By Mark Rikkers | Executive Director
Hello from dZi Foundation!
It is remarkable how quickly time passes. Here’s an example: it’s already been 12 weeks since a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the very foundation of Nepal. In that relatively short time frame, the people of Nepal have grieved and worked together to begin rebuilding their lives and infrastructure. For dZi Foundation, it has been a pivotal point in our organizational history. We have received a surprising amount of acclaim for our work, which we believe validates our Deep Development model. And because of you, we also have a growing base of supporters that allows us to continue delivering high impact programming based on clear community need.
Our partner communities in some of the most remote villages of Nepal believe that schools are at the heart of communities. Sadly, 90% of the school buildings in our working areas were damaged or destroyed by recent earthquakes. With the Monsoon season well underway, building temporary structures is the most efficient and effective way of addressing this. As a direct result of your support, we have now completed 39 Temporary Learning Centers (TLCs) in 9 very remote areas of Khotang and Solukhumbu districts. These comprise 125 classrooms that allow 2,576 students to safely continue their education until true reconstruction can begin immediately after the Monsoon season ends.
This short video offers some good local perspective on our TLC projects.
After homes and schools, drinking water and irrigation systems were the aspects of local infrastructure most significantly damaged by the earthquake. Most farmers anticipate a reduction in production of rice and other key crops because of the damage to water sources and irrigation channels. dZi staff, including our engineer, have been busy assessing all infrastructure in our working areas to establish a clear hierarchy of project needs for the immediate and longer-term project cycles.
While there is a lot of focus on rebuilding infrastructure in Nepal, this is also a prime agriculture time in Nepal, particularly for true subsistence farmers. It has been crucial for community members to balance the time they have to ensure people have places to live and attend school while also focusing on food security and limited income generation opportunities.
Financial Transparency
We have an obligation to our donors to ensure that all funds are spent properly and accounted for. On the ground in Nepal, we post a large Public Audit banner at each and every project site, and ensure that it is regularly updated to display all funds and local contributions. Community members study the data, ask questions and ultimately sign off on the banner before final installments of donor dollars are submitted and the project can be finished.
This transparency carries through all financial controls in our Nepal and US headquarters, and continues to our reporting to the IRS. As a Colorado non-profit, we are not required to undergo financial reviews or audits. We choose to do so because the process makes us a better organization, and the results prove we are spending our donor dollars with integrity. We work closely with an accounting firm that is arguably the best in the business, Gelman, Rosenberg and Freedman. GRF are experts in international and non-profit accounting and we are proud to report that our financial reviews for the last two tax years show that 76% and 78% of all donor dollars went directly to programs – excellent numbers for any organization. We proudly make all of our financial statements and 990s available to the public. See our website if you are interested in downloading our financial statements, and please feel free to ask us anything about our projects, our budgets, or anything else (including signing up for our newsletters) by emailing us at info@dzifoundation.org.
Thanks to you, dZi has made a significant difference in thousands of people’s lives in the past 12 weeks since the earthquake. Everyone in our extended community is grateful for your support.
Thank you and Namaste,
Mark Rikkers, Executive Director
Jim Nowak, President and Co-Founder
Ben Ayers, Nepal Country Director
Caroline Fisher, Board Chair
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