Ideas/opinions needed: Setting a Help Fund

[bidibom]

Dear all,

My company, a renewable energy company has assigned me a project to set up a Help Fund to give to poor children in Philippines. I am in the midst of the project and thinking inputs of ideas from people of all walks of life would certainly be welcome to make it more interesting. At this stage, i am thinking of going on a small scale, before we involve governments etc.

I have included: 1) Monthly deductions of employees salary into the Help Fund (they sign a consent form to how much they want to donate a month)
2) My management will mirror dollar by dollar to what we raise.
3) Include $1 donation for invoices we send out to customers. ( i believe they order hundred thousands worth of product so what is a dollar extra to them)
4) Suppliers- we will do likewise the customers.. maybe charge them more $10 coz we provide them business after all.


Is there any other ways that you think i can pool fund from?

All these, at the end of the year, we will present it to our choice charity along with a bash to applaud our effort.

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
T. Headley

[muratkorman]

I believe that every effort of help should be appreciated and hopefully the outcome will be good. I have some questions and suggestions. Why have you chosen Philippines? It could be also Malaysia or Indonesia. Concerning poverty, you can find many locations. Do you intend to focus only on Philippines or you may expand it to other countries too?

In order to encourage donations from employees, managers should take active role. If they see that their managers are donating remarkable amounts, they would definitely join.

Making a list of top donators in each department and publishing it internally, could also motivate others to make some commitment.

Finally, people would like to see where their money will go. You should prepare some brochures or e-mail and attach some pictures for visual proof for the fund activities.

Good luck and all the best

[bidibom]

Good Day Sir

I appreciate your reply and your ideas are excellent. Definately, its good to boost the employees morale in publicing their effort. I may propose using the intranet for that.

The reason why we chosen Philippines is because 1) My managing director was there recently and he was so touched by the effort shown by the poor locals ( a taxi driver) who was selling hand made soaps made by his wife to help the street children. He was poor himself but he took the effort.

Secondly, we are setting up a subsidiary company in the Phillipines and am thinking its best for now that we can monitor the situation there. Part of this Help Fund is also to educate the children on renewable energy and the eco environment. In the long run, i intend to propose for the management in Germany to sponsor potential children education and get them in the workforce.

I believe this is a big project and i intend to take it stage by stage.
At the third stage, i will recommend other countries. But the key target will remain children and educating them. The reason is simple: Give a man a fish he be happy for one day, teach him to fish, he be happy for life.

Many thanks for yr reply again.

T Headley

[muratkorman]

I must also remind you that there are many people out there who wouldn't want to be publicized for their help. You may need to find a middle way for it like preparing a list of most donating departments rather than individual names.

I am sure this goodwill shall initiate good results.

[Plavt]

Bidibom,
You probably won't like this; Filipino children may be poor but let's not detract from the fact that the children as many other filipinos know nothing else coupled with the fact that nobody starves in The Phlippines as anything grows there.(according to my Filipina friend). Even the people living in shanty towns are provided with electricity for one simple reason; if they weren't they would steal it. By some means or other they are able to buy fish and rice and although many would not know it the pretty girls who work in offices often live in these meagre dwellings.

This makes sense as during my visits although I have many a time been approached by apparently poor children who despite being shoe-less and dirty were able to run around having as much energy as child elsewhere.

Yes people need educating as much as they need jobs but my view is; that is the job of the government, one as we know is very bad at doing anything constructive - the economy tells you that. Beware of the response you may get particularly from some of the population other attempts such as you propose have failed miserably.

Perhaps a little off-topic but a just something you might like to consider.

[ksl]

Good Day Sir

I appreciate your reply and your ideas are excellent. Definately, its good to boost the employees morale in publicing their effort. I may propose using the intranet for that.

The reason why we chosen Philippines is because 1) My managing director was there recently and he was so touched by the effort shown by the poor locals ( a taxi driver) who was selling hand made soaps made by his wife to help the street children. He was poor himself but he took the effort.

