What can you do with $100K?
Rudra Pandey
Founder of Deerwalk, DWIT and Deerhold, co-founder of D2Hawkeye, and Chairman of Hamro Patro
Nepal's relief need at this stage is huge. One million houses damaged. Even if we assume (low end) average $20K ( RS 20 laks equivalent) worth of property damaged per house, the country needs $20 billion to rebuild. If a small charity collects $100K and try to spread around, it will be pennies by the time it gets to victims. If we buy the supplies and plan to send around, we would not know what to buy and where to send since we do not have data. So people working for non-profit needs to be extremely focused and they should not try to solve all problems with little resources they have. If they do, they will not rank much better than their political counterparts.
People working in non-profit sectors should act like entrepreneurs -- I mean social entrepreneurs. Questions like "How can I do the best form $100K I have collected or allocated from my own charity wing?", "What do I know and what is my niche?" and "Who needs the most?"
I personally have the same question. $100K possibly I could collect from donors can't do much. I do not want to waste it because people expect their money to be wisely spent. I do not want to give a tent to one family who does not need a tent. I do not want to give give supplies to a local NGO staffs who may not have means to distribute and may end up giving back to stores at low price.
I am still thinking and would love feedback. I do not want to act like I did sth here. I was just a medium to many donors. I have done nothing. I wish I could. I will when I can. I want to find a niche so that I can change as many lives as possible with the little $100K that people have donated.
Knowledge Graph Engineer @ datum.bio | Health Data Platform
9 年Around the time this post was made, I believe the relief need post earthquake was the main concern for all organizations. Now after about 3 months - focus is shifting towards rebuilding. There are numerous projects underway that require funding and you're right $100K spread across would not be an effective utilization of the donation. I believe you should choose a project near & dear to your heart and focus on one - hopefully with multiplier effect it will have a far reaching impact than you originally expected. For example - Choosing to rebuild a temple, obscure and unheard of to most people, but something that means a lot to its community; Rebuild a School whose ability to provide education has been affected post quake; Rebuild Health Posts and Hospitals that are the only ones nearest to their community. These projects will have the most impact on the people. I believe the sites like durbar square and UNESCO heritage sites have already gotten a lot of funding through international support. If education is your focus - please do check out https://www.backontracknepal.com/ https://www.bloomn.edu.np/#intro