Do You Want Funding? The Question No One Asks

I was in the Living My Promise retreat this weekend and the icebreaker was, “What is a question you want people to ask you?” A promisor jokingly told me, yours should be,” Do you want Funding?”. He is not wrong, I sat through that retreat talking to multiple senior philanthropists, all excited about my idea, asking me how my startup is doing, what the impact is, and who am I talking to but no one asked me, “Do you want funding?”

I am sure it will come eventually at some point but sometimes I think I am looking for a needle in the haystack. I have not made it easy for myself by creating an ecosystem solution in civic action. To add insult to injury, I have made it a for-profit organisation and refuse to register a nonprofit entity. There are lots of ifs and buts when you put that combination on the table, you are talking about a sliver of funders.

Finding the right funding has been a unique challenge, but we have managed to find a couple to keep us afloat and reach significant milestones, now how do we find the others? To solve this, the solutions I am considering

• Reframing the Narrative: There are multiple ways to reframe how one looks V-All. It is a civic action platform but it is also an experiential learning platform so you can position it as an edtech platform. Money is still available for that for sure and with tech and AI as the backbone, we can give a more compelling reason. Do I want to reframe? Will this lead to mission drift? Today they care about Education, tomorrow will they push me to do something else? So is this an end to a means or changing the game completely?
• Demonstrating Revenue Potential: The for-profit model raises legitimate questions about sustainability and scalability. To counter these concerns, need to demonstrate a clear path to revenue generation. Need to showcase the business model, highlight early traction, and provide concrete examples of how we plan to generate income. This is a no-brainer but to do that, I need funds to build out a Product Market Fit (PMF). Chicken and egg problem.
• For-Profit Competitive Advantage: I can show the world how a for-profit model allows for greater agility, innovation, and scalability compared to traditional nonprofits. I can position or focus on impact as a competitive advantage, attracting investors who are looking for both financial and social returns but this takes time and to buy that time, one needs money.

I will do all of this but I do need money for it and those elusive funders or funding partners who align with our mission are still missing. Well, hopefully I find those otherwise it will be time to sell some more stock and break those FDs again. I'm deeply committed to this vision, and I've invested my resources to ensure we maintain momentum and will continue to do so in future if required.

Despite the funding challenges, I'm confident that V-ALL will revolutionize civic engagement for young people. We invite funders to join us in empowering the next generation of changemakers. I would be happy to share a detailed business plan and pitch, just ask me the question, “Do you want funding? “ I am in Bangalore this week and Delhi next and a video call is an easy solution these days.