We often receive requests at FundsforNGOs to support individuals, families or groups who are in need. It is a common problem around the world that cannot be solved by forming an organisation and applying for foreign grants. In these situations are more urgent and local solution needs to be found.
People and families can fall into hardship for all kinds of reasons. From a poor harvest to having to pay medical bills, to an accident to natural disaster, life can cause serious problems for people all over the world that they may not able to resolve on their own. So what can an individual alone do to help a person or family in need?
Holding a fundraising event for your cause is a local solution that can be created with limited resources that can provide an immediate income boost to your cause. Instead of any donations or profits made at an event going to an established community organisation, the money will be given directly to the person or group in need of support.
Fundraisers can be powerful, timely support systems for people in need. In some situations the income raised through the event may be the only source of money available to the family. This makes any contribution vitally important with the ability to make an immediate impact on their lives and wellbeing.
Contrast this with applying to a charitable foundation and it becomes clear how valuable individual, local fundraising events can be. Financial assistance requests made through grant proposals can often take three months or more to be decided upon, by which time it may be too later. Another challenge that individual or family causes face is that they are often ineligible for grant funding themselves, rather they will need an appropriate organisation to apply for support on their behalf. One more reason for favouring local fundraising efforts over grant funding is that most charitable funds will not support individuals directly and by the time any proposal has been appriased several months later, the families situation may be very different.
In an urgent local situation where there does not appear to be any organisation, company or government that is able to offer support then we highly recommend taking matters into your own hands by staging a local fundraising event. It may sound difficult but if you follow our suggested plan you’ll be able to quickly raise valuable funds to support your cause.
1. Find a venue
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2. Set a date
3. Invite you and your beneficiaries friends, family, colleagues and neighbours
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4. Make some posters detailing the event and hang them around the local area
5 Speak and write to companies based in the area to ask if they can support your event or fundraising
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6. Ask your friends to cook so that you can sell food at your event
7. Ask everyone who comes to donate a prize which can then be either raffled or auctioned off
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8. Arrange for someone to speak about the cause you’re fundraising for and ask the audience to put their hands in their pockets to support the cause.
9. Speak or write to your local media including radio and newspapers so that as many people as possible know about your event
10. Arrange some entertainment to keep people happy whilst they are at your fundraiser
You can find further ideas with our guide to alternative fundraising by clicking here. Do you have any tips on supporting local people in need cheaply and quickly? Share your experiences and knowledge with the FundsforNGOs community in our comments section.
iam a student in DEEP DEMOCRACY INTITUTE INTERNATIONAL as a community facilitator and environmental health and social justice trainer.i am the founder of a local based organization known as YESAID KENYA AND recently attended the GLOBAL SOUTH-SOUTH EXPO at UNEP headquarters at UN GIGIRI ,NAIROBI,KENYA.through my passion to conserve our environment and create sustainable green economies around the world for the future generations i have been invited to attend conference in BRAZIL next year for a presentation and contribution.iam requesting well-wishers and organizations help to fund raise for my air ticket.this knowledge exchange and skill development will help our country and the world achieve the millennium development goals through sustainable technologies transfer to local populations who are the victims.buy ticket for me and book for me.Be blessed
am from a humble family and I would love to go for further education but I do not have funds to do so. kindly help me to raise fund to to go for the course so that I can help well my Siaya people with the skills I got from training
I am the Coordinator for Centre for Justice Mercy & Reconciliation, a grass root organization based in Ibadan Nigeria. I have a rented apartment for Halfway Home for those who may have housing problem or rejection upon freedom from prison. The landlord has giving us a quit notice with December deadline. Securing another apartment is a problem because no landlord or agent want to give their property for rent for the Ex-prisoner. The home has benefited over 200inmates with successful reintegration.The only property available now is too expensive to bear. Is anybody out there with solution to this problem?
Thank you your intrest
Hello my name is Elena I am 27 years old, a single mother of a boy 2 anicare urgently needs money.
boy’s father wants us to leave the house.
When the boy was born I spent two months left because he brought his mistress home.
called us home to try to be a happy family but 2 days ago I found out that he did not end the relationship with his mistress.
Now he wants us to go to her and bring her home and marry her.
I have an apartment but I have not lived in it for 6 years and I have many debts and the light is off it was not paid.
I need money to pay debts and buy everything I need in the house that is empty.
please help me so I can make the apartment to go to my boy to raise him.
there is no one to help me as my parents are dead by 10 and 15.
I am desperate as I have nowhere to go with the child in the beginning of winter.
I have recently started an NPO and your informatiom and site has become very helpful to shaping it and to give me insight into what to do, do’s and don’ts and how to navigate my way in terms of applications. I appreciate getting updates from you people and I don’t envisage it stopping. My only problem for now is that, I am not yet able to join your webinars and participate in them due to payment, but in time I promise to.
Thank you, keep sending those e mails, they are helpful and very much appreciated.
