The divine and sacrosanct way of doing a no profit business
is followed by the NGOs/NPOs. The NGOs start off with the motive of welfare to
the society unlike the very ubiquitous motive of any business organization –
profit. Now the point to ponder about is when the intention is crystal clear
and sacrosanct what are the factors that restrict the functioning of any NGO?
The money for obvious reasons but there are many other factors.
The substantial reason for any NGO to become dysfunctional
or cash strapped is definitely lack of visibility. Since the NGOs are non-profit
organizations, they can hardly afford to market themselves. Every means of
marketing comes at a hefty price and even if an NGO had that hefty amount it
would prefer spending it for some welfare activity rather than marketing
itself. Thanks to the advent of technology the NGOs are gaining visibility to a
great extent due to several social media marketing places like social
networking sites, e-commerce websites, video sharing websites etc. But all
these come at a price that is sometimes beyond the affordable range.
Any NGO till recently would initially form up a group which
would then scourge for funds by door to door marketing of their initiative. The
conversion rate (number of people getting convinced/number of people marketed
for) is substantially low. Ultimately the results wouldn’t be satisfactory and
hence resulting in the closure of few NGOs due to lack of funds.
To get these NGOs into the limelight it is very important
that people are made cognizant of the initiative before even thinking of
drawing funds from them. Crowdfunding comes as an all-in-one solution for them.
On these crowdfunding websites the NGOs can raise their voice and make
themselves visible and audible to the world around. When it is funding it is
all about connecting or more precisely conveying the intention clearly. Once
this happens the NGOs get the desired visibility at minimum marketing cost. The
takeaway here is that marketing is being done without any time lag. Once the
content is online the funds start pouring in.
One organization that has been able to raise funds to
crowdfunding is Stop Acid Attacks (SAA). SAA is an organization that actively
campaigns against acid attack violence. They also help to provide medical aid
and care to acid attack survivors. SAA is currently running a fundraiser on FundDreamsIndia.com through will they
have been able to raise around Rs.300,000 to date. As the word is spreading,
more people are expected to contribute to the cause. Utilizing these funds,
they have started a café in Agra- “Sheroes” which is run by acid attack
survivors. The money collected through the café would again we spent in
survivors’ welfare.
By being visible to the people, organizations are actually
connecting to prospective employees even. There can be like-minded people who
would not only wish to fund but also work for the NGO and that turns out to be
the cherry on the cake. By doing this the hassle to go around begging for funds
and the time consuming activity of interacting and explaining the intent of the
NGO to every person is drastically cut down.