The Hope Effect: Raising $40,000 for Orphan Care

18 months ago, with help from the Becoming Minimalist community, we created and launched a nonprofit organization called The Hope Effect.

The Hope Effect seeks to improve orphan care in developing nations by focusing on solutions that better mimic the family-unit. Rather than constructing large, institutional-style orphanages with high child to adult ratios, we build smaller homes in a campus setting that feature two parents and six children, thereby providing kids with more attention and affection. To learn more about our unique approach to family-based orphan care, watch this short video.

Since launching The Hope Effect, we have raised over $300,000 for orphan care, have built a family-style home for orphans in Siguatepeque, Honduras (pictured above), and are in the process of buying land in San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico for our first full, orphan care campus.

San Luis Río Colorado is a city of nearly 200,000 people located on the US-Mexico border. It has been identified by our Board of Directors as a community with a specific need for orphan care solutions and we’ve been approved by the State of Sonora, Mexico and the local government as a tax-exempt organization for that very cause.

Our short-term goal is to build an orphan care campus in every border town of Sonora Mexico over the next five years. But our longer-range vision is to influence orphan caretakers around the world with this reproducible model of family-based care.

But we need some help getting there. And I want to present our current need to the same community that has rallied around our mission so many times in the past.

One of our goals with The Hope Effect is to positively influence how nonprofit organizations are seen in the public eye. From the very beginning, we committed our organization to a 100% Model of Fundraising. Every penny donated to The Hope Effect is used directly for orphan care (construction and operation of existing homes).

To accomplish this, our administrative/business expenses are covered exclusively by private donations. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), at this point in time, our donations for orphan care work have exceeded our administrative gains. The public donations received for orphan care work have exceeded the private donations we have received for administrative support.

To put it another way, we have $150,000 in the bank set aside for our next project in San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico, but not the administrative support to get it done. We have the financial capability to begin construction, but not the personnel to administrate the project.

To keep up with the organization’s growth, we are seeking to raise $100,000 this summer to expand our administrative capabilities. To date, we have raised $45,000 toward that goal and have secured another $15,000 in commitments. At this point, we are only $40,000 short of the goal.

Would you like to partner with The Hope Effect in this specific way by making a donation of $250, $500, or $1,000? In exchange for this one-time or recurring gift, the organization will communicate with you specifically about our operational advances and how your money is being used. We’ll consider you part of the team helping the organization thrive in this very special capacity.

To partner with The Hope Effect by supporting our administrative growth, donate here.

In many ways, donations for operations and staffing have as significant an impact as donations to orphan care work. Based on nonprofit analysis, every dollar given to operations is returned 2-3 fold in public donations for direct work in the field. As you might imagine, increased staffing provides more capacity and capability for increased fundraising outside the organization.

We are fully-licensed as a 501(c)(3) so your donation is tax-deductible within the US. And if you have any further questions about the organization, leave them here in the comment section or email me directly. I’ll be here to answer them for you.

from Becoming Minimalist http://ift.tt/2uGboZQ