INASP

Case Study

Building Long-Term Fundraising Capacity for a Global Knowledge Organisation

Overview

Over a multi-year partnership, we worked alongside INASP to strengthen its fundraising practice, diversify income, and support organisational sustainability.

Context

INASP is an international development organisation dedicated to strengthening research, knowledge systems, and evidence-informed decision-making in the Global South. For decades, it has worked with universities, research institutions, policymakers, and civil society to improve access to information, build local research capacity, and support more inclusive knowledge ecosystems.

As the global development funding landscape evolved, INASP faced a set of strategic challenges common to many mission-driven organisations:

A high reliance on a limited number of institutional donors.
Increasing competition for traditional grant funding.
Growing pressure to demonstrate impact, scale, and financial sustainability while remaining true to a partnership-based, locally grounded model of change.

Objective

INASP did not simply want to raise more money. It wanted to build a fundraising approach that would support long-term organisational resilience, enable strategic growth, and reflect the values of equity, collaboration, and evidence that sit at the heart of its work.

To support this transition, INASP engaged Global Leaders Consulting as a long-term partner.

Our Approach

Unlike short-term consultancy assignments, our work with INASP was designed as an embedded, evolving partnership. The focus was not only on securing funding in the moment, but on strengthening the organisation’s ability to plan, position, and deliver sustainable income over time.

We began by working with INASP’s leadership to clarify how fundraising would support its broader institutional strategy. This included:

Defining funding priorities linked directly to programmatic ambitions.

Identifying which areas of work were most suitable for institutional funding, philanthropic support, or strategic partnerships.

Creating a multi-year fundraising framework that connected organisational objectives with realistic resourcing pathways.

This ensured that fundraising was not treated as a series of isolated bids, but as an integral part of long-term planning.
A central objective of the partnership was to reduce vulnerability associated with a narrow donor base. We supported INASP to:

Analyse its income portfolio and identify areas of concentration risk.

Map opportunities across new donor segments, including foundations, international agencies, and values-aligned partners.

Develop tailored engagement strategies for different types of funders, recognising that each required distinct positioning, evidence, and relationship-building.

Over time, this work broadened INASP’s funding mix and improved financial resilience.
Drawing on our funder intelligence systems, we provided ongoing research to identify prospects aligned with INASP’s focus on research capacity, higher education, evidence use, and knowledge equity. This included:

Detailed donor profiling and analysis of funding histories.

Identification of thematic entry points aligned with INASP’s evolving portfolio.

Support in prioritising opportunities based on strategic fit, likelihood of success, and long-term partnership potential.

This allowed INASP to invest effort more selectively and strategically, rather than pursuing every available call.
Rather than treating proposal writing as a transactional exercise, we used it as a mechanism for sharpening INASP’s positioning. Our role included:

Co-developing narratives that articulated INASP’s distinctive contribution to global knowledge systems.

Strengthening the link between technical programme design and donor-facing value propositions.

Providing hands-on drafting, editing, and review for major institutional and foundation proposals.

This iterative process improved not only the quality of individual submissions, but also the coherence and confidence of INASP’s overall external messaging.
Because this was a long-term engagement, we also focused on systems, skills, and ways of working, including:

Supporting planning processes that aligned programme development with fundraising timelines.

Improving internal coordination between leadership, technical teams, and business development.

Developing tools and approaches to track prospects, manage pipelines, and learn from both successful and unsuccessful bids.

The aim was to ensure that fundraising capability remained embedded within the organisation, rather than dependent on external support.

Outcomes

Across multiple years of collaboration, INASP achieved meaningful progress in both funding outcomes and institutional practice:

A more diversified funding portfolio, reducing reliance on a small number of donors.
Stronger positioning with institutional and philanthropic funders, grounded in a clear articulation of INASP’s mission and added value.
Improved quality and consistency of proposals, supported by refined narratives and evidence of impact.

More strategic internal planning and coordination, enabling fundraising to support long-term organisational priorities rather than short-term funding cycles.

Importantly, these gains were cumulative: each funding round, strategy refresh, and proposal cycle built on the last, strengthening INASP’s capacity over time.

Why It Mattered

For organisations working at the intersection of research, policy, and development, sustainability is not only about financial stability, it is about the ability to maintain long-term partnerships, invest in local capacity, and remain independent in a shifting funding environment.

By working alongside INASP over several years, Global Leaders Consulting helped build a fundraising model that was strategic, diversified, and aligned with the organisation’s values. This long-term approach ensured that INASP could continue to support equitable knowledge systems and evidence-informed change without compromising its mission or operating principles.

This case reflects a core dimension of our practice: partnering with organisations not just to win funding, but to strengthen the systems, strategies, and confidence that underpin sustainable impact.