India's biggest fundraising event helps NGOs raise crores

India's biggest fundraising event, which brings together hundreds of NGOs and their donors competing for rewards and recognition, launched earlier this month.

Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], February 15 (ANI/Newsvoir): India's biggest fundraising event, which brings together hundreds of NGOs and their donors competing for rewards and recognition, launched earlier this month. The 7th edition of the GiveIndia Fundraising Challenge 2021 kicked off on February 1 and nearly 200 non-profits have already raised over Rs 2 crores. This one-of-a-kind online event continues till March 28 and is expected to raise more than Rs 15 crores by the time it ends. Non-profit organisations typically leverage the tax saving made on donations at the end of the financial year to appeal to their donors and compete in the challenge.

Several NGOs use GFC as an opportunity to maximise their fundraising, often raising a significant part of their annual budget. For instance, last year the NGO Team Everest who has so far won every edition of GFC, raised Rs 2.29 crore which is more than half their yearly spend, and a little over a fifth of the Rs 10 crores raised by a total of 367 NGOs who participated. Team Everest is one of India's largest youth-run organisations with 8,500 plus volunteers, many of who help with the fundraising during GFC. Their flagship programme 'I am the Change Scholarship' supports parentless or single-parented students from financially weaker backgrounds to do their undergraduate degree.

GiveIndia, a Bengaluru-based non-profit organisation, runs the annual challenge to encourage NGOs to learn and adapt newer ways to raise funds and end the financial year with high collections. It comes with incentives in the form of 'success slabs' and 'mega rewards' to inspire all NGOs more. This year organisations who raise Rs 50 plus lakh and Rs 1 plus crore will get mega rewards of Rs 9.5 lakh and Rs 20 lakh respectively, and success slab awards start from Rs 5.25 lakh to NGOs who raise Rs. 30 plus lakh to Rs 7,000 to those to raise Rs 50,000 or more. Some of the participating NGOs include ISHA Foundation, Goonj, Vidya Poshak, and Cuddles Foundation to name a few.

Over the years, the fundraising challenge has seen a 60 per cent YoY growth in terms of amount raised, 80% increase in participating NGOs and 40 per cent YoY growth in the number of retail donors, with last year seeing contributions from over 21,000 everyday givers. "At GiveIndia we are committed to supporting our NGOs in their fundraising efforts and bridging the gap between donors and trusted non-profits. We are also committed to building a robust everyday philanthropy ecosystem and the year on year amplification we have seen with GiveIndia Fundraising Challenge tells us we are on the right path! It is a very exciting time on our calendar with all of us at GiveIndia glued to the GFC leaderboard to see how well our partner NGOs are doing," said Priyanka Prakash, Director, Head of Online Giving, Marketing and Partnerships at GiveIndia.

Apart from the rewards, through the challenge, GiveIndia brings a range of benefits for NGOs, including the skills to expand and engage with donor networks, communication kits to appeal for donations on social media, emails and messages, webinars to take them through the platform, matching grants, best practices, and the ability to raise Indian and foreign donations. GiveIndia is India's most trusted giving platform. It exists to alleviate poverty by enabling the world to give. It's suite of products and solutions enable all givers - individuals and organisations - to donate conveniently to any cause directly on the platform, at their workplace or through one of GiveIndia's partners. Its community of 1.5 million plus donors and 150 plus partners have supported 1,800 plus verified nonprofits, impacting 10 million plus lives across India.

Team Everest is one of the biggest youth-run organisations with 8500 plus volunteers. Their focus is on motivating individuals to volunteer at least once a month (12/365) and make a difference by providing quality education to underprivileged children through volunteering. Their flagship program 'I am the Change Scholarship' supports parentless or single-parented students from financially weaker backgrounds to do their UG degree. They currently sponsor more than 400 students for their college education. They raise a significant portion for their annual budget during the GiveIndia Fundraising Challenge where more than 1,000 volunteers start their individual fundraisers and raise funds from across the globe. In the 2020 edition of the event, they raised Rs 2.29 crores from close to 7,700 donors.

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