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Fundraising Resources

Thank you for your inspiration to serve the children of Bhatti Mines by raising funds to support the school. This page has information and resources for fundraising; please contact us if you would like further support in your fundraising efforts.

To download a brochure about Bhatti Mines School to use in your fundraising endeavors, either by printing or attaching to emails, please click here:

bhatti mines school fundraising brochure

There are many ways to fundraise for the school. In addition to creating fundraising webpages, some community members are creating benefit events to support the school, charging a ticket price to listen to music or enjoy Indian food, while offering information about the project. Some are approaching local businesses and asking for their support, whether through a direct contribution, donating a percentage of profits, devoting profits on a certain day of the week to the school, or donating proceeds from a single item (a yoga class, for example) to the school. There is also value in growing awareness about the school: simply posting information in a store or school can help spread the word.

To download a greeting card with information about Bhatti Mines School that you can print and use to thank your donors, please click here:

India card - outside
India card - inside

The remainder of this page has complete information about how to create your own fundraising webpage through Firstgiving, which you can then share with your family, friends, and community to raise funds for the Bhatti Mines School, and for your Retreat expenses if you choose.

Please note, however, that it takes Firstgiving a month to get funds transferred to Amala Foundation for use, once the fundraising is finished and the page is closed; for this reason, we recommend you collect personal checks from donors as much as possible if you are raising your funds to attend the Service Retreat. You will need to have your $2,500 to cover Retreat expenses available by the first week of October.

If you have donors who want to give via credit card toward your Retreat expenses, you can direct them to the Amala Paypal site, and tell them to make a note on their donation that it is for you; then please let us know the name of the donor and amount of the contribution so we can put it toward your costs. Here is the direct link to that site:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6931100

You can also direct donors to the webpage about India on the Amala Foundation website, and have them click on the ‘Donate’ button, which will then take them to thePaypal donation page:
http://www.amalafoundation.org/India.html

Please be aware that all online payment services charge a fee per transaction, so all credit card donations incur a debit of between 3% (Paypal) and 7.5% (Firstgiving) of the total donation. This means, for example, that Amala will receive only $92.50 of a $100 donation through Firstgiving. Please consider this in your fundraising.

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Creating Your Fundraising Webpage

Here is the sample Firstgiving fundraising webpage for Bhatti Mines School:  http://www.firstgiving.com/bhatti_mines_school  To get started with your own fundraising page, open another browser window and
go to the Amala Foundation Firstgiving start page:

http://www.firstgiving.com/25182

Click on the link that says "Make your own fundraising page for the Amala Foundation."  Choose ‘6 months’ for how long you will accept donations...though in truth we will have to end the pages before the trip in order to receive the money.
 Then you will need to create an account, so choose a user name and login.  From there it lets you choose from 4 templates. I used the ‘Use Your Imagination’ one. Basically, the deal is that you have to start from scratch, then add a photo, add text, then link to a you tube video of the school. You also need to set your fundraising goal.

You can cut and paste the wording from my page, and then customize it for yourself, but the image and the video you’ll need to upload again to your page, so…  I’ll include a few photos at the end of this page…you can choose which one you want as your photo, then drag it to your desktop to download it to your computer. Then, to upload it to your page: just click on ‘change this image’ below the photo on the left of the page, then choose ‘upload a photo from your computer,’ then ‘browse’ and find the image on your desktop, and click ‘upload’…once it appears, click ‘I am happy with my image,’ and it will appear on your page. You can then write a simple caption in the blank below the photo, such as “The children of Bhatti Mines, New Delhi, India.”  Then, to embed the slideshow: once you create your page, save it...then click on ‘design and share your page’...then click on ‘add video from you tube’…then enter the slideshow URL in the ‘web address from you tube’ blank:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuBO2_C40l4 
…then upload the video. Note that it won’t show up on the page you are editing, only on the live version...so to see your page in all its glory, click on the link to the page itself, which is its own URL you can share with your community.

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Donor Response Letter

One last important point is that the box at the very bottom when you are editing your page, that lets you customize your thank you letter, should be written as a 501c3 donor response form from Amala Foundation; that way people can print and keep it for tax purposes. You can personalize it if you would like, but it should include this info, which you will need to retype as you will not be able to pull the text from this page:

Thank you very much for supporting the Bhatti Mines School.  Your donation helps give these children an alternative to child labor, and hope for a future beyond poverty.  The Amala Foundation is a 501(c)3 non profit humanitarian service organization: your donation is fully tax deductible (EIN# 77-0631194).  Please contact us if you have any questions about the school, the service trip, or other ways you can support the effort to end to child labor.  With deep gratitude,  Amala Foundation
www.AmalaFoundation.org heather@amalafoundation.org 1006 S. 8th Street, Austin, TX 78704 800-476-1148

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Sample Text

I will also include here the information I put on the Firstgiving page, in case you have difficulty pulling it off the site itself and need to retype it (you will not be able to cut and paste from here, only from the Firstgiving site).

