Fund Raising Campaign for Edhi Foundation
Like all the valuable resources which reflect sovereignty of the Creator. Like all those precious gifts which if once finished could not be won back, Abdul Sattar Edhi was that blessed gem. He was a universe in his own. Edhi was one of those fine and incredible human-assets to whom people not only of our own motherland but of masses all across world looked up as a real life superhero.
Fighting with financial poverty from a very tiny age, this Nobel laureate developed a sense of incredible empathy,love and devotion to live life for the welfare of humanity. Sigmund Freud, the great Psychoanalyst identified the initial 3–5 years of a child’s existence inculcate in them the personality patterns which get instilled and carried out through out child’s life. So was the case with Edhi sab. Edhi’s mother ingrained in him the love for caring other humans. The love for living for the other humans and the love to become the reason of other people’s joy and happiness.
His eye never discriminated humans on lame-standards of worldly cultures, sects, cults and religions. He was taught to celebrate the differences among human races and learn from the similarities. These were the values which transformed an economically deprived boy into a humanitarian, a global influencer and a Pakistani philanthropist. What an inspiring journey.
On discovering Edhi’s Foundation, and the services which his organization renders to our society captivated us all. Edhi Foundation runs world’s largest volunteer ambulance network, homeless shelters, animal shelters, rehabilitation centers and orphanages all over country. A surge of passion drove into us when we discovered more, visiting Edhi foundation’s website. A passion to work for welfare of needy, homeless and poor Pakistanis embedded in our hearts.
It accumulated with in us hijacking our souls and minds to start raising funds for this righteous organization. We built 60-second pitches (whose links are shared below) on informing who we are and why we are collecting funds for Edhi foundation. We circulated posters promulgating our call of donations and we spread our messages to masses all across Pakistan via physical meet ups and virtual fundraising campaigns i.e through Facebook, Youtube etc.
Here is the pitch we used to collect fund:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vx2nuFU_KbdANk-7NCmkQ41ETqwC_wY_/view?usp=sharing
Since we collected funds on physical meet-up basis and virtual means we followed both the methods like we worked individually as well as with group. We molded the strategy according to the demand of situation. Comparatively, on physical meet ups, our members were able to collect huge amount of money in comparison to the virtual promulgation campaign. Whole of the money was collected in a single Easypaisa account where at the end all members made transactions of collected money. Both the modes were different as far as we all experienced. It was much easier to convince people meeting them in-person to collect funds rather than exposing our posters and pitches to them.
There was a trust issue, that we observed while interacting with people. People were very concerned why actually we are collecting funds on behalf of Amal Academy for Edhi Foundation because Edhi Foundation has got their own online transaction system. They would ask very often, why should we give you the amount? :p But yeah, we learnt how to convince them on both the forums and it was much easier when collecting funds when individual team members met them physically.
And we also faced rejection, we experienced how insensitive and rigid do people become when it comes to donating funds for fellow beings- Humans! But we did not lose hope believing if any single effort made by us, by either raising voice or simply by our own mere presence become reason of some homeless individual sleeping in shelters provided by Edhi’s place. We thought if it might become reason of saving some poor, dying out of thirst and water etc. It would give us life. We pulled up our socks after every rejections and became more determined and humble after every success in collection.
The out reach of our team signified the promulgation of our message which reached up to 18–20 thousand individuals including both sources the physical as well as virtual meets. Majority of the population who already knew us contributed by donated the maximum possible amounts for them to help us fund Edhi Foundation. Among the reached population 10,000 were strangers to whom our message got conveyed. Among the contributors our family members, friends, teachers, hostel mates, fellows, relatives and some strangers are included. About 8000 people helped us collect funds while remaining 10–12 thousand ignored our say. But collecting even this amount of money satisfied us. It was the sacrifice of time, public speaking and public convincing skills which got rewarded by collection of Rs. 16060.
We are very delighted and excited by the fact that our voices, efforts and even in-person discussions when would become the reason of bringing prosperity in the life of any single person, we would feel blessed to just imagine that.We made difference in life of an individual. We contributed to happiness of an individual! We are so thankful to the Amal Team who taught us facing rejections right on face and trained us to still not lose a single ray of hope. Stay motivated, feel the power!
