Challenges of Fundraising for a Grassroots Organization
Arguably the largest challenge facing ShivaMaya at the moment is the issue of funding our activities. Still a small, grassroots organization, ShivaMaya for the most part has been self-financed and relies on the willingness and selflessness of our enthusiastic volunteers. A number of hurdles still stand in the way, but we continue to tackle them with patience and persistence.
First and most predictable is the amount of bureaucracy and red tape. Endless and seemingly unnecessary formalities bog down an already slow-moving process in a system that is openly rife with corruption and inefficiency. To be able to solicit and accept international donations is even more paperwork. And yet, these legal requirements are what allow us to seek monetary contributions, ranging from personal donations from individuals all the way up to so-called corporate social responsibility donations from large businesses. On the other hand, the gross misappropriation of funds by many non-profits and the use of such organizations as a front for carrying out illegal activities, ranging from money laundering to human trafficking, make these rules indispensable. Although ShivaMaya has largely cleared these obstacles, they open up still more challenges to face.
Our campaign is currently focused on the ground, getting our staff out in the streets and spreading the word through our workshops and posting ads around Kolkata. In this sense, we are reaching out to the people we seek to help rather than the people who can help us. Our online presence is aimed at attracting attention from potential contributors, but reaching the right people is a tricky affair. In both cases though, online and on the ground, our word of mouth is growing. Our various workshops and events see larger and larger crowds and our upcoming free vocational courses have enticed a flood of calls and inquiries from eager participants. Yet, to fund our many ambitious projects, we’ve sought to incorporate fundraising efforts into our regular outreach events.
To this end, we’ve even combined our efforts to both help the needy and obtain funds in a creative way. In many of our educational camps, we’ve provided the young students with art supplies to let them express their imaginations artistically. Many of the children are extremely talented and have drawn amazing works of art that we then reproduce in the form of bookmarks, posters, greeting cards, and even t-shirts which we then sell at exhibitions throughout Kolkata. Not only do the kids get to have fun with art supplies they rarely get to use, but they help us raise funds to come back with even greater rewards.
Fundraising is and will always remain ancillary to our primary focus of supporting the communities in need, but assistance we receive can help us impact even more lives. If you’d like to contribute, please visit our Get Involved page to learn how!
