Yesterday we posted part one of an interview with Rahul and Kit, two students at the Fletcher School who have been busy raising money online for Haiti disaster relief efforts. They had so many great things to say that we had to make it a two-part series. Here’s part two:
Rahul: I have a question. It’s a complement to the Fletcher community that they were able to mobilize so quickly, so I’m just curious, do you have any idea where we stand in terms of how quickly we responded to help? Because, for all the people who donated; I’d like to be able to go back and say, “guys, you should be proud of yourselves because you effected one of the fastest responses anybody has made.”
FirstGiving: Yes, actually, your page was one of the first to be set up. Additionally, it has been the top-ranking page (in terms of donations) among other student groups, and in fact it’s consistently been the top page overall, out of more than 300 pages. So kudos to you and the Fletcher community, you’ve really mobilized around this cause. Speaking of which, what do you mean when you refer to the Fletcher community?
Kit: “The community” is kind of a vague term, like a cloud of people.
FirstGiving: So it’s not necessarily contained within the geographic region of Somerville, or Boston.
Kit: No, exactly; it’s not just the students; it’s not just the alumni, it’s the family of the alumni, too. We even had a corporate donor, from someone who had come here for a one-year masters program and now works with Chicago Bridge and Iron, and that person asked the company to donate.
Rahul: And also the former Prime Minister of Greece is part of the community; he’s an alum. I think what happened was that one of our fellow students is of Greek heritage, and I posted a message on her Facebook saying can you please help us. Her family had a connection to this person, so the next day we had a donation from him on our page.
FirstGiving: Sounds like you were really able to facilitate the viral spread of this cause and the community of people giving to it.
Kit: Yes, it’s second nature to post the link to our page everywhere we go online, from Gmail “away” status, to Facebook to LinkedIn.
FirstGiving: Aside from the former Prime Minister of Greece donating to your page, has anything surprised you about the response?
Kit: Well I think if you look at our original goal, which was $1000 in 72 hours–that now seems absurd. That was probably the biggest surprise for Rahul and I in the beginning because we hit our three-day goal in a mere four hours. In the first seven hours, the donations were coming in a rate of about $200 an hour, so I think the speed of the response was amazing. I was also impressed that people beyond our immediate network were giving, friends of friends, and people who perhaps didn’t have direct connections to the Fletcher school but knew someone there and decided to give, so that was really encouraging to me.
FirstGiving: Why do you think those people in those extended networks gave to your page?
Rahul: I think the fact that we set the page up right away and because the event was really fresh in people’s minds from watching CNN and all these news reports, so when we reached out to them, because of Fletcher’s reputation, people who knew about Fletcher were really happy to give. But when we reached out to them, we didn’t just say, “this is an initiative, please donate.” We reached out to them and said, “This is what the students are doing, and this is the whole community mobilizing” — it was like a rallying cry.
Kit: I was also surprised by the other initiatives that popped up at Fletcher and at Tufts, you may have seen the report on the crisis mapping project on Ushahidi. It’s been widely covered and a very helpful mechanism to connect victims with specific aid. Yesterday they helped a couple of Coast Guard helicopters land via coordinates that were sent to them by text message, and it’s just amazing to see that we’re not the only ones by any means within this community who are doing something; it’s kind of a microcosm of disaster response, actually. You have this one side that needs to raise the funds, the side that needs to focus on communications, the rescue efforts. So we are just one of the stars in the constellation.
Rahul: Another thing that surprised me was that we had set our personal goal at $1000 in 72 hours and then increased it to $2500, as we mentioned before, but then as people were donating, they were leaving comments like, “Fletcher, let’s go, $10,000, dig deep!” so we said, “hey, ok” and we kept raising it.
Kit: And I think it’s time to raise it again, because we’ve passed our $10,000 goal, and we should probably consider setting a new one.
FirstGiving: With goals in mind, we have one last question. Often we see that natural disasters generate a great deal of media coverage immediately after they happen, and then as the coverage dies down a bit, the sense of urgency to give recedes back in people’s minds. And it’s hard because the need is still there and sometimes perhaps even greater. Do you have any plans or ideas on how to keep this initiative going in the next few weeks?
Rahul: I don’t have an answer at this point, but I do think that we need some additional publicity because there’s only so much you can do through your personal network. Definitely something to think about. I’m pretty optimistic about keeping the momentum going. We just need to be creative and keep thinking of ways to reach out. I don’t know about Kit, but fundraising is very new to me, so this has been a learning experience.
FirstGiving: Thanks so much, Rahul and Kit, for your time. We’ve made a donation to your page in support of your efforts.
To see how close Rahul and Kit are to reaching their (new) goal, visit their FirstGiving page.
