Can you list three main motivations for your donor deciding to fund your project?

Understanding why your donor has an interest in your project over others that likely applied to them for funding, and what is driving the impact they want to see can be helpful. Listing them out will hopefully make their intentions and your engagement with them clear.

When is the first donor site visit planned?

Having a donor visit the project site can be a nerve-wracking experience! Learning from your donors’ motivations can help you to plan better for their visit. Start to discuss with them early when they would like to visit, and make plans in advance for their visit to go smoothly.

What are the policies your donor prioritizes? How will they be done in practice?

Many donors want their projects to highlight certain industry standard policies like participatory planning, localization efforts, or women’s economic empowerment, but the complex reality of the culture and systems in which the project is taking place could complicate the ability to carry those policies out in practice. How will you use your agency as a project manager to encourage the carrying out of these policies, while also being sensitive and flexible to the project context? Read Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice (2005) by David Mosse for a fascinating case study on the relationship between development policy and practice!

How will you report failure to your donor?

Your project will most likely fail in some way. Common ‘failures’ include a project being delayed, impacts and goals are not being reached on the timeline initially envisioned, or unforeseen circumstances (e.g., climate change, political regime change) are impacting project delivery. Do you and your donor have a system for learning from the changing context in real-time, and how they want to be included in the project changes?