A Fresh Look at Fundraising

On Tuesday, 21 April 2026, the Protestant University of Rwanda (PUR) Huye campus hosted a public lecture that challenged the way many people think about fundraising. Organized in partnership with the United Evangelical Mission (UEM), the event brought together students, lecturers, and church leaders for morning of honest conversation and practical learning.

The theme was straightforward but powerful: "More Than Money: Fundraising as Community Engagement." The idea was simple, fundraising is not just about collecting money. At its best, it is about building relationships, strengthening communities, and acting out of genuine care for one another. This was the message that Prof. Dr. Michael Vilain, an expert in nonprofit management and resource mobilization, and staff member of the Protestant University of Applied Sciences came to share. He was accompanied by Rev. Félicité Ngnintedem, representing UEM. Together, they created an afternoon that left participants with a new way of seeing an old subject.

Welcome and Context: Why This Lecture Mattered

The session began with opening remarks from Rev. Prof. Dr. Viateur Habarurema, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academics at PUR. He welcomed the guests and participants warmly, encouraging everyone to engage fully and take full advantage of the opportunity before them. His message was encouraging and set a positive tone for everything that followed.

Rev. Félicité Ngnintedem then introduced the United Evangelical Mission and explained its relationship with the university. UEM, she described, is a global network of 39 members, made up of Protestant churches across Africa, Asia, and Germany, as well as the v. Bodelschwingh Foundations Bethel. What holds this diverse community together is a shared commitment to mission understood in its fullest sense, not just preaching, but empowering people, building equity, and creating lasting change.

She outlined UEM's core commitments: promoting fairness and inclusion among its member churches, empowering communities at the grassroots level, moving beyond colonial ways of thinking and working, and building financial sustainability that is owned by local communities rather than dependent on outside support. These are goals that take time and intentional effort, and partnerships like the one with PUR are central to achieving them.

She also gave participants a brief history of the public lecture series. It started in 2010, initially focusing on theological topics. Over time, however, it grew to include other disciplines, economics, sociology, ethics, and community development, because the mission UEM pursues is holistic. Real transformation touches every part of life, not just the spiritual dimension. The series has since been held in several countries, always with the goal of connecting learning with real-world impact.

The Main Lecture: What Is Giving, Really?

When Prof. Dr. Michael Vilain began his presentation, he did not open with statistics or fundraising strategies. He opened with a question, one that seemed simple but quickly revealed its depth: Why do people give, even when they do not expect anything back?

He explained that human societies have three basic ways of exchanging resources. The first is the market, where the logic is straightforward: I give something because I expect to receive something of equal value in return. The second is the state, where giving is obligatory: I contribute because the law or authority requires it. The third, and the most interesting for this discussion, is civil society, where giving is driven by relationship: I give because I care, because we are connected, because it is the right thing to do.

It is this third form of giving, he argued, that lies at the heart of meaningful fundraising.

To illustrate his point, he invited students to share personal experiences. He asked them to think of something they had recently given to someone else, without planning to receive anything in return. The responses were genuine and varied, acts of help, time shared, quiet generosity. One student mentioned giving as part of his relationship with God. When Prof. Vilain asked whether they had received anything in return, even indirectly, the room paused and reflected. Most agreed that yes, something had come back to them. Not money or material reward, but something equally real: a sense of connection, inner peace, or a strengthened relationship.

This, he explained, is exactly what gift theory teaches us.

Understanding the Gift: More Than Generosity

To go deeper, Prof. Vilain drew on the work of Marcel Mauss, a French sociologist and anthropologist who lived from 1872 to 1950 and wrote one of the most important studies on the nature of giving. According to Mauss, a gift is never simply a transfer of goods. It is a social act, one that creates relationships, establishes bonds, and carries expectations, even when those expectations are unspoken.

Prof. Vilain walked the audience through several common forms of giving. Religious sacrifice expresses devotion and the desire for a deeper relationship with something greater than oneself. Communal feasting brings people together and strengthens social ties. Almsgiving is charitable, but he pointed out an uncomfortable truth, it can also be quietly humiliating, placing the giver in a position of superiority over the person who receives. Patronage is generous and supportive, but can easily slide into a relationship of influence or control.

He illustrated the darker side of giving with a striking historical example: the gifts Christopher Columbus brought to the Taíno people in 1492. On the surface, they appeared generous. In reality, they were tools of manipulation and domination. The lesson was clear and important, giving is not automatically good. Its meaning and its impact depend entirely on the spirit behind it, the relationship involved, and the power dynamics at play.

