In the same vain the little donations in a Crowdfunding campaign can help serve the purpose. N1000 donated by ten thousand of the Nigeria’s 180 million Citizens can provide portable water to a thousand people in a remote Village in Borno or help educate 100 children in Enugu, or even foot the surgery bills of a sick child in Akwa-Ibom. No country of the world can adequately cater for all of its citizens’ needs, although some can do better than others. It then behooves on individuals in every community, Local Government area and states all over the nation to work together with kind hearted people all over the world to help each other in times of despair.

On this platform we have spoken about the success story of Kehinde; the little 5 year old child with a Cancerous lump on her right ear. The innocent little girl was unable attend school, Church or even playground because of the ailment. We met her totally sad and her family was exhausted and drained from spending all they had for the treatment. They could barely even take care of the other 3 children they had. They had lost all hope. When they reached out and asked Nigeria for help through donate-ng we all obliged despite the country’s economic downturn. We all associated with their struggles and decided to donate our little drops that made up the 1.3 Million Naira Ocean that helped save Kehinde’s life. We all pulled together at the time of crises in the life of one of us and said “NO. This child cannot die on my watch” that is the spirit of Nigeria which came to fore and facilitated by Crowdfunding.

Every day we come to hear about cases like Kehinde and we feel pained that we don’t have enough money to help. In actual fact we do have enough money to help. You don’t need to be a Millionaire to assist a fellow in need. That little drop of kindness, that 500 naira you can spare will go a long way to help shine a light to the life of a person in need. To bring smiles to faces of those in despair. And when you hear or read about the success story, you can also smile; knowing you are part of the reason a complete stranger can also afford a smile.

We hear and read about some crowdfunding platforms who raise money and don’t remit to the real people in need. We are saddened that a few bad individuals take data of a sick child and use it to get crowdfunding from all over the world without any intention of remitting. We wonder how you are able sleep at night. How you are able to deal with your conscience knowing your despicable actions have put live of a sick child on the edge. You also by your actions breed a seed of disconnect between potential donors and other credible crowdfunding platforms like donate-ng, thereby denying help to millions of others in need.

At donate-ng, our utmost aim is to help bridge the gap between the needy and the donors. We take a stand to help whoever you are to reach whoever is out there to contribute his/her little drop to make the ocean of desired fund required for whatever will take you from despair to joy. The passion, integrity and professionalism we put in to link people in need with their donors comes from our conviction that no man/woman should stay silent and suffer while help is just a click away. That everyone deserves to get help in times of need. Donate-ng takes it as a duty to ensure the world hears your story and also help you collate the little drops into the ocean that you require. Integrity and professionalism are our watchword. These are the values that we hold dear to our hearts and it defines our everyday lives.

The post Crowdfunding in Nigeria – How little drops can make a mighty ocean appeared first on Donate-ng Blog.

donate-ng is a Nigerian crowdfunding website dedicated to charity fund raising and campaigns for social cause.

The #savekehindeadebiyi campaign started mid-November and ended mid-January; completing a 60days campaign period raising a total amount of one million, twenty four thousand four hundred and seventy naira (N1,024,407.00).

The success of this campaign could not have been possibly if not for the donations from well-meaning Nigerians who were moved by Kehinde’s story on the donate-ng crowdfunding portal – https://donate-ng.com/project/73.

Just about the time donate-ng launched its services: the donate-ng team saw kehinde’s story on Linda Ikeji’s blog and decided to run with the story. You can call it “backing up your words with your money or vis-visa”. With this achievement, donate-ng has proven crowdfunding is possible in Nigeria.

Since then, many more individuals and charity organisation have contacted donate-ng to show interest in using its platform to raise funds for charitable deeds.

www.donate-ng.com info@donate-ng.com

The Adebiyi’s Story.

“It’s just like I am still dreaming. How people that do not know us from Adam would be so committed to helping us this much”.

