The journey.
It has been an amazing journey since Donor Effect launched 3 months ago and we (Jay, David, Eric) have learned so much in the process. What started as a desire to help those in need, turned into a conviction in our hearts, which then led to numerous nights of coding (for Jay), soliciting partnerships (for David), and strategizing (for Eric). What seemed impossible at the time, came to fruition and Donor Effect was off and running. To date, we have raised close to $10,000 for nonprofits working their butts off to alleviate extreme poverty, and accumulated over 3,000 Facebook fans and 3,000 Twitter followers. Donor Effect’s mission is “to raise funds and awareness” and we’re certainly on our way.
Thank you.
It goes without saying that we owe all of our success to our friends and family who initially made Donor Effect go viral (not quite Kony style but we’ll take it!), and our followers and community who have followed us from day 1. It is hard to see the impact of what $10,000 does in a developing country, but you better believe we collectively impacted and improved many lives. Real lives of real people with real stories living in unacceptable conditions. For this, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
So… what’s up?
Although we’ve far exceeded what we had anticipated in the first 3 months, we want to do more. We’re not satisfied with what we’re doing. Just about everyday, we receive emails from small nonprofits and orphanages (in Kenya, Uganda, Mali, Ethiopia… these are some of the countries I can remember off the top of my head) asking for our service. These are small organizations started by bold and courageous individuals who gave up the comforts of their lives to live for others and stand for a cause. It is absolutely heart-wrenching hearing their stories and denying their request for assistance because of our lack of resources and the limitations of our business model. We want to change this and we want to change it in a big way.
Next steps.
In the past few months, we’ve come to learn that the idea of “giving” is not what we had imagined. It goes without saying that financial sacrifice is one of those things that doesn’t come naturally to us as humans and we have realized that we need to be very very strategic in how we encourage and influence donor behavior. Knowing this, we will brainstorm some ideas to encourage more people to care and help. That is why we’re taking the next few months to be heads-down for our new strategy to revamp our efforts.
Stay tuned!
We’re going “Beast Mode” (Marshawn Lynch/Seattle Seahawks reference… sorry we’re Seahawks fans) in the coming months. Depending on how our brainstorming sessions go, we could come back with a complete facelift or just a tweak in the strategy. Bottom line, our goal is to do our part in fighting extreme global poverty and we will not stop until we’ve exhausted all our capabilities. We’re super excited for what’s ahead and we hope you are too.