How a conversation with someone who had no reason to keep helping became a fundraising strategy our board adopted the next day.
I wholly believe that once you have clarity of purpose, the universe sends you what you need when you need it. Sometimes it arrives before you even realize you needed it.
September 23 was one of those times.
A couple of months ago I was looking for a fundraising consultant, and one of the people I spoke with was Shannon Petrello of Gravity Collective. In retrospect, she recognized quickly that we weren’t a good match. Her typical clients are further along than Africa 2100 is, and her services are built for organizations at that stage. That could have been the end of the conversation, and nobody would have thought less of her for it.
Instead of moving on, she shared a great deal of what she knows about how the industry works. She told me to send her any questions I had. She even offered to connect now and again to check in.
I was impressed enough by her demeanor, her insight, and her expertise that I later followed up and asked for a proposal. Eventually it became clear that there wasn’t a fit. Her response was to offer a couple of free consulting sessions on whatever topics I wanted to cover.
We had the first of those sessions on September 23. It happened to fall the day before our quarterly board meeting.
I came out of it fired up. I spent the next couple of hours turning what she had shared into a six-month fundraising strategy document and ran it by her for validation. The next day I presented it to the board, and the board adopted it.
What Came Out of It
That strategy is now a six-month fundraising campaign with a $50,000 target, running through March 2027.
The campaign supports Africa 2100’s programs, including the work this blog has covered in recent weeks: Tier 2 of the Foundation Readiness Program, the Student Ambassadors and the alumni mentoring them, and the new pilot with Jacaranda Care Foundation in Nigeria. All of it runs on people willing to fund the work before the outcome is guaranteed.
Shannon is one of the reasons there is a campaign to give to.
We’ll share more about how it’s going in the weeks ahead, including the parts that don’t go to plan.
What I Keep Thinking About
Shannon had no business reason to do any of this. We weren’t going to become a client – at least, not anytime soon. She had worked that out before I had. She gave her time and her expertise anyway, more than once, to an organization she couldn’t formally take on.
I tend to think about professional relationships in terms of fit: the right client, the right consultant, the right scope, the right price. By that measure, this one went nowhere. We were the wrong client for her. It still changed what Africa 2100 did next, which tells me that fit measures something narrower than I had assumed.
We talk a lot at Africa 2100 about people who show up before anyone has asked them to: the alumni who volunteered to mentor, the friend who got on a plane. I didn’t expect to find another one while shopping for a consultant. It’s a reminder that not every contribution to this work arrives through a partnership, a contract, a grant, or a donation. Sometimes a person sees what you’re trying to do and decides to help.
I’d love to take credit for the timing, with the session landing a day before the board met. I can’t. I can only say that I was clear about what I was looking for, and that what I needed showed up, from someone who had every reason to simply wish me well and move on.
Thank you so much for your generosity and support, Shannon.
Your Turn
Has someone ever helped you when they didn’t have to, with nothing in it for them? I’d like to hear about it.
And if you’d like to support the campaign, learn more about it, or know someone who should hear about the work, write to us at he***@********00.org.
Calling the Next Student Ambassadors
The Arise Campus Chapter program is recruiting its third cohort of Student Ambassadors. It launches in November.
If you are a university student with a business idea you can’t stop thinking about, or a problem on your campus you believe you could solve, this is for you.
You don’t need a registered business, a pitch deck, or a clear picture of what your company will look like. You need a problem you’re curious about and the willingness to find out whether you’re right about it.
The Arise Campus Chapter program takes students through the same work our Foundation Readiness Program founders do: finding out whether the problem you care about is real, and whether anyone would pay to have it solved. You do that work in the Arise app, alongside a small cohort of students doing the same.
You also don’t do it alone. In Cohort 2, each Student Ambassador is matched 1:1 with an FRP Alumni mentor, a founder who has done the work you’re about to do and is building a venture of their own. Mentor and student meet every two weeks, the whole cohort gathers for bi-weekly Learning Checkpoints, and a WhatsApp channel stays open in between for the moments you get stuck. That is the model Cohort 3 joins.
Angela Wakanyi Muguongo, a Student Ambassador, put it this way: “Thanks to the team for setting up accountability partners. I didn’t realize how much I need one.”
We should be honest about what it asks of you. The program runs alongside your studies, including exam periods, and Checkpoints fall on weekends. Advancement is earned, not automatic. Of the five students in our pilot cohort, three validated a real problem and moved on to Tier 2 of the curriculum, on the same standard as our FRP founders. Two did not. The program is there to help you find out whether an idea holds up, and it doesn’t move anyone forward just for taking part.
If you see it through, you’ll leave with more than an idea. You’ll know whether the problem is real, you’ll have had a founder’s honest feedback on it, and you’ll have a clearer basis for deciding what to do next.
If you’re ready to test your idea, we’d like to hear from you. Applications for Cohort 3 are open. Submit your application at https://bit.ly/Arise2100.
And if you know a student who should see this, please pass it on.
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