Charity Meets App And It's Happily Ever After
Catherine from Children's Helpers Worldwide talks about how the Elbi app is making global connections with their local charitable projects.
A meeting of hearts and minds
Counting coins may seem like a routine task for charities, but last December, it led to an amazing, digital partnership for Children's Helpers Worldwide (CHW). CHW is a small volunteer-run charity based in London. We work with organisations in different parts of the world, supporting children living in difficult circumstances, due to poverty, ill health or other issues. As part of our 2014 #GivingTuesday campaign, we ran a coin collection to raise funds to repair the playground at New Life International Children's Home in Ghana. Some volunteers helped to count the coins on #GivingTuesday. One volunteer, Elmer, told me about a great new app that was being developed, which would allow people to do social good on the go. The idea was intriguing. Elmer put me in touch with the team at Elbi and the partnership began!
Meaningful little actions
Our first campaign on Elbi, last week, was for a South African organisation, ORT SA CAPE. ORT SA CAPE runs various programmes to enhance the quality of education for children from impoverished areas of Cape Town, focusing on critical educational challenges in Literacy and the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). CHW has just launched an appeal to fundraise for one of its robotics workshops. The children at last week's holiday workshop learned how to build and programme various robots. Elbi users drew some really great robo-crocs and robo-birds, for the kids to take home as souvenirs of what they learned. Debbie at ORT SA CAPE printed these and gave them to the children. The children were delighted with the pictures and have even written thank you letters! The people who donated to this campaign, by using Elbi's Love Button, have helped to raise funds towards the next workshop.
Global connections; local projects
There are some great connections between the projects CHW works with in Cape Town. ORT SA CAPE is going to invite the children at two creches we support to take part in its workshops. Elbi adds an international dimension to these local links. People from around the world can join in with the wonderful work these South African organisations are doing, by sending photos, drawings and even words of inspiration and encouragement to the children. A great thing about Elbi is that the charities then send updates, so if you do an action through Elbi, you can see the children reacting to this and can see how happy they are.
Here are the photos that Debbie at ORT SA CAPE took last week, showing lots of smiles, as the children held up the pictures people drew for them on Elbi!
Help the creche... soon on Elbi
I first visited Rooikappie Pre-School Centre, in Cape Town, a couple of years ago and I am grateful to another organisation CHW has linked with in South Africa, The Future Factory, and its founder Anne, for introducing CHW to this wonderful creche! Around 50 children, aged 3-6, from disadvantaged backgrounds, attend Rooikappie. Many of the children live in areas where there are problems with gangsterism and drugs. Rooikappie is providing them with activities that aim to facilitate their intellectual, emotional, social and physical development. During the day, their programme includes creative time, music and movement, the teaching of rhymes, story time, and outdoor play.
New Life in Ghana was the first organisation CHW ever fundraised for, and we are looking forward to running a campaign for them in the future, as well as for our partner organisations in other countries. Elbi makes it possible to do good for charities all over the world, from wherever you are. You could be on the bus, on the way to work, and could be doing an action to help children in Argentina, for example! I have been using Elbi myself, to make a difference. A diverse range of charities has been featured on Elbi so far and it has been great to support different causes, from environmental to animal rescue, to youth.
Charities come in all shapes and sizes
They may have one or two members of staff, be run by volunteers (like CHW), or be a large organisation, well-known nationally or even globally. I believe that Elbi could make a difference to all these sorts of organisations. Charities can use Elbi to allow people to support them and interact with them. I am always looking for ways to show CHW's supporters what a great difference they are making and Elbi offers a new and exciting way to do this. In turn, people with busy lives, can conveniently make a difference on the go, and support a wide range of causes through Elbi. It is often said that technology is making the world smaller, and through Elbi, you are able to make a difference to charities around the world, by doing simple actions through the app.
Thanks to supporters, old and new
During the summer, we took part in GlobalGiving UK's Gateway Crowdfunding Challenge. We had to raise $3,830 (£2,500) from 50 people in 5 weeks. We were supporting a tutoring and mentoring programme run by the local organisation, Refugiu in Romania - a project which grew out of our partnership with another local charity, called FAST. This was our first ever fundraising challenge. Thanks to our supporters and to our volunteers, who shared the campaign, 61 people donated $10,135 (£6,615), allowing the programme to be funded for a couple of years!
To the future!
Volunteering, contributing and crowdfunding are all ways our supporters have recently helped CHW, and now that Elbi has launched, people will be able to help and interact with us through the app. Our partner organisations are doing amazing work, and we realise that most people will not have the chance to visit them and see this first-hand. Of course it is possible to get information about our projects from our website and social media accounts, but Elbi offers a more proactive way to become involved.
I am glad that CHW has the opportunity to work with Elbi. It is a great partnership that allows the people who have downloaded Elbi to join us in doing good and in raising awareness, funds and smiles!
