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against PayPal's 2.2%.
Status of Funds Raised
October 10th: CMDRF Payment Update:
We have an update on the date and mode of payment from
Care & Share to CMDRF.
We have recently found out that
sending $750K to CMDRF can take up to 2 weeks and can
incur a fee of close to $700.
The Finance minister
of Kerala, Dr. Thomas Issac, is visiting the US this
month and we have decided to hand over the check
directly to him to avoid wire fees. A function is
arranged in Chicago on Oct 21st where Care & Share
president Mr. Tony Devassy will directly hand over the
check to the minister. On Oct 1st we had wire
transferred $50K, and the rest $700K will be handed over
during the function in Chicago.
We understand that
this is a change of plan, but given the overhead costs
involved and the timeline, this is best course of
action. In case you have any concerns or questions, feel
free to reach out to Care & Share Vice President Ashley
Elenjickal at 425 273 6021 or vp@careandshare.com.
September 27th: Thank you for the
continued support. Your donations now top $1.28 million
towards CMDRF. We are gearing up to wire transfer
$725,000 (₹5+ Crores) in the next few days. We
originally planned to send this on Sept 25th, but around
35K from Benevity donated by employees outside US are
yet to arrive. The funds will immediately go out as soon
as we receive it from Benevity. Once again thank you
everyone for your generosity.
NOTE: Corporate Benevity users,
please choose the right project when you donate. While
the option to donate to CMDRF will remain open for quite
some time, we are shifting focus into building and
repairing houses working directly with local NGOs.
September 13th: Hello folks, you
all deserve a big applause here! Your donations crossed
$1 Million mark yesterday towards CMDRF! Six different
currencies, thousands of donors, donations as little as
$5 and as fat as $5,000, little volunteers of age 7,
internal corporate drives, unofficial friends groups,
sports tournaments, the list goes on…but just one goal,
#RebuildKerala. Thank you everyone for being part of
this movement! Now lets march on to $1.5M mark!
We want to call out two
volunteers for helping us with this drive - Santhosh
Pillai and Sajith Balan. It goes without saying that
there is lot of work involved. Responding to donors’
questions and concerns, pushing the campaign through
friends at various corporates, acknowledging the
donations, keeping track of funds coming in, and working
with contacts to improve CMDRF site content are just a
few of those. You just made them look easy. Take a bow
guys, you are just awesome!
September 8th: Thank you for your
overwhelming support. We are inching towards our
$1,000,000 goal and have gone well past $900,000. Keep
up the great work and help us reach the goal soon. We
will transfer ₹5 Crores CMDRF account on September 25.
Care & Share partnered with Kerala Club Seattle
for their fundraiser event for CMDRF on September 1. 32
sports teams and approximately 200 athletes participated
in the event and raised over $15,000. Thanks to all the
organizers and participants.
We are seeing a great
momentum for the #SalaryChallenge by the Chief Minister
of Kerala. We request all of you to join forces for
rebuilding Kerala.
Special thanks to Varghese
George, Vinod Balakrishna, Anitha Chrisanthus, Santosh
Sangras and Donia Sebastian from Intel Corporation for
organizing fund drive there. We continue to see
fundraisers happening in various corporates. Please keep
up the great work and let us know if there is anything
we can do to help.
September 1st: Thank you for the
overwhelming support for the CMDRF fundraiser! You blew
past $750K goal and now shooting towards $1 Million
mark. Initially we had set a deadline of Aug 31st to
contribute towards CMDRF, but after multiple requests we
have decided to leave this fundraiser open for at least
six more months. Many people have come forward accepting
Chief Minister’s #SalaryChallenge to donate one month
salary in monthly installments. You have the option to
setup recurring payments in both PayPal and Facebook.
Since Facebook no longer charges any fee for the
donations, we recommend using Facebook, than PayPal.
https://www.facebook.com/donate/1233276936814413/.
PayPal has a processing fee of 2.2%.
Like we said
before, corporate service provider Benevity releases
employee and matching donations to us on 21st every
month. Employees, with matching, routed $697.37K through
Benevity in August. This will be the amount that will be
wired to CMDRF on 25th of Sept, roughly ₹ 4.8 Crores!
August 27th 2018: Fund distribution
update – We wire transferred another Rs 25 lakhs
($36,277.78) to CMDRF yesterday (26th August). Wire
details along with the covering letter are attached.
Fundraising efforts at various levels are still going
on. Thank you so much for standing together for the
monumental task of rebuilding Kerala. The state needs
your support for prolonged period, so please continue
your efforts to spread the word, raise funds, and
influence your friends. Our biggest payout will come
around Sept 25 after receiving the funds routed through
corporate service provider Benevity. Right now Benevity
reported figure is $472,704.13 (approximately Rs 3.26
Crs).
Once again, thank you so much for your support!
August 25th 2018: Your donations
just crossed half a million dollars! wow! Thank you for
donating generously for rebuilding Kerala. Its
encouraging to see people coming back and donating again
as they understand more about the ground reality. The
numbers do not include matching grants from Google as
well as the donations made by their employees through
their Benevity platform. We are hoping to hear from them
soon.
CMDRF updates the donations
received by the state in their portal
https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/index.php/Dashboard/allType_transaction.
As you can see its still a very long way for the state.
We are gearing up for our second payment of Rs 25 lakhs
on 27th. We will be receiving majority of your funds (as
of now $427K or close to Rs 3 Cr) from the corporates’
service provider Benevity only on 21st of September.
