By David | a dad who definitely doesn't mind extra sprinkles
Yep, the last 6 months or so, I feel like I write these reports, then just throw them out there, not knowing if anyone still reads them, if we’re even on anybody’s mind any more, what with everything else going on.
But we’re still holding it together, after a year of craziness.
Well, we’re actually doing better than just surviving.
Last month there was a national survey among refugees, asking them who they appreciate most, among all support providers. From 22 organizations, we scored second place, right behind the government-run initiative funded by the UN and many others, with a budget probably 20 times ours.
Yeah, that was cool. Especially considering we weren’t in the humanitarian field before.
If there’s one piece of advice I would give the big guys, or the guys who have this as a career, it’s to swallow your pride and ask people objective questions about what they want, what they need, how others help them already and what they think about your work.
Sure, it’s easy to give away stuff…once. Behavioral economists say there’s a primitive button that’s pressed when you say “free”, where people will spend more time in line for something than it’s worth. Being relevant over the long-term, especially with such a modest budget, requires understanding the people you serve.
And when we say modest, the last couple of months we really mean it, since right after New Year we lost one of our major food donors, so now we can only afford to give out $5 bags of food (yep, that’s almost half what it was, but it was that or turn away a thousand families per week). More importantly, we still focus on vitamins over calories, case in point, last week we gave out fresh whole grain bread, apples, potatoes, carrots, buckwheat and pickles.
Other than that, before winter we insulated hundreds of old apartments, bought over 1,000 pairs of boots and house slippers and gloves, and we delivered over 5,000 family-sized water filters to parts of the country with the worst water quality.
During winter we ran cooking clubs, with different workshops for kids, young adults, single parents and the elderly.
Also, a couple of big Ukrainian diaspora groups heard about us, appreciate our style, and asked if we could find and pack food that would get shipped to southern parts of Ukraine. The last month we’ve been sending two full semi-trailers EACH WEEK. Talk about volume. Since they only buy the food and cover basic expenses, we’ll probably start a new fundraiser soon to get a better forklift, and add more warehouse space and shelves. Storing and processing 80 metric tons (175,000 lbs) per week is definitely a juggle…
Thank you again to GlobalGiving and to all our donors, without your help we’d probably still be 3 volunteers bouncing around in an old van, trying to make a difference.
Links:
By David | just trying to connect people with opportunities
By David | a guy who used to wear socks with stripes
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