Richard Turner: How SolarAid raised almost £1m & turned a great idea into reality

In June, SolarAid won the UK’s Charity Award for International Aid & Development for a project in Malawi called Light a Village. Behind the project was a fundraising feat – almost £1 million raised from funders and donors. SolarAid’s director of fundraising Richard Turner shares how they did it.

There is nothing more enticing than having a great idea to fundraise for, because it captures people’s attention. The concept of this project was simple – it was about enabling a community in Malawi to access affordable energy by paying for the solar energy they use at a price cheaper than what they pay for kerosene, candles or torch batteries. This in turn pays for the maintenance of the solar home systems installed on their home.

We called it Light a Village. It’s an approach that takes the risk away from families who would struggle to buy a solar home system in instalments. Giving them away would not be sustainable or scalable. At the beginning it was just an idea based on our observations with communities in rural communities in Malawi desperate to have solar energy to light their home but unable to afford the cost.

Kesilina Chiwoza turning on her SolarAid light

Phase 1: Finding a funder to take a chance

But to turn an idea like this into reality requires funding, so at the outset you need to focus on finding and convincing a funder who is the decision maker ­– ideally an individual. They are more likely to take a risk for an idea that has potential but is unproven. An organisation or committee giving away someone else’s money is less likely to take a risk ­– save them to approach later.

We had a funder in mind. This was the Turner Kirk Trust, which was set up by two philanthropists who knew us well and were, in their words, willing to “fund ideas that might fail”. This sort of funder is very special and can be the catalyst to get things going. They agreed to a donation of £75,000 to implement the first phase of the project – a trial in 500 homes.

Dr Ewan Kirk, the co-founder of the Trust said:

“The SolarAid project was precisely in our sweet spot of an untested and untried high-risk idea which, if it were to work, would be transformative and could then leverage larger pools of capital to solve the problem across a country.  However, for SolarAid to achieve this impact, we needed to give them ‘permission to fail’ in a high-risk project.  Fortunately, the pilot project was highly successful and is helping to create a revolution in providing lighting for all.”

Indeed, the first phase ­­– over the course of a year – went well. Whilst there were problems to overcome as you would expect from a new idea (although we didn’t anticipate the rats chewing through the cables!), plans were made for the second phase.

Phase 2: Attracting support to scale up the project

To get to this next stage, we needed funders who could make a decision reasonably quickly ­– within a few months. We needed to raise £240,000 to scale the project up to 2,500 homes. The Turner-Kirk Trust generously agreed to put up a match ­– leaving us a target of an additional £120,000 to raise. We identified funders ­– a mix of individuals, trusts we had good contact with and a corporate. Ten funders were secured within five months, each giving between £10k to £20k. Not one of our existing funders turned us down and the match funding proved to be highly attractive. We also attracted a trust who had never given to us before. These funders loved the idea but in addition, because we’d already trialled it, we now had content we could show them – photographs, case studies, and initial data showing promise. This was enough to convince them.

Phase 3: Achieving the biggest fundraising target yet 

For the third and final phase we needed to raise over £600k. This would require grants or donations of £50k or more (any less, and it would just take too long to raise the total, and require too many funders). The advantage was that we had evidence from the data on delivering the first two phases that was critical to secure support from funders at this level. We began engaging potential funders for this phase shortly after the start of the first one as we knew it would take time. We developed a pipeline and gave each opportunity a % chance of success ­– we filled this pipeline until the total (including a weighted % chance) exceeded our target of £600k. So a £100k application with a 20% chance was logged as £20k. This way we weren’t dependent on opportunities that might deliver a significant grant but where we had a small chance of getting it.

The percentage chance we assigned was much higher where funders effectively invited us to apply. These opportunities were indeed where we succeeded, versus applying for highly competitive “open calls” or speculative applications.

We secured nine funders with an average grant of £67k. Some from the previous phase continued to give too. An individual who gave £10k to phase two insisted on a donation of £15k to phase three. A corporate, the energy company EDF Renewables, who donated £20k stepped up their support to £60k (£20k for each solar project they delivered in the UK).

Our largest grant came from combining forces with two other enterprises, based elsewhere in Africa but working on a very similar concept. By working together we could share learning, which this made the proposal more interesting to the funder we approached – the Dutch postcode lottery DOEN. DOEN in turn introduced us to another foundation, the Swiss-based Good Energies Foundation, who they often collaborate with. A grant of €675k was secured, split between us and the two other solar enterprises.

Ethel Botomani sewing under a SolarAid light

Looking ahead to 100% solar energy access

All in all, just shy of £1 million was raised to deliver the Light a Village project in Malawi. Within a year we expect to reach all 8,813 households in the community. 100% access! That’s a first! The Malawian government wants to scale this at a district level which will be about eight times bigger. As they say in the film Jaws: “we’re going need a bigger boat” and a different funding strategy for this phase. One that incorporates this as a scalable business model from the outset, attracting subsidy and investment rather than relying on just philanthropy.

After that, the ambition is for it to be scaled nationally. We believe it could directly benefit 10 million people in Malawi alone ­– and adapted to be applied elsewhere across sub-saharan Africa.

Last words

So if your organisation has an attractive idea that has potential, break it down into stages that are attractive to different types of funders based on the level of risk they will take. That way you can focus your time on the relevant donors at each stage and prepare the ground for what you will need to persuade other funders down the line.

Insights from fundraising for Light a Village

Richard Turner

About Richard Turner

Richard Turner worked as a chief fundraiser at SolarAid for 2011 to 2016 and returned as director of fundraising in 2021. He has 35 years of experience as a fundraiser at Oxfam, Farm-Africa, FFI and ActionAid UK, as well as consulting and delivering fundraising training for charities with Alan Clayton Associates. He is a trustee of SOFII and on the advisory board for IFC.