The words of Mrs Adebiyi;  Kehinde’s mother. She runs her small business in the quiet Lagos suburb of Cele Egbe away from the traffic madness synonymous with the “centre of excellence”. Her husband is a professional furniture maker who is very good at his job. They are an average but very OK family with 4 children, relatively unknown in the community until Kehinde developed the cancerous growth in her right ear.

“We didn’t know what to do when it started. We thought it was just boil (abscess) and applied shear butter (locally called Ori) and gave her antibiotics on Doctor’s recommendation. But when it won’t go away we just got frustrated. We cried many nights when cancer was diagnosed.”

Their predicament made them popular and susceptible to scammers. A few people had approached them with the aim of helping, but only a very few truly meant it.

“Several people came to our home and said they could help raise funds for the treatment but only very few of them ever returned with money. A man saw us at the Eko hospital and gave 50,000 Naira. He was always checking up to know how well the treatment was going. A few others also gave some money here and there but it just wasn’t enough. Before the whole dilemma, we were doing well. We could take care of our family with relative ease. But this illness just got beyond any average-living family.”

donate-ng got wind of the story and contacted the family. It didn’t take too much effort to convince them to let us help.

“We were really very desperate at that point. All our savings had been exhausted. It cost my husband the trust of a key client because he could not execute a project awarded due to him using part of the initial payment for the treatment. We don’t like begging, but we were almost going to take situation to Churches and Mosques to beg for help. We were that desperate (Sobbing). We just couldn’t seat back and watch our daughter die slowly and painfully. We weren’t going to let that happen. We agreed to anything and anyone that came our way who wanted to help. Pictures of Kehinde were taken along with that of the family. We know that many people used our plight to collect money from the good people of Nigeria and the world then diverted the funds for their own use. That is just part of the world we find ourselves in. But thanks to donate-ng, our despair has been taken away.”

Like many Nigerians, the family doubted the intentions of NGOs.

“We really doubted donate-ng at first but we still played along because of our very desperate situation. But when we started seeing the response of people on their website showing the amount that has been raised I cried. I just didn’t expect that to happen that soon and because I knew that our baby was finally going to get the help she needs. They kept in touch with us, asking for periodic updates on the health of the child. They even sent one of their team members to check up on our family after the first instalment of the money was paid. This really gave us absolute joy. They brought gifts during the twins’ birthday and sent a member of their team to attend. This for me was unprecedented. I have never seen anything like that ever. Words cannot describe the joy we feel. Now our family that was on the brink of starvation and disintegration, and the agony of losing a child has been restored. I can only ask that God bless the entire donate-ng team and everyone who donated to ensure that this child doesn’t die. May you all never pass through such a horrific and terrifying experience.”

Kehinde Adebiyi is responding to treatment better than anticipated. Radiotherapy is working absolutely well. The Cancerous lump has slowly eased while the swelling has gone down considerably. The Doctors are monitoring the situation so that they can ascertain when surgery to remove the lump can be done. If need be, chemotherapy will also be done.

Kehinde can now play with her siblings and friends, she has even started going to school. She is a good kid who just like the kids of her age loves to run around and play. Very smart and funny; this girl is a prankster.  We thank everyone who donated to this cause to put back the joy to the Adebiyi’s. This has been a great experience for us and we are glad it has finally come to fruition.

Thank you and God bless.

The post donate-ng completes first Crowdfunding campaign appeared first on Donate-ng Blog.

Have equally heard and been part of compelling argument that it’s the responsibility of the government and our leaders to make things work. Rightly so, it is.

However, I have heard of people who desired to be the agent of the CHANGE they need to see. This sparked social and charitable light bulb moments in them, causing great anger within them. These social and charitable light bulb moments sometimes fade away because these individuals do not have what it takes in RESOURCES to achieve these desired CHANGES.

Flipping the coin over its head, on the other side there is a capability just on your FINGER TIPS to face those CHALLENGES facing the desired CHANGE you desire most to see.

