By Dana Doan | Strategic Advisor
From June to September 2013, with the help of more than 80 individuals (including you!), 30 companies and 52 volunteers, over 300 million Viet Nam Dong (about USD $15,000) was contributed to the Narrow the Gap Community Fund to address children’s issues in and near Ho Chi Minh City. Meanwhile, a committee of ten HCMC residents volunteered to evaluate 14 proposals submitted by local, nonprofit organizations and select the five proposals that could best address the needs of children in and near Ho Chi Minh City. The five proposals were posted online in August and over 2,500 people voted for their favorite, which narrowed the finalists down to three. Finally, on 15 September 2013, nearly 340 members of the Ho Chi Minh City Community attended the Narrow the Gap Community Event where they learned about the top three projects and were asked to vote for the proposal they liked most. This last vote determined the size of the grant each project would receive from the Narrow the Gap Community Fund.
The winners of the three grants were:
Compared with 2012, the community doubled their contributions to the fund and increased their level and depth of participation in the Narrow the Gap program. Nevertheless, based on staff experience and feedback from stakeholders, we identified areas for improvement in 2014. For example, we plan to revise the online voting component to ensure that the focus is on quality and we would also like to find ways to further increase the number of Vietnamese companies participating in the fund and event.
Photos from the event, as well as the event program, are attached to give you a better idea about the event. Many more photos are on LIN's Narrow the Gap page on https://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/pe/progress-report/new.htmlFacebook.
Next Step - Site Visits!
During the first week of October, three grant agreements were signed with each of the winners and fund transfers were made (Ceporer Hoc Mon and Kim Tu Dien both received 100% of their committed funds while Nhan Ai Social Work Club received the first of three fund transfers, due to the nature of each of their project). LIN is currently coordinating with the three grantees to schedule visits to the project sites. The first site visit will take place on this Sunday, 15 December. Supporters to the Narrrow the Gap Fund or Event are invited to join a groundbreaking ceremony for the clean water tower in Hoc Mon (Ceporer Hoc Mon). LIN is organizing transportation from HCMC's city center to Long An for anyone interested to join the event. Please contact us at: Donor@LINvn.org to express your interest.
Stay Up-To-Date
Narrow the Gap Fund supporters (that's you!) can stay up-to-date by joining LIN's Narrow the Gap Fund page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NarrowTheGapFund)
On behalf of the entire LIN team, I would like to thank you, once again, for your support and for believing that together we can change lives and bring hope to many people in Ho Chi Minh City and our surrounding provinces!
A detailed report (with budget, testimonials, list of donors, etc) is now available on LIN's website (click the link below to access that report).
Links:
By LIN Team | LIN Center for Community Development
By Dana Doan | Strategic Advisor
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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