The Fractional Fund-Raising Hub (FFRH) is a time-bound capacity-building platform incubated by SeSTA to strengthen the fund-raising capabilities of grassroots Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in North East India. It addresses a critical structural gap: credible grassroots organisations often lack dedicated fund-raising capacity and resources. FFRH works to close this gap by helping CSOs stabilise, professionalise, and eventually internalise their own fund-raising functions.

To do this, FFRH operates through two complementary pillars. The first, Strengthening CSO Readiness, supports grassroots CSOs in becoming "fundable by design", codifying clear flagship programmes, strengthening evidence and impact narratives, developing fund-raising and communication strategies suited to each organization's stage of growth. The second, Engaging and Enabling Funders, builds stronger connections between credible CSOs and potential funders by understanding funder priorities, curating credible CSO pipelines, and facilitating match-making and grant management support.

Together, these pillars position FFRH as a trusted bridge between CSOs and funders, enabling more strategic, confident, and sustained philanthropic investment in North East India.

FFRH was conceived in response to a stark funding imbalance: despite strong grassroots initiatives across the region, North East India receives only 3% of India's total philanthropic and CSR funding. Recognising this untapped potential, SeSTA designed FFRH to bridge the gap between capable CSOs and the funders who could support them, preparing organisations to become "fundable by design" while simultaneously building stronger engagement with the philanthropic ecosystem.

FFRH is built for grassroots CSOs across North East India, organisations with strong community credibility and impact on the ground, but limited institutional capacity for fund-raising. The programme is envisioned to eventually support 100 such CSOs by 2035, helping each develop a clear flagship programme, strong communication and storytelling capacity, a diversified funder base, and readiness for a full-time in-house fund-raising function.

FFRH follows a three-stage process to identify and onboard Future Ready CSOs.

1. Future Ready Assessment: CSOs are shortlisted based on their section-wise scores from the Future Ready Assessment Tool, evaluating organizational strengths across key domains such as governance, financial management, programme implementation, human resources, and compliance.
2. Field Validation and Organizational Readiness: FFRH conducts field visits to interact with leadership, core teams and field, assessing their readiness to strengthen fund-raising systems and support organizational growth.
3. Expert Panel Review: shortlisted organisations present their vision, programmes, and readiness to a review panel. The panel evaluates their potential and finalizes the CSOs selected for the cohort.

• Future Ready Assessment: a structured self-assessment tool covering five domains (governance, financial management, programme implementation, human resources, and compliance) that helps CSOs identify strengths and gaps, and comes with a certificate of completion, a category-wise performance report, and a shareable credential for funding proposals and stakeholder communications. On completion, each organisation receives a category-wise performance report and an official certificate (PDF, with a unique verification code, valid for six months).
• Customised funding models developed for each CSO, aligning their flagship programme with suitable funding avenues (CSR, philanthropic foundations, HNIs, institutional grants).
• Support developing flagship proposals — targeted workshops to build strong, fundable, evidence-based proposals with clear impact narratives.
• Communication and collateral support — help building fund-raising collaterals like pitch decks, narrative videos, brochures, and annual reports.
• Direct access to funders through curated roundtables, consultations, and match-making opportunities.
• Institutional strengthening — support improving governance, compliance, and organisational systems more broadly, not just fund-raising skills.