5 Lessons I Learned About Starting NGOs

I started the South Sudan Library Foundation (SSLF) in 2018 from Sydney, Australia, while attending the University of Sydney for my MBA. Over the past four years, here are some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way about starting NGOs and some (I hope) helpful pointers to help you get started on your nonprofit organization. My NGO experience stretches from South Sudan, Sudan, Zambia, Ethiopia, Mexico, the United States, Australia, Iraq, Syria, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and a few others across multiple categories like education, human trafficking, agriculture, unexploded ordinance removal, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

What motivated me to start an NGO in South Sudan

My initial motivation for working in South Sudan came from a desire to help those who needed it most--the people of this country had virtually no chance at all. The literacy rate was abysmal. There wasn’t even electricity or running water nationwide; there was a whopping 26 miles of paved roads within the entire country.

I wanted to learn more about the situation in South Sudan, so I talked to people living there and tried to gather as much information as possible. By networking with different people, I better understood the situation and what was happening on the ground.

I built a relationship with Yawusa Kintha, who was a friend of Mbonisi Sibanda (one of my MBA classmates), and we started from there.

Don’t Do It Alone

One of the most important lessons I learned is that you can’t do it all by yourself. Trying to start and run an NGO solo is a recipe for burnout. You need a team of passionate, like-minded individuals to help you with the day-to-day operations as well as the big-picture planning. So divide and conquer–the sooner you accept that you can’t do it all alone, the better off your NGO will be. My co-founder Yawusa has been a source of motivation and has kept me engaged and honest throughout the whole process of building this NGO from scratch. We talk weekly.

We also needed help from everyone in the process, whether that was our South Sudanese attorney who drafted our legal paperwork, advised us on risks, or helped us keep our books clean. We also relied heavily on Bellaplace Books to purchase used books wholesale from Nairobi, Kenya. Finally, we needed help from Yawusa’s uncle to move the books by truck from Nairobi to Juba.

Buying book wholesale in Nairobi. One procurement tip, if you’re trying to find a good wholesale price in Africa, go to a street vendor and pay them a finder’s fee to take you to their wholesale merchant. I found Bellaplace books by asking street-side book sellers where they bought their books.

We also needed help when corrupt police or government officials tried to extort money from us. Such as when they make up bogus infractions like moving commercial goods from East Juba to West Juba without a permit.

Focus on Sustainability

Another big lesson I’ve learned is the importance of sustainability. When starting an NGO, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the feel-goodness of the work you’re doing and lose sight of the fact that your NGO needs to be sustainable at the end of the day. This means having a clear and achievable mission, defined goals, and a solid plan for how you’re going to achieve them. It also means diversifying your funding sources so that you’re not relying on just one or two donors. And finally, it means building a team committed to the mission.

Key point:

Focus on first principles thinking when it comes to NGO sustainability. This means boiling things down to the most essential levels and thinking about what needs to be done to achieve your goals. This can be a laborious exercise, but it’s worth it in the long run. A perfect example of first principles thinking with our library was remembering that our most basic tenet is to provide a place for people to have access to literature and read.

I had to fight the urge to get a computer checkout system and set up a library rental system when I started the library. I also made a mistake: I should have simply found a school that would host the public library and take care of the staffing. We didn’t need our own building and staff; we could have partnered with someone else that has a team and infrastructure.

Keep Things Simple

The third lesson I learned is that you need to keep things simple–both in terms of your mission/vision and your operations. For example, when we first started SSLF, we had grandiose plans to build a state-of-the-art library in South Sudan and to provide educational programs for hundreds of students. But we quickly realized we needed to scale back our ambitions and focus on achievable goals. So we revised our plans and instead focused future plans on sending books and other resources to existing educational organizations in South Sudan. This helped us simplify our mission and made our operation more efficient and easier to manage.

Our library is a valuable resource in the summertime, thanks to its working cooling system, wifi, and electricity centre. I wouldn't have known that fact if it hadn't been for our diesel budget skyrocketing and wondering what was going on with our library's expense sheet.

Key point:

Start small too. Focus on the process of helping achieve your mission, and don’t make it all about a grand accomplishment. In our case, stopping at 1 library would be easy. However, we’ve found that if our mission is to improve literacy in South Sudan, there are many different things that we can do. Projects that start small and maintain their interest and progress will ultimately outperform one big project. It’s also good to start small because it’ll allow you to make better decisions, understand the problems you’re solving, and help you protect your sanity while building a solid foundation.

Be Flexible

Another important lesson I learned is to be flexible when starting an NGO. Things will always go differently than planned, and you must be prepared to pivot when necessary. For example, we originally planned on raising our funds through corporate sponsorship and donations but soon realized that this was not sustainable in the long term. We then turned to other sources of revenue, such as book sales and grants, which have helped us become more financially stable. Being flexible has also meant being open to new opportunities as they arise, which has helped us grow our organization in ways we would never have thought possible.

It Takes Time

Finally, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that starting an NGO takes lots of time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your NGO. Be patient, and don’t expect overnight success because it rarely happens. It takes time to build trust, credibility, and a strong reputation within the NGO world, so be prepared for the long haul.

Another key point:

In the past, I have found that many volunteers do not like to be told what to do. Unfortunately, this often results in them backing out or doing a poor job on the task at hand. To combat this, when someone now offers to help with our library foundation, I ask them what they would like to do. This way, they feel more in control of their work and can be more invested in the project. This approach has been more successful in keeping volunteers happy and motivated.

Conclusion

These are just a few lessons I’ve learned about starting NGOs over the past four years. Running a successful nonprofit takes hard work, dedication, and extreme tenacity, but it is gratifying. So, if you are thinking about starting your own NGO, my best piece of advice is to go for it, small and slow. There will never be a perfect time or circumstances, so take the plunge and see where it takes you. Who knows, you might end up doing something great.