ASPIRE works in tribal under-resourced rural areas of India to strengthen the mainstream public school education system through improved school governance and introduction of new pedagogic practices, empowering teachers and local communities. Their current intervention is functional in the states of Jharkhand and Odisha. Despite the impact of COVID, they launched Residential Bridge Courses(RBCs) for dropped-out children. The programme was a success because it maintained the continuity of learning through an innovative hybrid (online + offline) learning program for 1,50,028 children from 5,589 villages in 20 blocks of Odisha and Jharkhand that have been benefited so far. Their donors have recognized the effectiveness of the methods and continued to shower their support for the cause.
With their foundational learning campaign being relevant for the entire country, they felt it would be the ideal moment to get the larger public involved in our work. Their foray into fundraising stemmed from their desire to build a larger conscious momentum towards the goal of achieving Universal Foundational Literacy. They considered this as an opportunity for advocating the idea of public involvement in ensuring foundational literacy as well as the beginning of fundraising. With this campaign, they also hoped to increase the avenues for raising funds for the organisation and spread the word.
In their first attempt at crowdfunding their first strategy has been to reach out to potential donors through their staff networks and well wishers by first appealing them to contribute to their fundraiser and then also reach out to their friends and families for the same. A strong support from their advisors, board members and other well wishers in reach outs also led to significant contributions to their fundraisers. At the moment, they looking to create media appeals with some eminent personalities in the education sector and conduct various small events to attract more committed donors. In the next phase, they shall look at various ways of reaching out to new donors through corporate partnerships, events and a volunteer program.
ASPIRE strongly believes that one needs to reach out to all stakeholders, multiple times, and through various channels to achieve success. They also find that challenges such as enlightenment on online payments among the supporters in remote areas need to be
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