It’s time to stop complaining and start acting on those social and charitable light bulb moment ideas that can change your community, someone’s life  and at large the world.

On your FINGER TIPS is the internet, on the INTERNET is www.donate-ng.com; a crowdfunding portal you can use to fund your ideas and dream to cause the desired CHANGE you want to see.

Take your social and charitable light bulb moment ideas to www.donate-ng.com, register and start your crowdfunding campaign to bring the desired CHANGE you want to see in that;

1. Ill (medical sick) relative/friend who is in need of finances for medical treatment.
2. National Youth Service Corpse pet project.
3. Religious organisation.
4. Charity organisation.
5. Alma Mata.
6. Community school.
7. Community health centre.

And the list is endless

Do not let the dream of CHANGE die with the excuse of finance, use the crowd to fund your dream social and charitable light bulb idea today.

The post donate-ng: crowdfunding ideas appeared first on Donate-ng Blog.

So, how do you ensure you get people’s attention on your crowdfunding campaign? Scanning through successful crowdfunding campaign stories we have a few tips for you.

1. Prepare Your Face off

“People don’t want to back a campaign that’s not going to work,” says writer and entrepreneur Seth Godin on his crowdfunding experiences, and you can’t use crowdfunding as a shortcut to avoid properly fleshing out your ideas.

2. Strategic Social Media

You don’t need a blanket presence on social media, though the wider your reach the better. Pick the networks that best match your marketing and content strategies and where your potential supporters are most likely to be found. Don’t forget to customize your promotion to suit each platform too

3. Produce a Great Video

Video clips give visitors a better idea of your project — they can see you or your product in action rather than clicking through a series of static images. They are also labor-intensive, so don’t attempt to put together a clip if you don’t have the time, resources and expertise required. An amateur-looking video isn’t going to convince anyone to get involved, and at worst, could damage your campaign’s credibility.

It’s usually well worth paying for help to make your video pitch the best it can be because of the investment it will attract. Seth Godin again, on the campaign he ran that reached its goal in three hours: “There’s something about the medium that makes the video even more important than you’d think.”

4. Create a Helpful Media Page (donate-ng portal)

You’ve no doubt seen some of the most popular crowdfunding projects covered in the press, but this won’t happen if you don’t have a solid website and some press materials that journalists can download. Even if you’re a one-man show, don’t rely on your Facebook page to do it all. If journalists can’t find more information about your project and some high-resolution pictures to illustrate their features, they may choose to promote a different project instead.

5. Communicate Often.

Communication in every facet of life is important. Always ensure you communicate often in anyways possible. Who do you communicate with? Your Friends, Family, Colleagues, Public and possible those that don’t like you but equally believe in what you are doing.

How do you communicate, by SMS, Chat, Email, Fliers, Posters, etc.

Am very sure these few tips would go a long way in helping you develop a successful campaign.

Would bring you more tips next time.

Credit: part content sourced from ignitiondec

The post donate-ng: Successful Crowdfunding campaign tips appeared first on Donate-ng Blog.

By ‘Segun Olojo-Kosoko

October 19, 2015

TwoCan Solution – Nigerian owned Information Communication Technology Company announced today the launch of one of its portal solutions – Nigeria’s go-to and easiest Social crowdfunding portal till date.

The portal introduces the easiest way to raise funds for Charity Organisation, the easiest way to raise money for an Individual, Group or Community Project/Cause.

TwoCan Solutions expect “donate-ng” to improve the Social Crowdfunding ecosystem in Nigeria and encourage Nigerian to bring to life their dreams and desires with the help of money raised by well-meaning.

About Social Crowdfunding

It’s a known fact that Crowdfunding is as old as time which has evolved as technology evolved. With the evolution of Crowdfunding, of all the models of Crowdfunding, Social Crowdfunding has been and is being the most successful Crowdfunding model.

