Fund raising for NGOs: A challenge

One of the thorny challenges NGOs face is fund raising. There are several small NGOs that are trying to do good work but because of lack of funding, they cannot create the impact they set out to. It’s common experience these days that there are NGOs/partners that are trying to raise funds inside malls. It’s important for us as society to pay attention to the work NGOs are doing but it’s hard to connect people with this work in a setting where they will be receptive. While interacting with NGOs, Sukhayan noticed this challenge and decided to find a way to help.

Bring together interest in arts and fund raising

Sukhayan is passionate about arts and it’s passionate about social impact. No wonder then that we decided to create a way to bring both these causes together. This is how Raat Ki Chaadar Tale came to be. There’s nothing new or earth shattering about Raat Ki Chaadar Tale. It’s a musical event of popular Hindi and regional language songs based on the theme of night. The idea was to create an experience that the audience enjoys.

Here’s the difference: Sukhayan decided to create and offer the experience free of cost! The audience is not charged anything for the event. Come and enjoy, no obligation. It’s a beautiful experience of carefully selected songs, a singer like Madhura Datar who is considered the one carrying the lineage of the maestro Asha Bhosle forward, and an awesome team of accompanists.

But the biggest difference is this: this concert is dedicated to promoting an NGO. As soon as you step into the auditorium, everything is about this NGO. There are booths by the NGO helping you get familiar with their work. There are brochures to breeze through. More importantly, we don’t really invite the NGO folks to come up on the stage and talk about their work, interrupting the concert. The anchor, who generally is a celebrity, doesn’t just talk about the songs and music and cut jokes. They introduce the audience to the NGO. They tell stories about the work of the NGO, about the challenges they face, about the impact they are creating. And they appeal to the audience to donate money if they feel the work of the NGO is valuable. That also is completely voluntary.

What do we achieve through this?

We offered an audience an amazing musical experience; they had a good time. We contributed to societal well being. And we connected them to an NGO. Maybe, we don’t raise massive funds. But along with the funds we raise, we connect NGOs with many, many people that form a relationship with them that later transforms into a partnership - as donors, as volunteers, as supporters. We create a future pipeline of well wishers. NGOs feel that’s the biggest gain they have through these efforts.