Download Elbi from the App Store and do good on the go.
Visit Elbi.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
A meeting of hearts and minds
Counting coins may seem like a routine task for charities, but last December, it led to an amazing, digital partnership for Children's Helpers Worldwide (CHW). CHW is a small volunteer-run charity based in London. We work with organisations in different parts of the world, supporting children living in difficult circumstances, due to poverty, ill health or other issues. As part of our 2014 #GivingTuesday campaign, we ran a coin collection to raise funds to repair the playground at New Life International Children's Home in Ghana. Some volunteers helped to count the coins on #GivingTuesday. One volunteer, Elmer, told me about a great new app that was being developed, which would allow people to do social good on the go. The idea was intriguing. Elmer put me in touch with the team at Elbi and the partnership began!
Meaningful little actions
Our first campaign on Elbi, last week, was for a South African organisation, ORT SA CAPE. ORT SA CAPE runs various programmes to enhance the quality of education for children from impoverished areas of Cape Town, focusing on critical educational challenges in Literacy and the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). CHW has just launched an appeal to fundraise for one of its robotics workshops. The children at last week's holiday workshop learned how to build and programme various robots. Elbi users drew some really great robo-crocs and robo-birds, for the kids to take home as souvenirs of what they learned. Debbie at ORT SA CAPE printed these and gave them to the children. The children were delighted with the pictures and have even written thank you letters! The people who donated to this campaign, by using Elbi's Love Button, have helped to raise funds towards the next workshop.
Global connections; local projects
There are some great connections between the projects CHW works with in Cape Town. ORT SA CAPE is going to invite the children at two creches we support to take part in its workshops. Elbi adds an international dimension to these local links. People from around the world can join in with the wonderful work these South African organisations are doing, by sending photos, drawings and even words of inspiration and encouragement to the children. A great thing about Elbi is that the charities then send updates, so if you do an action through Elbi, you can see the children reacting to this and can see how happy they are.
Here are the photos that Debbie at ORT SA CAPE took last week, showing lots of smiles, as the children held up the pictures people drew for them on Elbi!
Help the creche... soon on Elbi
I first visited Rooikappie Pre-School Centre, in Cape Town, a couple of years ago and I am grateful to another organisation CHW has linked with in South Africa, The Future Factory, and its founder Anne, for introducing CHW to this wonderful creche! Around 50 children, aged 3-6, from disadvantaged backgrounds, attend Rooikappie. Many of the children live in areas where there are problems with gangsterism and drugs. Rooikappie is providing them with activities that aim to facilitate their intellectual, emotional, social and physical development. During the day, their programme includes creative time, music and movement, the teaching of rhymes, story time, and outdoor play.
New Life in Ghana was the first organisation CHW ever fundraised for, and we are looking forward to running a campaign for them in the future, as well as for our partner organisations in other countries. Elbi makes it possible to do good for charities all over the world, from wherever you are. You could be on the bus, on the way to work, and could be doing an action to help children in Argentina, for example! I have been using Elbi myself, to make a difference. A diverse range of charities has been featured on Elbi so far and it has been great to support different causes, from environmental to animal rescue, to youth.
Charities come in all shapes and sizes
They may have one or two members of staff, be run by volunteers (like CHW), or be a large organisation, well-known nationally or even globally. I believe that Elbi could make a difference to all these sorts of organisations. Charities can use Elbi to allow people to support them and interact with them. I am always looking for ways to show CHW's supporters what a great difference they are making and Elbi offers a new and exciting way to do this. In turn, people with busy lives, can conveniently make a difference on the go, and support a wide range of causes through Elbi. It is often said that technology is making the world smaller, and through Elbi, you are able to make a difference to charities around the world, by doing simple actions through the app.
Thanks to supporters, old and new
During the summer, we took part in GlobalGiving UK's Gateway Crowdfunding Challenge. We had to raise $3,830 (£2,500) from 50 people in 5 weeks. We were supporting a tutoring and mentoring programme run by the local organisation, Refugiu in Romania - a project which grew out of our partnership with another local charity, called FAST. This was our first ever fundraising challenge. Thanks to our supporters and to our volunteers, who shared the campaign, 61 people donated $10,135 (£6,615), allowing the programme to be funded for a couple of years!
To the future!
Volunteering, contributing and crowdfunding are all ways our supporters have recently helped CHW, and now that Elbi has launched, people will be able to help and interact with us through the app. Our partner organisations are doing amazing work, and we realise that most people will not have the chance to visit them and see this first-hand. Of course it is possible to get information about our projects from our website and social media accounts, but Elbi offers a more proactive way to become involved.
I am glad that CHW has the opportunity to work with Elbi. It is a great partnership that allows the people who have downloaded Elbi to join us in doing good and in raising awareness, funds and smiles!
Download Elbi from the App Store and do good on the go.
Visit Elbi.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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