Case Study: When donors think outside the box

Violet is a Syrian organization, which started out in 2011 through a network of young volunteers who fett they had to do something for their communities which were suffering as a result of the conflict in Syria. They started out by providing essential aid to families affected by the conflict on a small scale, and have now grown into an organization working to provide humanitarian aid, implementing projects in six provinces in Syria, as the conflict rages on, now in its seventh year.

In 2016, the IKEA Foundation supported a project which offered grants to Save the Children’s Syrian partner organizations, aiming to ‘build up their capacity’, to help them achieve their goals more efficiently. A unique aspect of this project was that the organizations could assess the areas where they saw their own weaknesses and gaps, and propose how best to use the funding provided accordingly. Save the Children had previously supported a number of partner organizations to develop ‘capacity strengthening’ plans, and the organizations could then apply for a grant according to the gaps identified in these plans. Violet successfully applied for a grant, which they used to build a fundraising platform on their website.

This study explores the impacts of the cooperation between Violet and Save the Children in Syria.