Today’s blog post comes from Perry Teicher, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Kazakhstan from 2007-2009.  This is the second of five posts about his Peace Corps service.  Be sure to read the first, second, third and fourth posts.

Charity parties focused on young professionals, while an everyday occurrence in America, are still a relatively rare concept in Kazakhstan.  Around Halloween 2008, two Kazakhstani friends and I had the idea to host a charity party in Aktobe, Kazakhstan.  Except for the occasional event organized by multinational corporations, charity parties are uncommon in Kazakhstan.  Due to abundant natural gas fields, Aktobe has an emerging small and medium business environment.  There are a significant number of young professionals who spend their new wealth at clubs.  I invited three Kazakhstani friends to help as we aimed to create an opportunity for young professionals that would be fun and engage guests in supporting marginalized groups.

We enlisted support from multiple sources, retails outlets, restaurants, clothing stores, and other local businesses.  I took the lead on development, but worked with my co-planners in delegating responsibility and identifying partners.  A cafe provided us free space and singers and dancers performed for free.  Businesses donated substantial prizes to help raise money.  Over 100 guests came to our first event.  We raised substantial money and started popularizing the concept that individuals can support their community while enjoying themselves.

Over the next year, we planned a total of three events, raising over $10,000 that all directly helped children with disabilities and poor families.  The project succeeded because we developed a new model that fit community needs.  We focused on creating an environment that fit the interests and personalities of our donors while engaging them in a completely new type of cause.  Rather than highlighting the gap between donors and marginalized groups, we focused on their ability to help.  We established partnerships with individuals who had something to gain from working with us: the new bar owner who boosted awareness of his bar and local businesses that could be known as supporting a good cause.  Individuals donated because they trusted us and the purpose of the fundraising.  We kept detailed accounts of our revenue and donations and could show the the impact.  Inspired by our initiative, other groups around the country have started charity parties based on this model.

This model can’t work everywhere, but there are some valuable lessons that could be applied to other events:

1)  Identify the needs of the community

2)  Look for unserved niches

3)  Combine existing initiatives into a new idea

4)  Establish trust

5)  Identify tangible benefits that partners and participants can receive

Blog: http://treshombresaktobe.blogspot.com/

Pictures:

Perry Teicher is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Kazakhstan, 2007-2009).  He is Co-Founder and President of TheGivingApp, L3C, a company focused on creating mobile applications for non-profits.