Helping Underserved Communities by Strengthening a Charity's Fundraising Capabilities
A conversation with the Toluna team who piloted the ESOMAR Foundation's OneDay initiative with Nav Jeevan Don Bosco, a charity dedicated to supporting under-served communities.
A OneDay by the Toluna Hyderabad team
How a group of market researchers in Hyderabad helped a local charity strengthen its fundraising, stakeholder engagement, and proposal development by sharing practical tools and techniques from the world of insights.
Tell us a little about the organisation you worked with: Nav Jeevan Don Bosco
We partnered with Nav Jeevan Don Bosco, a Hyderabad-based charity working to uplift under-served communities.
Like many charities, the team is deeply committed to its mission. But they are also constantly looking for ways to strengthen fundraising, engage stakeholders more effectively, and secure the support needed to sustain and grow their programmes.
That is where we felt our skills could help.
What challenge were they facing?
Toluna Team: The charity wanted to better understand how they could strengthen resource mobilisation and stakeholder engagement. Many of the challenges they were facing were surprisingly familiar.
How do you communicate your impact more effectively?
How do you create stronger proposals?
How do you better understand the perspectives of sponsors and donors?
How do you make a compelling case for support?
These are questions market researchers help organisations answer every day.
What did you actually do during your OneDay project?
Toluna Team: We wanted to build something practical.
Rather than presenting theory, we focused on sharing tools, frameworks, and ways of thinking that participants could immediately apply within their own work.
The workshop was built around our core expertise in market research and aimed to translate that knowledge into something useful for a charity setting. Our goal wasn't to make them market researchers. Our goal was to help them think more strategically about fundraising, communication, and stakeholder engagement.
The workshop focused on several key areas:
Crafting impactful pitches
Designing effective fundraising models
Building compelling communication strategies
Understanding sponsor and donor perspectives
Applying practical market research tools and templates
We also spent time working through real examples and interactive exercises.
One of the most valuable parts was helping participants develop and refine their own pitches. This turned abstract concepts into practical solutions that could support their day-to-day work.
Was there a moment that stayed with you?
It was inspiring to see the participants deeply engaged, especially when they shared real challenges and explored solutions together. Their energy and willingness to learn made the experience truly rewarding.
What difference did the project make for Nav Jeevan Don Bosco?
One of the most rewarding aspects was hearing directly from participants about how the session had changed their perspective.
They told us they had always been curious about how to strengthen proposals but had never had practical exposure to the methods and approaches that could support this work.
Several participants highlighted that learning how to collect, structure, and interpret information would help them make stronger cases to donors and stakeholders.
Others spoke about gaining new ways to position their organisation and communicate their impact more effectively.
One participant summed it up perfectly:
"This was one of the most practical and engaging workshops we have attended. This has enhanced our credibility to approach sponsors and supporters. The session has truly elevated our capabilities."
And what did you take away from the experience yourself?
That sometimes just a few hours of knowledge-sharing can create lasting value long after the workshop has ended!
A huge shout-out to the MITR team (Pavan Pokala - Data visualization; Vikram Reddy - Data processing; Lakshmi Challapally - Data visualization; Venkata Raviteja Akula - Data visualization; Rosy Khurana – People & Culture; Praveen K. Bachhu - Office Management) for their dedication and on-ground efforts in making the ‘OneDay’ pilot a great success!