Secondly, we are setting up a subsidiary company in the Phillipines and am thinking its best for now that we can monitor the situation there. Part of this Help Fund is also to educate the children on renewable energy and the eco environment. In the long run, i intend to propose for the management in Germany to sponsor potential children education and get them in the workforce.

I believe this is a big project and i intend to take it stage by stage.
At the third stage, i will recommend other countries. But the key target will remain children and educating them. The reason is simple: Give a man a fish he be happy for one day, teach him to fish, he be happy for life.

Many thanks for yr reply again.

T Headley

To be quite honest with you, I have my doubts about your project ever getting anyplace! One thing that always puts me off is the " Good Day Sir" Introduction, always reminds me of all the scams on the internet!

Secondly your 3 stage project seems a pretty hopeless and desperate attempt, at convincing many people on the forum, that you are sincere.

Part of this Help Fund is also to educate the children on renewable energy and the eco environment.

You say you work in the energy business, which therefor motivates your greed to educate the people in your products no doubt!

But it is most definitely more of a marketing campaign for profit rather than a genuine effort to help children! I suggest you go and look in the mirror and ask yourself, if management are going to give $ for $, I've never heard so much crap in my life to be quite honest! Maybe you meant your company will give $ for $ and even then, after looking at your 1,2,3,4 below, I would say you are on cloud 9! But there is no harm in dreaming right!

I have included:


1) Monthly deductions of employees salary into the Help Fund (they sign a consent form to how much they want to donate a month)
2) My management will mirror dollar by dollar to what we raise.
3) Include $1 donation for invoices we send out to customers. ( i believe they order hundred thousands worth of product so what is a dollar extra to them)
4) Suppliers- we will do likewise the customers.. maybe charge them more $10 coz we provide them business after all.

Last but not least many organised and reputable charities do exist side by side, with many crooked wannabe's I suggest you look at your motives, then look in the mirror!

[muratkorman]

Ksl, you don't need to be that harsh to anyone just because you sense some scam. You don't know this person, you don't know the company, how can you comment so certainly? In my opinion, every effort with goodwill has to be supported. However, your post is just based on destructive criticism. Bidibom is not asking any donation or money from you. He has just asked some ideas to improve a project for helping kids. Why are you so arrogant on this subject? Have you been scammed before in a similar fund???

[ksl]

Ksl, you don't need to be that harsh to anyone just because you sense some scam. You don't know this person, you don't know the company, how can you comment so certainly? In my opinion, every effort with goodwill has to be supported. However, your post is just based on destructive criticism. Bidibom is not asking any donation or money from you. He has just asked some ideas to improve a project for helping kids. Why are you so arrogant on this subject? Have you been scammed before in a similar fund???

Well after reading it over a couple of times, I can see that, you picked up on my sensitivity, yes I may well be over reacting, although from a business point of view, I see this particular scenerio hardly feasible

3) Include $1 donation for invoices we send out to customers. ( i believe they order hundred thousands worth of product so what is a dollar extra to them)

Hundreds of thousands of $$$$$$ is probably not a lot extra to the thousands of clients, however it is a great deal to management to match $ for $ and highly unlikely to happen

Scammed is a very good word for it, I used to collect for charities when i was very young, knocking on door to door selling pictures of under nourished babies, yes it was a scam by a larger well known charity, that paid very little that was collected.

I myself, am very suspicious of do gooders, and simply very careful when giving money to charity for many simple reasons, even the best and most respected charities one gives to, are not monitored enough to give me peace of mind, It is a couple of years ago now, since i read a report on registered charities, and their costs, some of which only donated 10 pence in the pound, some donated 30p in the pound.

This to me was outrageous to see all the costs used used up on property, offices, and rising incomes, and they have massive tax advantages too. the poor victims get very little of what is donated in my opinion, which makes my temper boil, Muratkorman was quite right to point out my destructive criticism, it wasn't meant to be, so harsh, so therefore i do apologise and hope that your project can be more functional in thought, before requesting more ideas for it to work.