This will be wired to CMDRF on 25th September. Since we
wired 25 lakhs on 20th, we received another 25 lakhs in
direct donations through PayPal. That’s the amount going
out next.
Situation back in Kerala
demands us to push the goal further. We are shooting for
750K now. Do you think its really achievable? With the
kind of support you have shown, we believe we can!
August 23rd 2018: We want to take a
moment to call out the strong support from employees
working in various corporates, and their employers’
generous matching program. Many of them contributed
directly through PayPal and requested match, but the
majority routed their donations through their employers'
internal system. Benevity (www.benevity.com) is the
service provider used by majority of these companies. So
far employees from 40 companies with matching benefits
donated through Benevity platform. Including the company
matching, as of now, there is $350,767 (appx Rs 2.42 Cr)
in the pipeline that is scheduled to payout on Sept
21st. Few other companies go through
CyberGrants(www.cybergrants.com). We are still waiting
on updates from CyberGrants.
Here is a high level breakdown
of Benevity’s upcoming payout on Sept 21st.
Apple
Inc. $176,020
Microsoft $72,406
Expedia $36,147.38
Intel $32,030
T-Mobile $5,980.00
Rest of the
companies: $28,182.77
200% match for the charity
dollars from Apple and Expedia, really helped us to push
the figures. Special kudos to these folks: @Sree Vallath
and Tara Elizabeth Thomas from Apple, Aneesh G Nair and
Varun Xavier from Expedia and Sajith Balan and Santhosh
Pillai from Microsoft. There are many silent warriors
who organized fundraisers within their company, friends
or business org. Huge thanks to them as well.
August 21st 2018: Fund distribution
update – We wire transferred Rs 25 lakhs ($36,207) to
CMDRF yesterday (20th August). Please find the wire
details along with the covering letter attached. Two of
our supporters/volunteers/evangelists Mithun Suresh and
Giri Nair got an opportunity to meet with Kerala Chief
Minister Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan to deliver the word
directly. Special thanks to minister Mr. Kadannappally
Ramachandran for arranging this opportunity. Bulk of the
money we raised so far are through corporate internal
giving portals. As of now this is counting at $251,732
just from Benevity (Service provider used by majority of
the companies) alone and expected to receive it on Sept
21st. What we transferred yesterday includes only the
direct contribution we received through PayPal till EOD
19th.
We are also encouraged by the fact
that internal employees of many corporates are taking
initiative and driving this fundraiser further.
We received multiple requests
asking whether we can divert some of the funds to other
organizations or local groups on the ground. We want to
reiterate that this drive is purely for CMDRF, but our
subsequent phases will be targeting NGOs. We crossed
$300K mark and now heading towards $400K.
Thank you for the continued support
and spreading the word. Our next transfer will happen on
27th of August. Once again we salute all the donors,
volunteers, and corporates for standing together for
Kerala. If your friends haven’t chipped in yet, please
influence them.
August 19th 2018: After several
days, situation has started improving. While there are
still areas where rescue operations are still happening,
weather is more inclined in most of the parts and
several people have started assessing their situation at
home. It will take few days for most of them to make the
houses inhabited after the required cleaning and
necessary primary repairs. Lot of other people have
completely lost their houses and land and clueless about
their next phase. Hopefully they will soon figure out
something. We will focus on those kinds of families
after this drive on 31st.
There are unofficial
reports that the state suffers a loss of Rs 25,000
crores (approximately $3.5 billion). Few of our
volunteers are trying to get some official figures on
the loss as well as the deficit published in an official
channel. Again from close unofficial sources, its
certain that state is nowhere close to any of the
required funds.
We have crossed our $100K goal mark
and now marching towards the new goal of $200K. Thank
you for your overwhelming support. If you donated but
didn’t receive an acknowledgement, please hang in, we
are working on it as fast as we can. Apart from the
employees of previously posted companies, many from
Intel, SAP, Oracle, Samsung, Intuit, and Visa have
joined hands as well.
If you are using employers
portal to donate, please remember to send a note to
donate@careandshare.com. This will help us better to
track the progress.
We are working on wiring our
initial transfer of Rs 25 lakhs. We will keep you posted
once it goes through.
August 17th 2018: Thank you for
joining #StandWithKerala movement and for generously
extending monetary support. The situation continues to
be extremely scary. Thanks to the government for
coordinating all sorts of relief efforts. Considering
the funds required by the state, we are revising our
goal to $100K. Thanks to corporates such as Microsoft,
Expedia, Boeing, Apple, GE, TMobile and Symantec for
matching their employee donations.
August 16th 2018: Thank you for the
great support towards the dreadful situation in Kerala.
We could achieve our initial goal of 25K in less than 3
days. But the situation is getting more and more worse
back home, and there is no relief in sight. The
destruction and funds required to rebuild is massive;
there is no real figure – all we know is its in billions
of dollars. Considering those factors we are pushing the
goal to 50K. We request you to continue contributing to
the best of your capacity.
August 13th 2018: From the news you
might have heard how badly monsoon affected Kerala this
year. According to reports at least 40 people died so
far and around 55,000 displaced from their homes. Kerala
government estimates the loss at around
Rs 8,316
crores
(~$1.2 billion). We are trying to raise at least $25K in
the first phase to contribute towards
Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Funds (CMDRF).
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