholder consultations, and expert time. Details of the contribution and payment process will be shared during registration and agreed with each selected organization.

This contribution is also a first investment in domestic resource mobilization. By putting its own resources into a long-term plan, each organization begins to build the domestic funding base, revenue streams, and emergency reserve that reduce its dependence on external donors and sustain its work beyond funding cycles.

9. Application and Selection Process

To apply, please complete the application form using the following link here The form requests the organization’s profile, country, legal registration, focus area, type of support needed, and a contact person. 

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and organizations are admitted in cohorts until 100 organizations are reached. Selection considers commitment, potential community impact, and leadership readiness. Following registration, organizations will be contacted for a consultation to better understand their needs and determine appropriate support options and engagement arrangements, and associated consultancy costs.

For more information, contact Champion Bizimana, Project Coordinator, at +250 781 672 296 or Champion.theresult@gmail.com, or visit www.theresult.rw.

The deadline for applications for the first cohort is 30th November 2026. Kindly share this call with organizations and networks that may benefit from this initiative. 

Done at Kigali, November 6, 2026 

Josee Uwase

Country Manager Rwanda