Source: www.crowdmapped.com

Social Crowdfunding is the collective effort of a large number of individuals who donate small amounts of money to help finance charities, projects and causes raised by an Individual or a Charity Organisation. For example; when an idea (a light bulb moment) is raised to help alleviate and change lives of people, funds for this can be achieved with the help of Social Crowdfunding.

Statistic shows the percentage growth in the number of Crowdfunding Platforms worldwide from 2008 increased by 38 percent in comparison to the previous year. The rate of crowdfunding platform growth continued in all of the following years and the growth rate reached 60 percent by 2012. The total number of crowdfunding platforms worldwide as of April 2012 amounted to 342, the estimated number by the end of December 2012 was at 536.

The global funding volume of crowdfunding platforms is expected to amount to just over 2.8 billion U.S. dollars, a massive increase from the 2009 figure which amounted to 530 million U.S. dollars. We saw $16 billion crowdfunded in 2014, with 2015 estimated to grow to over $34 billion.

By 2016 the crowdfunding industry is on track to account for more funding than venture capital, according to a recent report by Massolution.

The crowdfunding industry is doubling or more, every year, and is spread across several types of funding models including social, rewards, donation, equity, and debt/lending.

“donate-ng” is a social crowdfunding portal and below are things you need to know about donate-ng.

About “donate-ng”

1. “donate-ng” is a home for funding your small or big Charity dreams. Our mission is to help ease the burden of raising funds for your charity project or causes, bringing your dreams to fruition.
2. “donate-ng” supports each dream (Project or Charitable Cause) created by individuals or organisations.
3. “donate-ng” in its capacity has tried to curtail all avenues of fraud and mismanagement of funds raised, making sure all funds are used for the designated cause/charity/project.
4. “donate-ng” will support fund raisers to ensure their big dream is met using the “donate-ng” supervisory framework and ubiquitous advice.
5. Register today at www.donate-ng.com and in summary, you are 3 simple steps to raising funds for that charitable cause of charity.

Contact

To learn more about “donate-ng”, please visit

u: www.donate-ng.com

e: we@donate-ng.com

f: www.facebook.com/donatenigeria

t: www.twitter.com/donate_ng

Donate-NG is a Trademark of  Twocan Solutions Limited RC1258475

u: www.twocansolutions.com

e: we@twocansolutions.com, info@twocansolutions.com

The post TwoCan Solutions Births “donate-ng” – Nigeria’s Go-To Social Crowdfunding Portal appeared first on Donate-ng Blog.

What is donate-ng?

Donate-ng is a crowdfunding platform that allows individual to source for funding for their projects. However, while other crowdfunding website will allow the sourcing of fund for entrepreneurial ventures, donate-ng is focused on the Social Crowdfunding.

How do you mean Social Crowdfunding?

The platform is only for raising fund for charitable works. When someone donates, the person should expect he/she is donating to a charitable cause. We limited the platform to Social crowdfunding because, we identified the challenge surrounding us as people is of greater value. There are a lot of needy people, schools, communities that require one help or the other and can’t access the funds to resolve the solution. There are individuals who are willing to make changes in their environment but can’t because they don’t have access to the funds that will help actualise the change; hence we are concentrating on social crowdfunding for now. Having said that, in Nigeria of today, the support framework and requirements for the verification of business venture ideas is lacking.

However, we do not rule out the possibility that we may enlarge the platform later to include the possibility of business/entrepreneur crowdfunding.

Is this similar to the Rag-days organised by Higher Institution’s Student Union Government?

Yes, this is similar to what we achieve through the university rag-day and other fundraising event in the past. Another example is the luncheon parties to raise fund for Social clubs.  This is now brought forward to the internet age where the gathering of the funds is done electronically. If you recall on the rag-day, the university student union picks a cause like mother-less baby home and the student goes out to source for donation from the public. With the Internet age, you use your social media circle to draw attention to your project and get funding from them.

