Apni Shala is a Mumbai-based organisation that works in the domain of Social Emotional Learning, with the objective to build social and emotional competencies, and to promote the mental health and wellbeing of students from government schools. In their recent fundraising efforts, aligned with the GiveIndia Fundraising Challenge 2022, Apni Shala worked with the motive to democratise fundraising by building a community of over 50 Mental Health Ambassadors.
Anybody who is passionate about mental health and could help create awareness to advocate for children’s mental health, or contribute in any other way was seen as an ambassador of change. With the help of this community, that was led by volunteers, staff and supported by committed donors and advisors of Apni Shala, the NGO was able to expand their visibility and reach to social network of all their ambassadors. This has allowed over 200 donors to connect with their cause and contribute amounts ranging for ₹100 to ₹4 lakhs.
Designed as a pan-organisation initiative, this effort was spearheaded by the fundraising and leadership teams and encouraged regular involvement of the board members, advisors, staff members and the fundraising volunteer community involved. Having spent significant efforts to consolidate donor data from previous years and to identify additional network of friends, family members, strategic donors and CSR leads, the NGO was able to augment the community reachouts remarkably. Communication collaterals were also made available to the entire team in English, Hindi and Marathi for the ease and comfort of reachouts. A community-led collective effort made it possible for Apni Shala to have genuine conversations and build strong relationships with potential donors.
Some learnings that Apni Shala Foundation wanted to share with their peers are as under:
- Allow people to contribute as per their strengths, preferences and challenges. Let people pick their actions and set their targets- what we can do is offer them options and ways to think about them
- Identify ways in which the fundraising community can see how their individual actions come together to create a larger impact. Acknowldge and celebrate their actions, not only the outcomes of their actions.
- Assign clear roles and responsibilities to the team involved in fundraising. This way various tasks in this high-intensity period can get managed in a timely manner.
- Build relationships with people who are going to donate. Much of the contributions received from your supporters could be an outcome of the relationships built over time.
“In development work, when we start leaning on and supporting each other, we create opportunities for everyone to heal from systemic pain, creating new possibilities of relating to one another. Such is the power of nurturing communities that care.”, quotes Mr. Rohit Kumar, CEO, Apni Shala Foundation from Healing Our Relationship with Money: Unpacking Funding Systems, published on ILSS. To know more about the Apni Shala Foundation and to go through their fundraiser, click here.
Комментарии