Access to international donor resources by NGOs and associations is established on the basis of conditionalities referred to as institutional pressures, which are increasingly diverse and complex. Our research focuses on the analysis of strategies developed by NGOs and associations to access international donor funding in the education sector in Burkina Faso as well as on the determinants that are at the origin and explain these choices.Institutional pressures, whether accepted or contested, have both positive and negative impacts on the development support efforts of NGOs and associations, which call for more compromise in order to overcome misunderstandings and increase the effectiveness of development assistance.