Best Fundraising Websites for School for deprived kids in Colombia?
December 3, 2009 8:43 AM Subscribe
Best Fundraising Websites for School for deprived kids in Colombia?
Yesterday I visited a small independent school in one of the poorest part of the city of Cali, Colombia.
The school is part of a formal, but small, foundation and cares for literally the most abused kids from 3 to 16. It is well-run, modest and is often the only source of food, encouragement and hope for many of the kids. The stories I heard from the in-house psychologist were horrific: incest, armed 7 year old gang members, extreme trauma and deprivation. The school of 130 kids is run by a Catholic nun (somewhat renegade compared to her brethern it seems) and teachers who accept to live on below minimum wage. They also ran a hostel but have temporarily closed it because of financial constraints. The nun made an interesting point with regard to the boys in the school ...that the school is the only reason they are not already in violent street gangs - and thus 'we are helping reduce a vicious cycle of violence here'.
I want to help (for free) the school raise funds and also in an advisory capacity. Right now however they have to deal with basic fundraising and making up a major deficit next year. I love kiva.or but I don't think it is appropriate in this case because the school does not produce goods or services for sale.
To help with fundraising I want to reach out to people on the internet and would really appreciate if you could point me in the direction of websites that can provide fundraising services. So far I know of:
http://givemeaning.com/
http://myphilanthropedia.org/
http://www.justgiving.com/
http://www.facebook.com/93dollarclub - is also an interesting possibility
Wondering if you can point me in the direction of additional online resources to help with fundraising?
Yesterday I visited a small independent school in one of the poorest part of the city of Cali, Colombia.
The school is part of a formal, but small, foundation and cares for literally the most abused kids from 3 to 16. It is well-run, modest and is often the only source of food, encouragement and hope for many of the kids. The stories I heard from the in-house psychologist were horrific: incest, armed 7 year old gang members, extreme trauma and deprivation. The school of 130 kids is run by a Catholic nun (somewhat renegade compared to her brethern it seems) and teachers who accept to live on below minimum wage. They also ran a hostel but have temporarily closed it because of financial constraints. The nun made an interesting point with regard to the boys in the school ...that the school is the only reason they are not already in violent street gangs - and thus 'we are helping reduce a vicious cycle of violence here'.
I want to help (for free) the school raise funds and also in an advisory capacity. Right now however they have to deal with basic fundraising and making up a major deficit next year. I love kiva.or but I don't think it is appropriate in this case because the school does not produce goods or services for sale.
To help with fundraising I want to reach out to people on the internet and would really appreciate if you could point me in the direction of websites that can provide fundraising services. So far I know of:
http://givemeaning.com/
http://myphilanthropedia.org/
http://www.justgiving.com/
http://www.facebook.com/93dollarclub - is also an interesting possibility
Wondering if you can point me in the direction of additional online resources to help with fundraising?
Are you looking for online sources of funding, or an online way to fundraise yourself?
posted by lunasol at 9:07 AM on December 3, 2009
posted by lunasol at 9:07 AM on December 3, 2009
Response by poster: hi lunasol - kind of like crowdsourcing I want to encourage people to donate and give them a mechanism to make the donation. the website such as justgiving would collect the donation and send it to the foundation bank account.
i will probably create a facebook page to raise awareness and solilicit donations and direct potential donors to a site like justgiving to make the donation transaction.
posted by lapsang at 9:17 AM on December 3, 2009
i will probably create a facebook page to raise awareness and solilicit donations and direct potential donors to a site like justgiving to make the donation transaction.
posted by lapsang at 9:17 AM on December 3, 2009
You could just use PayPal as this somewhat relevant organization does.
posted by mareli at 9:47 AM on December 3, 2009
posted by mareli at 9:47 AM on December 3, 2009
Response by poster: i agree but i think people like to see that other people have also donated. also those sites like justgiving have the advantage of aggregating people that want to donate to an organization. and the foundation here in Colombia doesn't have a website. thx for the suggestion though.
posted by lapsang at 9:52 AM on December 3, 2009
posted by lapsang at 9:52 AM on December 3, 2009
Best answer: Why not just a Facebook fan page or free web and a Paypal or Google checkout account? Anything else would involve adding a layer of complexity and cost that you may not really need.
For example, I took a look at the services you list, and I'm not sure you could hook up with some of them (Give Meaning, for example, specifies that while anyone can start a "Project," funds must be slated for a Canadian charitable organization) while others will take a small chunk of donations for operating costs--Just Giving implies that any charity can join, but there's a £15 + VAT monthly subscription fee, and they also deduct 5%+payment fees (e.g., credit card fees or paypal fees) for donations that don't qualify for UK government "Gift Aid," which would be most donations if you're not going to be primarily targeting UK taxpayers.
posted by drlith at 9:53 AM on December 3, 2009
For example, I took a look at the services you list, and I'm not sure you could hook up with some of them (Give Meaning, for example, specifies that while anyone can start a "Project," funds must be slated for a Canadian charitable organization) while others will take a small chunk of donations for operating costs--Just Giving implies that any charity can join, but there's a £15 + VAT monthly subscription fee, and they also deduct 5%+payment fees (e.g., credit card fees or paypal fees) for donations that don't qualify for UK government "Gift Aid," which would be most donations if you're not going to be primarily targeting UK taxpayers.
posted by drlith at 9:53 AM on December 3, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by lapsang at 8:46 AM on December 3, 2009