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.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the three grants:
The guests attending the Community Event also voted for the theme for the Narrow the Gap Community Event 2014, which will focus on EDUCATION (145 votes!).
I attached some photos and the event program to give you a better idea about our event. Many more photos are on LIN's Narrow the Gap page on https://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/pe/progress-report/new.htmlFacebook.
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). In the coming months, LIN will coordinate with its Narrow the Gap partners to schedule visits to each of the three grantees’ project sites and update supporters by way of the Narrow the Gap Fund page on Facebook and Blog. If you are in HCMC or planning to be in HCMC between now and March 2013, please let us know if you would like to join a site visit.
LIN achieved three out of four of the objectives that were set for the Narrow the Gap Fund and Event focusing on children’s issues and we partially achieved the fourth objective. 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.
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!
For further information, 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:
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