We recently mailed this letter to past supporters, but I felt it was important to reach out to everyone in the African Well Fund community so am sharing it with you today.
The reason for my message is to update you on this year’s Build a Well for Bono’s Birthday fundraiser, our ninth annual fundraising drive in honor of Bono’s May 10 birthday. While past years have seen an increase in donations, this year is off to a slow start. African Well Fund continues to run on a shoestring budget and is still the all-volunteer, grassroots organization it has been since the beginning. Though there are many benefits to our organization running this way, especially our ability to use 100 percent of your donations to fund clean water and sanitation projects, this limits how we can advertise this unique fundraiser. We also fear that donor fatigue, as well as online information overload, has lessened the impact of the work that we support in Africa.
We’re going to extend the deadline for this year’s fundraiser past Bono’s May 10 birthday to May 31 in order to hopefully raise our total.
This year’s fundraiser is unique in that we’re raising money for a comprehensive clean water and sanitation project for girls’ schools in Benin. The schools are supported by the Batonga Foundation, an organization founded by Angelique Kidjo, a Grammy-award-winning singer from Benin who collaborated with Bono on her 2010 single “Move on Up.” AWF board members were fortunate enough to meet Ms. Kidjo at the Africare fundraising dinner in 2010. We’re excited she’s on board for us to raise funds for Batonga Foundation-supported schools in honor of Bono. You can read more about this project on our forum.
Maybe you’ve donated in the past and haven’t for a while. We’re asking that you consider making a donation this year to this exciting project that will benefit 3,000 students. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it after seeing the Facebook posts or Tweets. Would you go ahead and make that donation today?
We know times are really tough and it’s getting harder and harder to find a way to support all the causes you care about. It also means your donation is more important than ever before, because as tough as times are for us, they’re that much tougher for the poor.
Thanks for your time in reading this appeal. I know how busy everyone is. It’s truly my hope that you’re still with us in our mission to fund clean water and sanitation projects in sub-Saharan Africa and that you still believe, like we do, that clean water is a basic human right.
You can also make donations via PayPal by sending your payment to tshirts@africanwellfund.org.
Thanks again for reading this and for your support over the past nine years.
Sincerely,
Rob Trigalet, Chairman
