need assistance with a charity. Why do so many not raise the necessary funds?

[Education4Africa]

Hi Guys, my first post here. 

Myself and 4 colleagues are looking to set up an ICO for a charity.  We have gone through many previously attempted ICO's for charity and it seems like most have failed along the way, or mainly failed to raise the necessary funds. 

From this forums experience and expertise, what are the main problems when trying to do an ICO for a non-profit/charity for an honest cause?

I would like constructive criticism, concerns and expectations.  If you were willing to donate 10 dollars or whatever the equivalent is in ether or btc, what are your expectations from the ICO, the token functionality (does it need a function or just a token to hold as proof of contribution), and charity (proof that e.g a borehole was drilled in the middle of africa for a village). 

so far here is where i think we differ from the rest. 

1) we are born, raised and do live in southern africa so we are on the ground and work with current non-profits so we know where they are making mistakes (an issue we have discussed amongst ourselves for many years).

2) we have considered partnering with other established non-profits that we have personally worked with in the past and raise the funds for them but there are LOTS of problems associated with that...TIA is one of the issues, so we are going to attempt to handle it ourselves

3) We know the areas that need funding, we are on the ground as mentioned before and we have physically visited the places that we hope to raise funds for along with hundreds more that we haven't visited but we know the situation is bad.

We do appreciate any assistance going forward and hopefully with the expertise from this forum, we hope to launch a successful Non-profit ICO.

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[Education4Africa]

apologies, just a quick one.  We have a website being developed now, and we are happy to share the "beta" version of it if anyone is keen just to get a general response before we start pushing it.  We don't want to make mistakes like many others so valuable expertise along with constructive criticism and value additions will be most welcome and appreciated.

[Rakabel619]

I will help you and i will invest more than 1000 usd in your ico . A chariyy is very helpful for poor people
We are people and we must to help each other

[Qunenin]

First things first, people don't like to give money. However, the truth is they don't like to give money to strangers. They will give money to friends and they will give money to family. However, people will give their time to total strangers. That is why the best place for a local charity to start, is with something like a walkathon. A total stranger would give you their time, and their effort in the walkathon. The same strangers will have their family and friends pay them money and donations for the amount of distance they walked. So the actual currency is being exchanged to a family and friends and then being forwarded to you.

[noormcs5]

First things first, people don't like to give money. However, the truth is they don't like to give money to strangers. They will give money to friends and they will give money to family. However, people will give their time to total strangers. That is why the best place for a local charity to start, is with something like a walkathon. A total stranger would give you their time, and their effort in the walkathon. The same strangers will have their family and friends pay them money and donations for the amount of distance they walked. So the actual currency is being exchanged to a family and friends and then being forwarded to you.

The total strangers only trusting you with their time. The same thing is true for businesses corporations, they have to go through a ridiculous number of Hoops to give you actual money. However if you're having a local walkathon, and you go to the local grocery store and ask them to donate to you several cases of water, and other bottled Health drinks for the walk, that is something that is much easier for the store owner to do.

[virasog]

I know that you're not talking about a local charity, the point is to show you the psychology that you have to take in order for you to make any money with a charity. Rather than do all the collecting yourself you provide a framework so that people can do the fundraising themselves, think of it as an affiliate Association. Give people the tools so that they can spread the word and they can ask for donations for you.

[Education4Africa]

I will help you and i will invest more than 1000 usd in your ico . A chariyy is very helpful for poor people
We are people and we must to help each other

Many Thanks for your kind offer.  We will be sure to send you the ICO details when ready.

[Education4Africa]

First things first, people don't like to give money. However, the truth is they don't like to give money to strangers. They will give money to friends and they will give money to family. However, people will give their time to total strangers. That is why the best place for a local charity to start, is with something like a walkathon. A total stranger would give you their time, and their effort in the walkathon. The same strangers will have their family and friends pay them money and donations for the amount of distance they walked. So the actual currency is being exchanged to a family and friends and then being forwarded to you.

This is very true.  We have tried a few fund raising tactics in the past and believe it or not I was part of a walkathon which didn't raise close to the amount the non-profit was trying to raise.  We know that the old conventional methods which may or may not work in first world countries have a less of a chance of success here simply because the amount of people who can afford to give away funds for charity are a lot lot less here.  This is why we turned to ico's but we have seen failures in previous attempts so we want to see how best we can try to make it successful.  There is nearly a walkathon every month for some cause at some point around south africa and the numbers are sad at times.  the traditional global NGO's are not getting as much funding as before and the governments here aren't doing much to fix the situation.  We want to see if we can do something different and radical in the school sector in Africa. 

[Education4Africa]

I know that you're not talking about a local charity, the point is to show you the psychology that you have to take in order for you to make any money with a charity. Rather than do all the collecting yourself you provide a framework so that people can do the fundraising themselves, think of it as an affiliate Association. Give people the tools so that they can spread the word and they can ask for donations for you.

Yes its definitely not a local one.  Depending on how much we raise, we start with the impoverished schools close to our major towns before we move into the rural schools.  A project of this nature requires a lot of funding and we have to look outside the box.  As i mentioned, using the old tried and tested methods don't work well in Africa in general simply because those who can afford to donate simply don't.  Spreading the word doesn't get far at all.  There is a very bad "giving back to where I started from" syndrome and those who have succeeded simply don't care for their roots.  All NGO funding is foreign based and the NGO's have a torrid time in countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe where they are being accused of partaking in quasi-governmental activities or being spies for foreign countries.  Us being local eliminates a lot of these problems. I do fully understand your point about the psychology, at this stage we have to seek modern unconventional means of raising the funds so for now we hope an ICO will work for us as the options are shockingly low here.

[sweetdesirez]

Buddy, charity is something else and ICO is something else. You cannot have an ICO for charity, but yes, can reserve a portion of the proceeds from ICO for charity, which luckily some do. For your reference, ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering which is related to a CryptoCurrency, so an ICO for charity is just a vague thing to ask for. You can do one thing, follow all the new crypto currencies and request them to allot some funds for charity, that will be a different thing altogether.

[Education4Africa]

Buddy, charity is something else and ICO is something else. You cannot have an ICO for charity, but yes, can reserve a portion of the proceeds from ICO for charity, which luckily some do. For your reference, ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering which is related to a CryptoCurrency, so an ICO for charity is just a vague thing to ask for. You can do one thing, follow all the new crypto currencies and request them to allot some funds for charity, that will be a different thing altogether.

Thanks, we do know the difference and we know technically one can't have an ICO for charity but many organisations have used ICO's to raise funds for initiatives.  e.g yopicoin and cleanwatercoin amongst others. 

[Kakmakr]

In my experience, people got burned several times with Scam Charities over the years and this is more a "trust" issue than anything else. You should establish a "trust" relationship first, before you start the ICO. Do a very public and transparent charity drive and place this video footage online.

Also link faces to the organizers of this charity. People will not dump money into faceless charities. A lot of people only donate to registered charities for the tax implications.

Trust should be your primary goal, not the ICO or the money. ^smile^