Summary
SICHREM, the South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring, is striving to make human rights a household concept, by empowering underprivileged groups of dalits, tribals, women, children and minorities. When they needed funds to start 50 Children Rights Education Clubs for children in government schools in different parts of Bangalore, they applied the knowledge and capacities acquired during a Change the Game Academy local fundraising training and developed a fundraising plan. This plan included individual and corporate fundraising and participation in a well-known yearly run.
Tips and lessons learned
1. It was a great learning experience. Especially after the Change the Game Academy training conducted by Smile Foundation.
2. We were taught how to make posters and banners, how to make a local fundraising plan, how to approach prospective donors, how to implement the documentation formalities for an event, etc.
3. The preparation time for the marathon was less than a month, which put undue pressure on the limited number of team members. This will be taken care of in the coming years.
4. We also need to spend more time on building more visibility alongside the fundraising, especially during the TCS marathon.
Review by Wilde Ganzen Foundation
A sporting event is always an excellent opportunity to get publicity, not only for your own organisation, but also for the companies that are willing to sponsor the event. If you make them an offer they cannot resist, and perform well, you may have won yourself a couple of faithful sponsors. That is exactly what SICHREM managed to achieve. Read their story and feel free to copy it.
Details
Short description of the organisation the funds were raised for
SICHREM is the acronym for South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring. Concerned citizens, who were involved with the civil liberties movement earlier, started SICHREM in 1995, as a response to the growing insensitivity to the rule of law. The founders reckoned that in order to build a responsible civil society it would be necessary to go through a process of education, sensitisation and intervention. Hence education and monitoring have been identified as the main thrust of the programme.
SICHREM is striving to make human rights a household concept. They seek to empower the disempowered groups of dalits, tribals, women, children and minorities to protect their individual and collective rights for a dignified life, through education, monitoring and mobilising civil society for concerted action.
Short description of the project or programme the funds were raised for
SICHREM chose a specific project for their local fundraising activity: Children Rights Education (CRE) Clubs for children in government schools in different parts of the city (Bangalore). They planned to set up and run 50 such clubs and needed approximately 3 Lakhs INR for stationery and snacks for all participating children. Their project cost included the cost of developing the module, remuneration for a resource person/ volunteer, student refreshments and logistics costs.
Summary of fundraising action
The fundraising activity originally planned was mostly personal solicitation, for which they had calculated a per-child cost as the unit. During the after training coaching sessions SICHREM came up with a refined proposal, which described two opportunities for fundraising. One was still personal solicitation, but the second one was participating in the TCS marathon which was organised by TATA Consultancy Services. The fundraising team identified 20 runners to run the 10K or 5K Majja run and mobilised a fee from them. The planning of the marathon happened between February an April 2022, while the individual solicitation was planned between April and September 2022.
SICHREM circulated posters via WhatsApp, emails, posting on the notice boards of schools, colleges, corporates. India Cares Foundation provided a booklet which was used during meetings with individuals and corporates to promote the event and explain the event details.
Objectives
1. To reach out to many people to take part in the marathon, also in order to get more publicity and recognition for SICHREM.
2. To support SICHREM's local fundraising targets / activities.
3. To build awareness in the society that SICHREM exists and is ready to help and reach out to the general public for their needs / rights, etc.
Targeted donors
1. Individual donors
2. Corporates
3. Colleges / schools / clubs / communities
Among the donors were 11 new contacts who had not contributed to SICHREM's activities before.
Results
| Cost/benefit |
National currency (INR |
Euro |
| Total amount raised |
188,107 |
2,334 |
| (-) Total amount invested |
14,000 |
174 |
| Net amount raised |
174,107 |
2,160 |
Accounting details
Income:
INR.1,38,107.00 (from individual runners)
INR.50,000.00 (corporate funding)
Costs:
NR.14,000.00, for banners and T-shirts that the
participants wore.
Description of preparatory work
1. Attend meetings / workshops with the organisers, to streamline the plan for raising funds.
2. Create posters / banners / mailers, etc. for the event.
3. Submit all the necessary documentation of our NGO to the organisers in order to create a page for us to raise funds.
4. Start campaigning for runners (individual as well as corporates) through posters, WhatsApp, e-mail, word of mouth. etc.
5. Visit prospective runners.
Description of implementation
1. Submit the runners list along with their necessary IDs, photos, etc. to the organisers.
2. Collect the bibs from the organisers and distribute them to the runners.
3. Look out for companies to sponsor T-shirts for the runners, printing the logo of the sponsor company on one side of the shirt and our SICHREM logo on the other side.
Follow up: Donor appreciation and acknowledgement
Donors were very happy with the outcome of the TCS World 10K marathon in which they participated and gave us a good feedback. They expressed their willingness to take part in future events like this.
Plans to repeat the action
Yes, TCS organises this marathon every year and we have been part of it for the past 10 odd years. We will take part in this event every year as our organisation is listed with them.
