The Giving Premier League: a recap!

What started as an experiment to discover the most generous region in the country, left us in amazement, with a total or Rs 1.17 Crore being raised, over a period of 40 days, thanks to the contribution of 6772 supporters of the 105 NGOs participating.

Empathetic East led the League with a cumulative of 33 lakh being raised with Parivaar Education Society raising the maximum amount of Rs 26 Lakh, followed by Northern Knights at 3 lakh where Project KHEL raised the highest in their team. The others, Heartland Heroes, Bengaluru Bravehearts and Chennai Changemakers raised approximately 18 to 15 lakh.

LetzChange allows NGO supporters to raise funds by launching campaigns, where they can invite their friends, family and involve their connections. The whole idea of leveraging their social network to raise resources for the cause that they are passionate about, was well recorded this time as approximately 74% of the total funds raised, i.e. Rs. 73 lakh+ has been collected on these campaigns itself.  A huge token of appreciation to Deepa Araganji (Vidya Poshak) and Poornima Achari (Vidya Poshak) as well as Navin Vishnoi (Sant Singaji) for campaigning for their organizations and securing the highest number of donations.

The Giving Premier League was an attempt to bring the people of the country together, to develop their region by making active contribution to NGOs in their zones. The teams were carefully divided, ensuring that each geographical part of India was well represented and each zone had a somewhat equal number of participating charities.

So we had Chennai Changemakers, Empathetic East, Bangaluru Bravehearts, Magnanimous Maharashtra, Heartland Heroes, Telugu Titans and Northern Knights in the running to prove that theirs is the most generous region in the country.

The NGOs are working for diverse causes, including childcare, education, women empowerment, skill development and livelihood. It was a brilliant opportunity for NGOs in zonal clusters, to collectively attract people/ potential donors and showcase the multiple activities undertaken by them to serve their beneficiaries.

Every year LetzChange hosts the fundraising challenge to incentivize NGOs to garner resources by offering a matching grant up to a certain percentage, according to how much the organization has raised. However the previous formats usually asked for linear thinking on part of NGOs, to get more donors or persuade them to donate more.  However this year, what was different was the grouping of 10 to 12 NGOs together, whereby some were well established in the development sector and others lacked exposure. It was an attempt to make the NGOs learn from one-another about better utilization of the LetzChange portal for raising funds as well as leveraging the massive reach of social media to draw attention to their cause.

Throughout two months that the League Challenge was ongoing, the team managers assisted NGO founders/persons-of-contact of charities, to understand their strengths and weaknesses and leverage this opportunity to maximize their incoming donations as well as win the highest amount as matching grant.

The NGOs raising the maximum amount along with the highest number of unique supporters would have received a matching grant of 30% and 25% respectively however, no participating NGO would have left the league disheartened as LetzChange assured a minimum of 15% as matching grant for every participating NGO. The rest would have won based on their performance, depending on the slab system as given below.

All NGOs have a different set of strengths and weaknesses, depending on their volunteer network, beneficiary network or corporate partnership and multiple other factors that contribute to its growth and well-being. This is that time of the year when NGOs come together to put in concentrated efforts to achieve targets. It’s beautiful to see volunteers passionately work towards making their organization win the highest prize money by optimizing their strengths in accordance with the basic ground rules laid out.  They are willing to conduct live events, push their boundaries to reach out to more and more donors as well as undertake innovative campaigns during this time.

The most successful NGOs are those that have worked hard throughout the year, putting in consistent efforts to communicate their vision and providing regular updates about their performance, to their beneficiaries a well as volunteers. Networking takes time, so does adoption of technology. And the best performing NGOs are those, who, year after year make efforts to be better at not only the former but patiently help donors understand the ease with which they can use the portal and the simplicity in social giving that they can experience.

The results were unexpected. For the longest time Heartland Heroes was leading with Northern Knights in tow. However, weeks before the ending, Empathetic East took a lead as Parivaar Education Society charged ahead and finished first!

The Giving Premier League was a joyous experience indeed, engaging the entire team in the planning and execution of the campaign, from the very scratch.  While the team saw a brilliant ending to the financial year, one can only imagine what the future holds for the championship in the years to come.