“Spaghetti on the wall” is a phrase which means to try out different ideas and see what works. The phrase is said to have come from an odd way to test if your spaghetti has been cooked long enough- throwing the pasta against a wall and seeing if it sticks. Not only is this a poor test for readiness, it is also wasteful and makes quite a mess. Likewise, proposals suffering from this syndrome appear to donors as messy and poorly planned.
Proposals suffering from Spaghetti Syndrome have crammed in too much in one proposal in the hope that at least one piece will attract the donor’s attention and stick. The thinking trap that leads into this syndrome is not clearly understanding what the donor wants and assuming that more is better. Thus, a simple education project may claim it will increase literacy levels, promote healthy lifestyles, use environmentally-friendly energy sources, involve local support, increase incomes, and solve the gender divide in the entire community.
In reality, having too many competing ideas in one proposal makes the overall project look weak and incoherent. Donors will look at the example above and think the project has no focus and no hope in actually achieving all these claims. In general, it is better to have a focused, targeted project with one clear impact than a general project that tries to do everything. The specific projects may indeed have a wider effect outside the targeted areas, but it is better to mention those as cross-cutting themes and added benefits, not as the targeted focus of the project. After all, donors care not about quantity of ideas but quality. It is better to do one thing very well than many things just okay.
Alta Alonzi is a writer and researcher focusing on international development funding and grassroots NGOs. She works with the fundraising consulting company Philantropia conducting research for clients ranging from small NGOs to UN organizations. She also works closely with FundsforNGOs running training webinars, contributing resource guides, and updating the Premium donor database.
I think spaghetti syndrome means using an unnecessary components or components into a specific cooking recipe that spoils the main recipe. Accordingly, when spaghetti syndrome takes place inside a project proposal, that taking the main concept to other direction which is inconsistent with original concept.