So, how does donate-ng work?

donate-ng is an easy to use platform. We can summarise the step into three stages. Firstly – you register, secondly – you create fundraising portal and start receiving funds, and thirdly – You receive the amount raised.

We cater for three type of funding needs; we have the individual, Charity Organisation and Charity Volunteers.

For charity you have to register the Charity on the platform – Charity Registration (https://donate-ng.com/charity/register) . This is only available to charity registered with the Corporate Affairs commission.

As an Individual or Charity Volunteers, you create an account by signing up at the website – Individual Sign-up (https://donate-ng.com/register)

We separated it this way to make sure that any amount raised by Charity volunteer is paid directly to the charity organisation. While individual will receive the fund but agree to donate-ng supervising that the fund goes to what it was raised for.

How much does it cost to register and use the platform?

The registration and use of the platform is FREE. However, as a standard, making payment online incur a cost. Most time the receiver bear the cost and we don’t know. For example if you go to an e-commerce website and buy an item for N1000 and you pay using your card. You will be charge N1000, but the amount the Seller actually received is less the transaction fee which could be up to 5% of the item price.

While I like to point out that charity or individual do not have to pay to use the platform, there are fee that will be deducted from the amount donated. So, if you donate N1000, your card is charge that amount only, but the Charity will received N1000 less the transaction fee. The fee depends on the type of payment method used by the donator. The fee for PayPal is different from Voguepay e.t.c. The fees are spelt out in our Fee breakdown on the website.

It’s worth mentioning that bank transfer and bank deposit do not incur any charges.

Are you saying the amount I choose to donate is what is charge to my card without any hidden fees or charges?

Yes, absolutely right. If you donate N1000 naira, Only N1000 will leave your account. We want to make sure you are completely in control of what you are giving.

Internet security and fraud are serious issue in Nigeria, how is donate-ng protecting her customer’s payment details?

First, I will like to say that internet security and fraud is not only peculiar to Nigeria. This is a global treat, just recently, a UK based company’s (TalkTalk) Network was penetrated and millions of the customer payment details were stolen. We have also heard of similar incidence at big Corporations like Sony in the past. So, the challenge is global. However, what we have done in donate-ng is that we don’t take or save any donators payment details. The Platform use Application Program Interfaces (APIs) to Card payment processing service like Interswitch or Voguepay. Once the payment is processed they send a transaction reference to us that the payment was processed.  What we only get from them is a reference number of the transaction for us to be able to track the donations in our account and make the payment to the beneficially.

We are aware of the needs for security and privacy protection, we make sure we only request minimal information as possible to allow us tie the Transaction to the cause and update the portal information accordingly. The use of the Platform is completely safe and you have nothing to worry about regarding safety of your information.

Talking about Payment cards and donation, is donation only acceptable from cards issued by Local banks?

Not at all, we have engaged PayPal and VoguePay, to allow payment card processing for any Visa or Master card issued in any country. This is the good thing about the platform.  Fundraising portals can receive donations both locally and internationally. Nigerians in diaspora can now contribute to causes and Charity in Nigeria.

Can individual without Charity registration use the platform?

Yes, I mentioned previously that we made available three funding requirement. Individual that needs to raise funds for a cause such as Alumni fundraising for their Alma mater, or an Individual needing fund for medicals van also use the platform. We separated it this way, so we can create a level of fraud control for individual fund raising. We want to make sure that when you donate using the platform you will be rest assured that the donation goes to the beneficiary intended and all deceit or fraud is eliminated as much as possible.

What are the benefits of the platform to a charity organisation?

First, a charity organisation can benefit from publicities we run on social media to encourage people to donate to charity via our portal.

Secondly, Charity does not need to go via the bureaucratic process of getting online payment integrated to their websites.

