How I use Bloc to power fundraising for my event, BCP '24

April 21, 2023, I hosted the largest creative storytelling event in Southwestern Nigeria with an attendance of a minimum of 2,170 people physically gathered in one auditorium. One thing that is common with events is fundraising. It’s an essential part of the event that you cannot rule out.

This would be the first time I would be hosting an event of that magnitude, and it only translated to the fact that I needed a lot of money that I alone didn't have. I decided to raise the money from within my family and friends and reached out to businesses to sponsor. The event was a success and I duly give myself accolades for pulling off an “impossible feat”

I wrote about BCP 23 here: Daring the Impossible — The story behind BCP 23 | by Toluwase Olugbemiro | Medium . You can read more about it.

One of the challenges I met with was not being able to adequately ascertain how much money we spent to put together the event. I used Eyowo as my main collection bank for the event because Eyowo gave me the ability to create multiple accounts attached to the same BVN. So, it was easy to dedicate different accounts to different operations during the event. But as much as I tried to monitor the transactions, it was inevitable to avoid a mix-up.

Learning from what happened last year, I decided I was going to find a way to have a dedicated collections account for the event. Aside from managing funds that will come in from our sponsor, we need another account that we can commit to fundraising.

Another challenge I met last year was trying to convince some sponsors to send money to an account bearing my name. It was an unnecessary hassle I decided to avoid this year.

I work at Bloc . But, a lot of times, you find yourself on a team building a product, and you’re aware the product is not for you, that’s not the case with Bloc. I opened an account with Bloc last year to test out the functionality of our product as I needed to acquaint myself with what we were building.

The experience was soothing, but at the time a particular feature was still in beta and was not yet live. This year, as soon as the feature went live, and we tested it internally, I made a mental note to use it for BCP.

I started plans for BCP 24, and when the time came to set up a fundraising system for the event, my logical choice was Bloc.

I am using the Payment link feature on Bloc to power fundraising for my event. Setting it up took roughly about a minute. After setting it up, I sent the link to my team and a few of my friends to test if it was working and if the experience was seamless. I also tested with 200 naira; the Nigerian in me still wanted to be sure. The feedback was the same, “It was simple and straight forward”

Payment link helps you to set up a payment/collections page for your business, project, idea, etc., and people can pay/donate through a preferred payment method.

A few weeks ago, after putting together the sponsorship proposal for the event and share on X [formerly Twitter], an acquaintance of mine in the UK used the payment link to contribute towards BCP.

I am on a journey to raise 15 million naira for my event, and sincerely, I can trust Bloc to power collections for my event. If you’d like to support BCP ‘24, kindly click this link: https://link.blochq.io/q3GVq

Also, you can create an account with Bloc at www.blochq.io