At its best, however, a gift does something beautiful. It creates a relationship. It establishes a bond that lasts. It carries three natural obligations: to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. Unlike a transaction, which ends when payment is made, a gift opens something ongoing, a connection between people that continues to live and grow.

From Understanding to Action: How to Fundraise Well

Having laid this foundation, Prof. Vilain moved from theory into practice. He defined fundraising as the deliberate effort to gather financial and non-financial resources without offering a material reward in return. People who give to fundraising efforts do so for various reasons, a sense of solidarity, the desire for social recognition, personal values, or the satisfaction of contributing to something meaningful.

Understanding why people give, he explained, is the starting point of any successful fundraising effort. From there, he laid out the key principles of building a strong project.

The most important step is clarity. Before asking anyone for support, you must be able to answer three basic questions honestly: What is this project about? Why does it matter? Who will it help? A project that cannot answer these questions clearly will struggle to inspire confidence or attract support. Strong fundraising starts with a compelling story rooted in real need.

Equally important is knowing your audience, understanding their values, their social context, and what motivates them to act. Fundraising is not a one-size-fits-all activity. Different communities respond to different approaches, and good fundraising is always sensitive to the local realities of the people involved.

On the practical side, Prof. Vilain highlighted a range of tools available to fundraisers today: community events, social media campaigns, personal networks, collections through churches or mosques, and partnerships with local organizations. He also pointed to crowdfunding platforms as increasingly powerful options in a connected world .

His most important point, stated simply and memorably: fundraising is not about asking for money. It is about building trust, relationships, and a shared sense of purpose. When those things are in place, support follows naturally.

Key Lessons from the Day

By the time the lecture drew to a close, several clear lessons had emerged from the afternoon's discussion.

Fundraising is, at its core, a community activity, not a financial one. When it is reduced to a money-collection exercise, it loses both its power and its integrity. Giving reflects who we are, our values, our relationships, and our sense of responsibility to one another. Ethical fundraising must always be carried out with respect for human dignity and an awareness of cultural context, because giving that humiliates or creates dependency does more harm than good. A well-designed project is built on clarity and genuine impact, not clever presentation. And perhaps most importantly, sustainable development begins when communities take ownership of their own initiatives and stop waiting for solutions to arrive from outside.

Closing Remarks: A Challenge to the Next Generation

The final words of the Morning came from Rev. Prof. Dr. Habarurema, and they carried real weight. He praised the lecture for the breadth of disciplines it brought together, philosophy, sociology, psychology, business, and theology, all woven into one coherent and practical conversation. He thanked Prof. Vilain for both his expertise and his willingness to engage genuinely with the audience.

But he did not stop there. He turned to the participants with a direct and honest challenge. He spoke about Ubuntu , the African philosophy that says, in essence, that we are who we are because of one another. We do not exist as isolated individuals; we exist in relationship, in community, in shared humanity. And then he asked a question that lingered in the room: Are we truly living this? Are we, as Africans, practicing the collaboration and mutual support that our own culture teaches?

He encouraged participants, and especially young people, to embrace self-reliance and local initiative. He was careful to be clear: this is not about rejecting international partnerships or refusing support from friends abroad. It is about taking ownership. It is about not waiting for others to solve problems that communities are capable of addressing themselves. The Pan-African spirit, he said, calls for a change in mindset , a shift from dependency to agency, from receiving to building.

"We must not wait for others to build our future. The responsibility is ours."

He closed by expressing gratitude to all the speakers and participants, and by affirming the deep and meaningful partnership between the Protestant University of Rwanda and the United Evangelical Mission, a partnership that, as this afternoon demonstrated, is about far more than money.

 A Lecture Worth Remembering

What happened at PUR on 21 April 2026 was more than an academic event. It was a reminder, clear, practical, and well-timed, that how we think about fundraising reflects how we think about community, about relationships, and about our obligations to one another.  Fundraising, done well, is an act of solidarity. It says: this cause matters, these people matter, and I am willing to be part of the solution. In a world that often reduces everything to transactions and financial returns, that is a genuinely countercultural message, and a deeply necessary one.

The collaboration between the Protestant University of Rwanda and the United Evangelical Mission continues to produce exactly this kind of thoughtful, grounded, and inspiring engagement. And for everyone who was in that room on Tuesday morning, the homework is clear: go out, build something meaningful, and bring your community with you.

Written by Moise IRADUKUNDA Student at Protestant University of Rwanda