To remain operational, social groups/ projects need to find and secure funding to help maintain and develop their activities. With the desire to share more useful information about fundraising and calling for funding for young people, in the sharing series named “Chuyen Lang Chuyen Nuoc”, CSDS organized a session “Sharing experiences in applying for grants and fundraising” with guest Nguyen Sieu Hanh – Founder and CEO of Joy Foundation (Journey of Youth).
The ONLINE sharing session attracted over 80 participants who are young people actively working on social projects. Mr. Sieu Hanh shared from the story of volunteering when he was still a tertiary student to the process of nurturing and starting his own project. To date, Joy Foundation has successfully called for sponsorship from many different sources such as individuals, businesses and other organizations in Vietnam and in the world.
With experience in operating the Joy Foundation, he said that “in the era when social media and the Internet are thriving, it creates an effective connection channel to help projects access information and more funds. In addition, there are now many youth networks working in many different fields, which are platforms that youth teams should take advantage of building mutually supportive relationships.”
In order to ensure finance for the project, we should not “put all our eggs in one basket” to reduce risks. We need to find many different sources so that we have more opportunities for ongoing projects. We need a balance between the community and the business, should not be too dependent on one party, in some cases we can call for fundraising from individuals, and from those individuals themselves, the project can build communities interested in the project fields.
Besides, in order to effectively raise funds for projects, it is necessary to determine which target group we are targeting to raise funds and what their interests and priorities are. For example, with projects that want to raise funds in the community, if they address the concerns of society at that time, they will be able to raise funds more easily. Along with that, you also need to carefully prepare concise, clear, and easy-to-understand proposals so that the business and the community do not need to spend a lot of time to understand and agree to support.
Another essential factor for projects that want to apply for funding and raise funds, you need to have a specific plan to use the funds: how much money is needed? How will you spend it? What is the result of those costs? with the aim of convincing donors that their funds will be used effectively.
Through the sharing with lots of useful information from Mr. Sieu Hanh and the discussions and specific explanations for the participants, the youth, the social project teams were inspired and learned more experience in fundraising and effectively. Hopefully, from there, you can continue to implement more community projects and spread positive values to everyone.
You can review the sharing session for fundraising here: https://bit.ly/CSDSrecordingXintaitro