Thirdly, the platform provides opportunity for Volunteers who will support the charity and raise fund for them regularly. Let me give you an example.  I have a colleague in the UK, who brings cakes to the office every Friday. These are delicious home-made cakes. We enjoy the cake and look forward to the cake every end of the week. The cake are free but all she asked is we donate to the charity she support via her personalised fund raising portal. So, you can see how much she had raise for the charity. She set target for herself and raise over £10000 every year for her charity. She doesn’t have to handle the cash that can bring mistrust. All she just sees is that so and so have donated to the charity via your fundraising portal.

Imagine, on your birthday you want your friends to donate to a Charity rather than giving you gifts or flowers. Instead of you just giving a charity bank account that you cannot see how much you raised. You can use the platform and at the end of the Fundraising, you get a Thank you certificate from Donate-ng for the amount raised. And the payment is made directly to the Charity nominated bank account.

Do you see charity activity picking up in Nigeria compare to the developed world like the UK?

I agree with you that Charity in the UK is very well developed. You will be surprise that there is charity for almost everything, supplementing the governmental services. The advantage is the somewhat easy process of registering a charity in the UK. You also see the work of this charity and willing to donate, trusting that the money is spent for the purpose it was collected.

These are the challenges in Nigeria, First we need to streamline the process of registering a charity and secondly, we need a Charity Commission that will oversee the activities of every registered charity. This will bring the much needed transparency and trust that will encourage more donations.

However, I do believe that Nigeria give a lot to charity and are willing to give more if they can see that the money is not just going to enrich some individual.

What are the challenges in getting people to donate to charity in Nigeria?

The major challenge is creating trust in the system. We need a Charity commission that will scrutinise the account of the charities, to make sure they comply with the required standard of practice, just like the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) does for corporate business.

Secondly, we need to increase awareness of charitable works. Majority of Nigerian are not even aware of the charity that exist in the country, ask anybody to mention two charity they know, it will be motherless baby homes and ehm ehm…They can’t mention another, even though motherless baby home is not a charity. The Charity also needs to work on publicity, so that people are aware of their activity. There are lot of registered charity helping children, women and the needy in the society that people would like to be involved with, but the lack of awareness is a big challenge.

Thirdly, educating the people that Charity needs money to run. We have created the mentality that when going to charity homes, we go with clothes, shoes and food. You can see many of our celebrities doing that. The charity also need money to pay the workers, the accommodations and utility bills. Educating the Citizens that Charity run like a business, you pay the staffs and for services received. The only difference with a Charity is that it is not a business setup to make profit. We need to donate food as well as cash to run the charity.

Finally, we need to make the donation process easy. For example, nobody is ready to go to a charity organisation office and donate N1000. But if one thousand people donate a thousand naira, you would have raised one million naira to support a charity.  This is what the power of crowdfunding and easy of donating brings to the table. We are confident donate-ng will break this barrier.

Majority of Charity are focus on orphanages. Is there a reason for this?

I don’t believe that majority of charity are orphanages.  It is just the ones that we know. There are many charities in Nigeria catering for various needs. There is charity like the Down syndrome foundation of Nigeria, they support people with Down syndrome and also help kids with heart problem to receive medical attention in India. I was very impress with the work they do, when a beneficiary relates his experience with to me. There are so many ways we can impact positively to the society through involvement with charity and if you see a way to improve something but you can ‘t find a charity, why not start one?

Start a charity?

Yes, Starting a charity is not rocket science, you can get some information from Charity (NGO) Formation in Niigeria (http://www.nigeriaformations.com/charities-and-NGOs.php). We don’t have to be as big as the Gates foundation to impact the society positively. You can start small even if it is scholarship to a student your charity can support it is still a charity.

Coming back to the donate-ng platform, how is the acceptance of the platform by the public so far?

We have just unveiled the curtain on the website, and we have started seeing traffic to the sites with some charity going through the registration process at the moment.

What next now?

This is our first phase; we plan to extend the platform to include other features to make the web experience for the charity and their donators better. We are also working on a technology that would make donating easier for the general public.

It was nice having to discuss donate-ng with you and we wish you the best.

Thanks you.

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