Matchmaking for NGO and Donor Convenings: Partner Meetings Without the Scramble
Development sector convenings in Kenya use matchmaking to pair implementers, funders and county partners into scheduled bilateral meetings.
At donor convenings the corridor is where the funding conversations actually happen, and they happen unevenly. The loudest implementer gets the meeting; the relevant one does not.
Structured bilateral scheduling fixes the distribution problem.
Profile by mandate, not by job title
Development profiles work better with thematic areas, geographies of operation and programme stage than with commercial sector tags.
A county health implementer and a WASH funder should surface to each other because of overlap in theme and geography.
Manage funder load
Funders receive many more requests than they can accept. Cap inbound requests, allow shortlisting, and give funders the ability to publish open office hours instead of individual slots.
Publishing what a funder is not looking for reduces wasted requests more than any other single field.
Consent and confidentiality
Participants control what appears in the directory and whether contact details are shared after the event. Some convenings run a closed directory visible only to registered participants.
This aligns with the data protection practice we apply across the registration platform.
Report to the secretariat
Convening secretariats need a record of which partnerships were initiated, not just an attendance list. The platform provides meeting counts by theme and organisation type for the closing report.
Contact info@cara.co.ke to plan a convening.
Work with our team
Matchmaking runs inside every programme we deliver. See our conference management service, or explore the platform at events.cara.co.ke.
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