Outreach Centre for Child-Headed Households Uganda

Thank you Wings of Courage Supporters!

Last year just in time for Halloween, we decided to host a family friendly Magic Show fundraiser for our projects in Uganda. We had a team of volunteers in Vancouver working on this event. We found a prestigious downtown venue for a VERY low price, we hired a magician to take the stage that had a lot of experience doing fundraisers for charities, and everyone we spoke to seemed quite excited about the idea. A team of four organized the event complete with a silent auction, raffle, costume competition, colouring competition, and a table of Ugandan items for sale. We could seat a maximum of 1000 people but thought if we had half that amount we would make a good amount of money. This was the first time we had ever attempted a public fundraising event.   

We posted on every social media site we could, we drove around putting up posters and spent days upon days on the streets handing out fliers trying to attract people to the event. We found some fabulous corporate sponsors to cover some of our event costs. On the day of, we had 5 people from the venue setting up, 4 people with the magician setting up, and 12 volunteers from Wings of Courage. An hour before the magician was scheduled to start, we were all set up and waiting….. we had some online sales but were expecting that the majority of the people would buy a ticket at the door. Half an hour before, people started arriving…. All but a few had pre-purchased their tickets…. It wasn’t until 5 minutes before it finally set in that we would have less than 100 people attend. We tried to pull chairs and make the venue room smaller, but no matter what we did- it was evident that we did not attract the crowd we would have liked…. And the funds we made just barely covered our costs…. It was a disappointment.

However, as tough as this experience was, it taught us a great deal as a small organization. It pulled together a solid group of volunteers that truly care about the cause, who put their time and energy out there until the bitter end, and are still connected to us to this day. We also started having more of a presence in the community as all the people we advertised to were asking more about the organization and showing an interest. We have more of a presence now on social media, we have a WOC banner (we’ve been waiting so long for this!), and learned how to do an online store. We also connected with some new people through our corporate sponsorship program who we can turn to for support in the future. Most importantly, we gathered a team of people in Vancouver for the first time working towards bringing the WOC mission to life. This experience has helped us in planning for other events as now we are aware of some of the barriers we faced and are also aware of our strengths as an organization. In the end it pushed us to try something completely different for our next fundraising venture… which was to turn more towards social media to raise funds through online means – and this new venture was how we successfully completed the charity challenge and became a partner of GlobalGiving!

This year, after having learned from our experience, we have decided to plan another public event. This time we are doing it on a smaller scale, with targeted invited attendees and very minimal outward costs. For our volunteer team, it will mean less time managing/ planning small little details where efforts can be put towards other things. We are excited about our learning outcomes and continue to move forward. After the fail in 2013, we went on to raise our most funds yet this past year. Through the support of our donors and volunteers, we are caring for 11 children, bought a plot of land, are growing crops, and are getting ready to set up on the land to begin our outreach programs with child-headed households. Our learning was to never give up and to always be willing to step out of your comfort zone. Even though no financial gain, our learning from the experience proved to be more valuable!

We thank you for all of your support as we continue to reach out to orphans and child headed households in Uganda. We hope to build on the land by the end of this year, and your continued support can make this happen. Wednesday October 15^th is the next 30% match day on GlobalGiving. Please reach out to your friends and family and donate online that day. Together we can achieve our project goal.

Many thanks!!

Grace, Lena, Alex, Ryan, Karen and Kristina