Although i stand firm by my suggestions, that ulterior motives can get in the way of charitable events, even though the thought is genuine, unless monitored from an independant source.

Money is the root of all evil, and we have enough roots planted around the world, I'm one for letting nature take its course, becuase it really does churn me up inside when i see the ongoing suffering, so why prolong it.

We even hear today of the corruption in high places of donations not reaching victims in many countries, and the oil for food program in Iraq, it makes me puke.

Thats why i chose very carefully, and would rather give money direct to a person who needs it, then i know, it ended up in the right hands.

What also screws me up is the millions of pounds, that Countries donate, for political points, when they should be looking after their own people. Look at Nigeria sat on the oil, while the kids starve, and what do others do to help, absolutely nothing!

Oops sorry I can rant and rant but it doesn't help, their will always be these cases, and who is actually helping in the world, and who should be helping in the world, why is it, it takes a natural disaster or the media to prick our conscience for a few days, all these super duper powers do nothing to help these countries. Then all of a sudden cough up a few million, but ignore their own people suffering.

Anyway rant finished and i hope you manage to convince someone, that you are right, I find it maybe a much better idea to make contact with a family that is suffering and maybe help direct, with schooling or even just enough to put food on the table.

There are problems all around us, when it comes to charity, I know of maids here, with 5 or 6 kids at home and a hubby that doesn't want to find work, that's why she is here to support her kids, for 250 $ a month, she'll probably find that her couple of years away from home did nothing to help her kids, and alot, to help her husband get drunk, or gamble her hard earned cash. yes what a waste!

[bidibom]

Dear all.. this is getting out of hands really.. but i did ask for your comments...

"Good Day Sir" Introduction, always reminds me of all the scams on the internet!

Why 'Good Day Sir'.. is because i used to live in Australia and thats how we greet each other.. or maybe u prefer mate eh

Did i ask you for anyone's money..? Maybe request for ideas input from you needs payment? If you arent used to my politeness and think that i am convincing others about this project.. screw u too.

Whats in for me.. NOTHING!

For a start, this project is for internal- which means my company, an MNC in Singapore will fund it. Yes, my management will match dollar to dollar on what employees give each month. If anyone's else management are tight arses, nothing much i can do.. but i definately do not need to question ourselve because there is no motive there. WE PUT IN MONEY, WE GIVE TO NEEDY.

Why i put it in stages..? Right now we dont know what employees may think about giving a dollar, or 10 or more out of their salary.. Its all optional. As it is, based on my understanding, each month, the Muslims employees salary are automatically deducted $2 for 'mosque fund' whether they like it or not. I believe it happens the same for the Chinese, i may be mistaken.

The charity we want to give is a generic one. My boss wanted it Philippines for the reasons i said yesterday but he is receptive to other countries.

The type of charities we wish to give could be this or others.. or Salvation army.. but like i said.. children and educating them is the focus. But you are right when u said so many charities are taking advantage of it and it may be better to give directly to the needy families. Like i said, i am putting ideas on which directions we may choose to take.

children.org

I dont see the reasons why shouldnt give option to consumers or suppliers to do that. Of course, we practice transparency. This may not happen.. its all depends how successful and receptive our employees are to this..

My company thinks educating the kids about renewable energy is good, i strongly support so. After all, saying goodbye to fossil fuel usage is eco friendly and thats what my company do. We already provided some developing countries like India for free.. we just dont seel products... We are BIG, and definately not in need for free advertisement .. If it gets in the news, yes its PR.. good PR i would say. We may even build homes and sschool and install solar system panel on them...of coz with our name on it.. Good PR/marketing eh...But isnt Starbucks, Body Shop are doing the same?


And why not if the kids studied hard and earn scholarship in a developed country like UK or Germany.. it could change their lives and maybe the economy of their home countries..

Lastly, i dont need to convince anyone to give or not.. i am doing my job as my management wants me to for this project. Verbally across the board, this project has been approved.. its up to individual employees if they want and what they want to give..


Regards
T Headley
Bidibom