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Kihyo Community on local fundraising: a success story from online learners

 

 
Luke Bwambale Musubaho, fundraiser at Kihyo Community Development Forum, was in the middle of the online Local Fundraising course of the Change the Game Academy. To bring theory into practice, he decided to raise funds for a community meeting with the local authorities to discuss community problems and possible solutions.

Kihyo community is a poor neighborhood in the rural area of Kasese district, Uganda. People there suffer from the lack of government services and education opportunities, and they live in extreme poverty. Trying to improve living conditions in this area, Lukes team planned a meeting with authorities to discuss community problems and possible solutions. “At that time, I had completed 3 modules of the Change the Game Academy Local Fundraising course, and I decided to practice raising funds for this meeting”, Luke Bwambale Musubaho tells us.

The Forum started mobilising the community members, asking for cash and in-kind donations, and interestingly the community responded positively to this cause. “I realized I had a mentality of thinking that donations always have to come from abroad. In that thinking, we got stuck raising a total amount of 100$ in US dollars equivalent to 370.000 UGX (local currency). But when I started to apply the techniques gained from Change the Game Academy, we raised an extra 230.000 UGX in cash donations and an equivalent of 140.000 UGX in material contributions, from the members and institutions of the community. It was enough to pay all the costs of the event”, Luke explains.  

The event was a success and the Forum officially handed over a development report prepared for the occasion, to the Chairman of Local Council V. The Chairman of the Local Council soon realized the urgent needs of the community. Another positive point is that the organisation also gained community respect. “I later discovered that in the process of raising these funds, we were creating awareness of our activities. The Chairman also promised to support our community school with desks and consider the construction of much-needed additional classrooms in the coming government financial year. He further promised to guide us in the process of getting access to electrical power through the Rural Electrification Agency. Our action was a very successful one!”, he positively concluded the story.

Enthusiastic about the results, the  team plans to repeat the action next year, to multiply the donor audience by giving quarterly accountability and feedback on the organisation’s progress and development.