This is the basic information about the school and the trip. You can edit this text to be more personal for your own efforts ~ especially if you are trying to raise the funds for your own retreat expenses, as this info is geared more toward raising funds for the school itself.

Most likely, you will have to work with the formatting when you cut and paste the information from the site. To make the link to the India webpage work on your Firstgiving page, you can click on the little world icon with a chain link in the top row of the toolbar, and enter the address of the page: http://www.amalafoundation.org/India.html

Here is the text from the sample Firstgiving page:

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Right now, there are 17 million child laborers in India...

I am responding to this issue in our global community by traveling to India this fall to serve the children of Bhatti Mines School in Delhi, and by raising funds with the Amala Foundation to support the school for the coming year.
I am asking for your support...

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It costs 40 cents per day to educate and feed a child.

For 80 dollars a day, 200 children
are given an alternative to child labor, a way out of poverty, and hope for the future.

THE NEED: Bhatti Mines is one of the most impoverished areas of Delhi: slum-like conditions offer little shelter, no running water, no health services, no schools, and few jobs other than manual labor, which many children begin at a young age to help support their families.

THE RESPONSE: Santosh and Archana Singh began teaching the children of Bhatti Mines 3 years ago out of a deep calling to address the extreme poverty in their community. The Amala Foundation has mobilized to support the Bhatti Mines School by fundraising for the school and traveling to India to serve the children this fall.   THE SERVICE: This model of engaged service honors both the fundraising and the hands-on work in India as equally important components of the service. The goal is solidarity, not charity: working together to empower not only these children in India to envision a future beyond poverty and illiteracy, but also to empower our own communities to make a difference, to respond to the issues of child labor and poverty in our global community.

THE COST: $25,500 sustains the school for one year, ensuring that 200 children receive an education, eat every day, drink clean water, have books and clothes, and are given the opportunity to thrive.

THE GOAL: The goal of the school is sustainability. In two years, the school will be eligible for government funding...until that time, your support will enable the school to continue serving the children of Bhatti Mines.

With your help, this year in India 200 children will be educated and fed every day... 200 children will rise out of child labor and discover hope for a future beyond poverty.
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Thank you for your contribution to the Bhatti Mines School.

I am deeply grateful for your support.

Blessings, Heather

“When we first approached the children’s parents about letting the children come to school, they told me the children were born for working as laborers, not for education. They said we could not make the children learn. Now they call us the ‘future makers’ of their children.”
- Santosh Singh, Founder & Teacher, Bhatti Mines School

For more information about the Bhatti Mines School project, and the service trip to the school this fall, please visit the Amala Foundation's website:

http://www.amalafoundation.org/India.html

The Amala Foundation is a 501(c)3 non profit humanitarian service organization. All donations are fully tax deductible. Please call me at 808-896-7748 if you have any questions about the school, the service trip, or more ways you can support the effort to end to child labor. Thank you for your willingness to respond.

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Photos For Webpage

Here are some photos to choose from for your fundraising page...
just drag the one you like to your desktop to download,
then follow the instructions above to upload your photo to your site.
You might also want to include a different photo in your personal email
to your community asking for support and giving the link to your page.

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Sharing your Fundraising Webpage

I have found the best way to share your Firstgiving fundraising page, once it is created, is to include the link in a personal email you send out to your contacts, that explains what you are doing and what you are asking, then gives the link to the page. This way, you can also keep your fundraising page more about the school and project, and have your email to your community be more personal, about why you are inspired to devote yourself to this service.

There is also a link on Firstgiving that lets you share your page with contacts you enter, but this method results in a less personal email that comes from Firstgiving, instead of from your own email address. If you write your own email and include the link to your page, you can also include one of the photos from the school, and format the email to be more compelling. You might also want to include a line of assurance in this email, such as: “All donations are secure and sent directly to Amala Foundation; you will receive a printable record of your tax-deductible donation.”

You can also share your page through your Facebook account, by clicking the Facebook link on the ‘manage your fundraising page’ window.

I also recommend sending a personal follow-up email to your contacts a couple of weeks after the initial email, thanking them for their donation, giving a progress report, and inviting those who haven’t donated yet to do so, remembering to include the link to your page again.

You might also want to send a personal thank you email to those who donate. You can set up your page to notify you via email each time someone donates through Firstgiving. When they do, they will receive a printable record of their donation from Firstgiving, but this is not a personal thank you letter from you. And if someone donates to you via check, or through the Amala site, they will not automatically receive this email; you will need to keep track of these donations so we can send a letter to your donors for tax purposes.

Lastly, you will want to send a follow up email to everyone who donates, letting them know what their donation made possible for the children of Bhatti Mines, especially if you are traveling to India and have personal experiences and photos to share after the journey.

I know it sounds like a lot of details, but the process is fairly simple once you make your page and spread the word in your community. Please call or email if you have questions or need help creating your page:

Contact

As always, call if you have questions
or would like further support in fundraising:

Heather
808-896-7748

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