Post 5: Zero-overhead: Looking Forward
ACRF decided to help Mr. Mehra more than once. This cancer patient has no income or caretaker. Though the government funds paid for his surgery, he needs to cover regular follow-ups. ACRF has helped cover two follow-ups for Mr. Mehra, while a team is helping him to apply for funding that supports his future medical visits.
Over the past two years, we at ACRF have been privileged to help more than 85 cancer patients and positively impact the lives of several hundred more. What started as a casual idea to directly help the people around us has thrived, thanks to our supporters and well-wishers. The idea of a zero-overhead project emerged from our intent to maximize efficiency and create a channel that directly connects our patrons to the cause, without costing a penny.
For some, zero-overhead might sound like financial jargon, but it is simply like a neighborhood collective coming together for a blood drive or planting a few trees. These efforts are not driven by money but by a shared sense of love and responsibility. We strongly believe this motivation can be a powerful tool to bring sustainable change and wanted to express it through a cause that spoke dearly to us. Together with our modest scale, being a zero-overhead operation has also helped us develop a warm relationship with our donors. We often hear from them about how gratifying it is to know that all their contributions are making an immediate improvement in the life of the less fortunate around us.
Through these past few blogs, I have tried to chart the progress of our ACRF initiative: what inspired us, how we got started, what keeps us going, and how we have managed the fundraising and operations. We look forward to reaching our next milestones and learning more lessons along the way. We would also love to hear from you—your ideas, suggestions, and perspectives. What could we do to improve this effort, what more could we try, and how best to take this forward? The list of people needing a small token help is huge, and I am sure many of you are willing to step-up and contribute one way or the other. Please DM me if you would like to get involved with this effort.
In the meantime, by sharing our journey we also hope to motivate some of you into action—to tackle different issues around us. Some of you may want to band together to donate art supplies to the underprivileged kids to support a more creative future... or perhaps you would like to be a little sillier and more spontaneous and get them all ice creams! Maybe, a few among us would like to do something about mental health awareness, and yet others may be interested in promoting responsible waste management in their neighborhood. Whatever be the cause, we want to implore that do not be afraid to take the first step; after all, even the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world! On a final note, we want to contemplate whether the success of zero-overhead initiatives hints at a greater possibility: Can one crowdsource social change, scaling with the power of small teams? With best wishes for a joyful holiday!
The previous postd of this 5-part blog could be found here:
Post 1: Two Years of Supporting Cancer Patients in India: Lessons Learned
Post 2: Small Giant Steps–Our origin, operation, and vision
Post 3: Maintaining Cadence
Post 4: Fundraising–asking for money is never easy
Disclaimer: ACRF is not connected with Stanford BioDesign, AIIMS, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, or any other institution named in the article. Our association with ACRF is completely independent of our professional affiliations and we take no monetary return for our time and efforts.