By Alice McGonnell | Voluntary fundraiser
Unfortunately we do not have good news to report from the field. We have not been able to support anyone with any healthcare need from this project. There are a few reasons for this and I will outline some:
* lack of engagement from target audience of potential donors on LinkedIn. Limited capacity of algorithm perhaps.
* Most of our community works for free or for very little. For example, in the UK we are all volunteers and in Burkina, 3 people are paid a tiny subsistence. It's not really comparable to a wage over in the West.
* These 3 tiny wages will be terminated in September because the Hope in Crisis Grant which the committee put together and TN therefore were granted, will be terminated.
* I have to work full time because I am a volunteer.
Project leader Zoénabou and I discussed ways yesterday to reach our new, target audience through LinkedIn. Zoenabou spent some time trying to log in to her dormant account which had been created by a previous team of volunteers on Zoenabou's behalf. We managed to update the password but the security codes which were sent did not work.
Despite networking in the UK, online networking has not proved fruitful. We have not received any donations on here since May of this year, despite being publicly online and present in the Marketplace on GlobalGiving, ETSY, LINKEDIN and now Substack and having attended networking events in London with likeminded groups. I guess the world is saturated with problems that need to be solved.
It has been difficult. I thought London based organisations were the answer for example, organisations that partner with Lloyds bank whose focus is promoting entrepreneurship in underrepresented communities. However, perhaps the fact that Tigoung Nonma makes 0 profit has been a barrier to their financial support or actual online engagement.
We applied to a grant for disabled founders too last year. We were rejected so we were happy to receive a grant from GlobalGiving subsequently.
It is disheartening that we have been on this network for 12 years now, since I got back from BF and not one single member of GlobalGiving has checked in with either me or Zoenabou to see how our community is doing. Just about surviving is the answer. Did you know that the average salary in Africa is 0.67 p per hour? Supposing our 3 salaried staff members earned that this year which they don't, I can work out that that is less than £37 per week.
I just wish people would trust more and share more of their wealth with others.
By Zoenabou Savadogo | Project Leader
By Zoenabou Savadogo | Cheffe de projet
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