Lele Nkutha
I am a 68 homeless individual , heavily indebted and ashamed to ask for donations.
I will only say that with a little help I could get back on my feet again after years of toiling in the pits.
I only found scammers on the Net when I was asking for a loan as everybody wanted money upfront just to scam me.
If anybody out there is disposed to give a litle help, I will be grateful forever and will be able to have some peace of mind lost many years ago.
God bless
Sergio Radice.
We need financial support for our family junior school which we have established to provide primary education to needy children from poor families most specifically focusing on orphans and other vulnerable children. We are located at Namayina, Wakiso District in Uganda.
We are a family of five people and without any earning as the man is a deaf person. The woman is a mere house wife and cannot obtain job because of nepotism in the government selection. Please link us to any charitable organization or philanthropy who can boost our financial capability or employe my wife and how to contact them
thanks in advance
clinton egalah
We are a family of five people and without any earning as the man is a deaf person. The woman is a mere house wife and cannot obtain job because of nepotism in the government selection. Please link us to any charitable organization or philanthropy who can boost our financial capability or employe my wife and how to contact them
thanks in advance
peter oyando
We are a family of seven, five boys, wife and me. Our family income no longer meet our expenditures therefore, we are looking for an organization or an individual(s) who can boast our family projects to rise our income. We have two projects horticulture and a secretarial bureau.
The problem began In 2005 when I was retrenched from Local Government service on grounds of low education. This affected family income since then. On our 11 acre land located in Kihara cell in Nyamwamba division Kasese municipality, where we plant fruits including mangoes, oranges pawpaw and food crops is always hit with long droughts reducing income. We need a water pump since there is a river (Kihara river) with deep banks.
We own a secretarial bureau in Kasese Municipality with one desk top computer, a photocopier, a printer and a few others. We want to expand our secretarial bureau.
Last year, our first son Baluku Balinda Vincent sat for his Uganda adversed level certificate and qualified for under graduate course this September 2013, but we have failed to raise the university fees. The second son Bwambale Micheal would have joined a diploma course this September 2013 intake but they are all not at school
We kindly request any charitable organisation and or individual(s) who can boast our family income with a water pump to avail water to our firm to increase production, hence income. Also to assist us with some or all of these new or used Lap top computers, desk tops computers, cameras, bikes, photocopiers, lisograph or a agriculture tractor all of these above to inrease our family income and reduce poverty. Thank you.
In Owukpa, Ogbadibo LGA of Benue state, there is lack of electricity,good road network,well equiped hospitals or clinic, portable drinking water and job opportunity for the youths. The youth of that environment are not empowered and at such they are idle. We are looking at generating funds to help the community with these needs through mechanised extensive farming and selling of farm produce. So that the youths can be employed, the community can be developed and life would be a lot easier. Thereby, contributing positively to Nigeria. If this is achieved, we would extend to other rural areas and engage youths in farming.
Wellwishers, we are young men and women in Uganda looking for people or organizations that can help us begine and entrepreneurship Institute of a difference in Uganda, western part of the country.
Help us connect with them.
I’m MGwei Mainsah Gilbert from Cameroon working mainly in the use of the ICTs for community development and the applied members learning skills.
This initiative in organising a fundraising event to support an individual or a family is directly in line with our world peace day event in Cameroon. Through this event we shall help promote the business of one of our friend who is at the initial stage. Also our survey and feedback after the peace day event will help him plan well for the business.
Not only helping in his business but also to partial raise funds to initiate our project on the collection of information for the disabled people community rehabilitation data.
Dear Sir. please how can get this type of charity organization, how can i get this collection
sir i am syed kashif i leave in pakistan sind mirpurkhas sir my daughter is the patient of thallissimia she is 10 year old her name is husna kashif the treatment of this disease is very danger and expensive it is beyond of my reached i can not afford this type of dissease so kindly help me i am very poor please save the life of my daughter my mobile no . 0334-2801196
kindly help us know about some of these charitable orgaizations and how to contact them
thanks in advance
BEE ERIC
I’m Abdelrahman from the National High Board of Debate Egypt. It is a pleasure writing to you.
Debate Egypt is a youth initiative aims to spread the debate culture in the Egyptian society. We see debate as the most influential and effective way of expressing views and perspectives between all other ways of expression and this is actually what we need nowadays.
Our vision is to Create an independent platform for young people dedicated to establishing a well- rounded group of future debaters and leaders.
We have started spreading Debate culture throw establishing debate clubs in Egyptian universities: in order to promote public speaking and activities, to develop skills required in debating within the University’s Community, to provide the opportunity for the students to engage and participate in debate activities on campus.
We are looking forward for your support but we are not sure what is the most appropriate program that we should apply for to get fund from USAID in Egypt specially we are working on creating a network of debaters nationally all over Egypt and regionally over the MENA region.
Best Regards ,
Abdelrahman