HYDERABAD: If facts and figures impress you, here are some interesting ones to show these are not so dark times, after all. Over the last one month, we have seen more than 5x increase in customer queries and a 65% increase in the number of fundraisers. The most popular causes are relief material, medical supplies, target groups etc, and cities. The online funding campaigns not only span across helping stranded migrants and daily wage labourers get access to essentials and community kitchens but it has also come to the aid of peripheral communities such as trans people, male sex workers, circus artistes, drivers, delivery personnel, rural artisans, dancers and freelance workers. The amount that has been raised on these crowdfunding campaigns for Covid alone in the last two months.
Mayukh Choudhury, co-founder and CEO, Milaap, gives us a few answers.
Are there any city/state-specific figures in terms of how many campaigns have been run from Hyderabad in the past month, and in the past year?
So far, there have been about 15,000 fundraisers from Hyderabad. There has definitely been an increase in the fundraisers set up, in the last 1-2 years. In fact, early half of these have been set up within the last one year.
How has been the response from donors specifically in Hyderabad in terms of raising adequate funds?
There are more 4.11 lakh donors from Hyderabad. Fundraisers from AP and Telangana also receive a lot of support from diasporic communities living abroad. So, far fundraisers from the city have raised nearly Rs 71 crore.
Information on some city/state-specific campaigns?
Suresh Ediga, a software engineer based in New York, is also an author and farming enthusiast. He started an online fundraising campaign on Milaap to help guest workers and their families stranded in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. His fundraiser has received Rs 5.4 lakh from people across the world. Bathing soaps, detergent, milk powder and other such essentially have already been distributed to more than 4,000 people on the ground.
Ridhi, a 12-year-old from Hyderabad has managed to raise nearly 8.3 Lakh under her initiative, ‘Care-ona’. The project is to help underprivileged families affected by the lockdown. She first started an initiative to distribute ration kits to 200 families. When she ran out of her own pocket money, she penned down the heart-warming letter of her realization to encourage support from her friends and family too. As help started pouring in, she started an online crowdfunding campaign on Milaap, with the help of her mother Shilpa. 2000 kits have been distributed so far
The culture of giving
Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO, ImpactGuru.com, says that amount raised on these crowdfunding campaigns for Covid-19 alone in the last two months is astounding. “Total money raised from all Covid-19 Fundraisers on ImpactGuru.com till April 30 has been Rs 11 cr+. NGO KVN Foundation is spearheading ‘FeedMyCity’, a drive which is providing nutritious meals to needy families in five cities including Hyderabad. KVN Foundation has already served over 4,60,000 meals in 10 days! In a quick span, these campaigns have cumulatively raised over Rs 40 lakh on ImpactGuru.com. Large corporates such as Ford are fundraising on ImpactGuru to support their driver partners through the Office Ride Driver Fund. “Crowdfunding is driven by a culture of generosity and a high propensity for people to pay digitally through social media. Singer Shaan initiated an ImpactGuru fundraiser to support daily wage workers impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown. The beneficiary for the fundraiser is AaKanKsha and HelpAge India,” he concludes.
Local Covid-19 campaigns
Archana Vohra, Director, Small and Medium Business, Facebook India, says, “At a time like this, Facebook is enabling crowd-funding platforms to reach the right audience, bring in new donors, and create timely awareness about COVID-19 causes. The sharp targeting offered by Facebook enables these platforms to reach new donors across the country and even within a city such as Hyderabad really quickly. These platforms across the Facebook family of apps continue to raise money and awareness not only for the more well-known COVID-19 causes such as feeding the poor and supporting healthcare workers but also for niche communities impacted by the pandemic such as transgender communities, folk music artists, and the great Bombay circus.
— Manju Latha Kalanidhi
kalanidhi@newindianexpress.com
@mkalanidhi