Raising funds for flood victims in Pakistan is turning out to be quite an experience. Apart from fund-raising, we are also equally focused on raising awareness about this calamity. While more than 20 million people have impacted, and millions others impacted indirectly; through job-losses, the disaster is the biggest one that has hit Pakistan in this century.
On Friday evening, the South Asian Students Association organised its annual cultural show Udaan, where i got a chance to speak about "Syracuse Cares", the campaign we started. Basit Naeem, a graduate student from the LC Smith School of Engineering spoke with me - and we gave a brief overview of what we have done so far and what we intend to do in the near future.
I anticipated that we would collect a few hundred dollars in donations that evening, as most of the audience were students and my expectations in terms of cash donations were low.
As anticipated, we did collect a few hundred dollars. But the biggest discovery for me : Most of the money came from ONE individual. This is the second instance in which this has happened. According to Giving USA, a report compiled annually by the American Association of Fundraising Counsel, figures on American philanthropy indicate the following:
# Americans gave more than $307.75 billion to their favorite causes despite the economic conditions in 2009. Total giving, when adjusted for inflation, was down 3.6 percent, the steepest decline since the Giving USA annual reports started in 1956. It’s important to keep in mind that despite the downturn, giving still totaled $307 billion.
# The greatest portion of charitable giving, $227.41 billion, was given by individuals or household donors. In 2009, gifts from individuals represented 75 percent of all contributed dollars, similar to 2008 figures
( http://www.nps.gov/partnerships/fundraising_individuals_statistics.htm)
Lesson # 1 for me so far : Focus on the individual. Speak to each person and solicit attention, focus, money as well as concern. It usually pays off.
