Hello Rodinhooders,
We are working on a new social venture GiveHope
We are creating an eco-system of advertisers, Non Profit Organizations and people.
People who wish to help an Organization can just give a call and press the code of the organization they want to support. They will hear an advertisement from one of the advertisers associated with us. The money collected will then be donated to the respective NGO.
* A certain percentage of the funds generated is retained by GiveHope since we are a for profit Org.
Here is a small illustration of how it works:
We very often see fake posts on facebook and whatsapp which say “like/share NOW to help this person from xyz”. You can see the number of people who actually fall for this.
We believe that every person wishes to help a cause and genuinely cares about the issues Non Profit Organizations are fighting for. However most of them are skeptical about paying up for it. It is a normal tendency of most Indians where we love everything to be done for free. Though what’s interesting is, people don’t mind sparing a few minutes of their day to help a cause they genuinely care about.
We believe GiveHope solves this problem of people. We are aiming to create a sense of responsibility among people where, if they have a few minutes to spare while stuck in a traffic jam or whenever they see a post on social media about a person in need of resources, they just have to pick up their phone and call the number given by us. Over a period of time they would have contributed a substantial amount.
We are also giving an excellent value proposition for brands too. They are able to do excellent marketing of their products while spending money on a good cause. In a way we are automatically acting as an extension their CSR team. Along with this, the brands gain trust from people for being associated with GiveHope.
NGOs are happy by getting extra monetary support and generating awareness of their Organization among people. Brands are happy with this marketing platform and also gaining people’s trust. People are happy and satisfied knowing that they have helped someone.
Help:
We are reaching out to Organizations and Advertisers to be a part of the eco-system. We have already proceeded with a few.
I would really appreciate if anybody could connect us with some advertisers. We are primarily looking for brands which have national presence, preferably having active CSR initiatives (not a necessity though) or the new web companies (e-commerce, etc.) who would benefit with the kind of reach we are providing.
We also invite Non Profit Organizations to join us in this endeavor.
Appreciate any help and feedback!
Thanks.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
This is a very impractical approach.
Advertisers are NEVER there, sitting idle to give away money.
Thats why Advertising agencies exist! To CONVINCE them to spend money for marketing etc (and make some money on the side)
What’s your angle in this?
Why are you doing this?
Who pays your bills?
Rajkishan Udapudi
I agree with you Alok that Advertisers are never sitting with their money to be given away and need to be convinced and also that advertising agencies are the ones who do it.
That is the reason initially we hadn’t reached out to companies directly and have been for the past 2 months pitching GiveHope to the advertising agencies (Lowe Lintas being one of them). And they will then pitch this product to the advertisers when they see an opportunity.
We have also been reaching out to ad-networks for this purpose. A few have shown some response and I am awaiting their approval. However the ad networks for audio advertisements in India is largely for local businesses or SMEs (i.e primarily for radio advertising) and our service does not benefit SMEs (at least for now).
The reason I was asking for an introduction(if possible) to advertisers directly is:
– There are some Companies which directly fund Social business as part of their CSR. Vodafone foundation for example has supported such projects in India and abroad
– The Companies Act: The latest amendment in the Companies act makes it mandatory for Corporates(having certain criteria) to use 2% of their profits in CSR activities. This is estimated to be about $2 Billion annually.
GiveHope is giving an excellent value proposition to these advertisers who can carry out their CSR initiatives and also reach out to its consumers at the same time, thereby giving better value for every rupee spent on CSR (or advertising). We wish to be the preferred venue for CSR activities by Corporates.
As far as advertising is concerned, I feel companies wouldn’t mind spending money as long as they get to reach out to a large audience. And it is not like they donate some money to us and then we give it to the NGOs. We have structured proper campaigns for them with CPM and CPA based models.
Yes I agree there is a need to convince them, but we feel this is a good opportunity for them too.
And about paying the bills, as I already mentioned in the post, we will be retaining a certain percentage of the revenue generated to run our company.
I am listing a few resources on the “companies act” as well as a few organizations who are executing this kind of business model with aid from Companies (advertisers).
https://www.justgiving.com/en/justtextgiving
freerice.com
And there is one being done by another Rodinhooder – http://www.smilingstart.com
https://gtw3.grantthornton.in/assets/Companies_Act-CSR.pdf
https://www.bsr.org/en/our-insights/blog-view/india-companies-act-2013-five-key-points-about-indias-csr-mandate