Dear World Youth Alliance Alumni,
This year, we celebrate the 17th year of the World Youth Alliance.
In the first quarter of the year, the current leadership team, along with some alumni members, took the time to revisit the plan for the next 17 years. The group unanimously recognized the biggest challenge of the organization is resources, i.e. the financial resources to continue the organization’s work in the next 17 months, both at the Global and regional levels.
As of this writing, the operational budget of both WYA and FEMM is a little less than US$1,700,000. This is broken down as follows:
| World Youth Alliance Budget | Annual Cost | % of Organization’s Budget | % of Total Budget |
| Operations for all 6 Regions (Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East) | $576,000.00 | 58% | 34% |
Annual Project Activities
|
$125,000.00 | 13% | 7% |
| Annual development and evaluation of the Human Dignity Curriculum | $55,000.00 | 6% | 3% |
| Communications, including but not limited to website and social presence | $85,000.00 | 9% | 5% |
Administration
|
$150,000.00 | 15% | 9% |
| TOTAL | $991,000.00 | 100% | 59% |
| FEMM Annual Budget | Annual Cost | % of Organization’s Budget | % of Total Budget |
Reproductive Health Research Institute
|
$200,000.00 | 29% | 12% |
Technology Development
|
$200,000.00 | 29% | 12% |
| Education and Teacher Training | $130,000.00 | 19% | 8% |
| Pilot Clinic and Testing | $120,000.00 | 17% | 7% |
| TOTAL | $700,000.00 | 100% | 41% |
| TOTAL ANNUAL BUDGET | $1,691,000.00 | 100% |
Our funding comes from grants (25%, about $423,000) and individual donations (75%, about $1,268,000).
Both the strategic and tactical aspects of fundraising have been especially challenging in the last 18 months.
- At the start of the year, we lost some major gifts, due to downturns in the market. These donors will be giving more at the end of the year and in 2017, due to market improvements, but it has been an important warning about the need to develop new donors and new funding strategies. Total budget gap was at US$1,000,000 or 59% of the total budget.
- In Q2, cash in bank was US$ 500 at the end of June.
- In Q3, Anna raised US$ 550,000 in new donor donations (most of this recurring, year over year), leaving a US$250,000 (or 14% of the total budget) gap to meet all goals and targets through the end of the year.
- Strategically, this means identifying both short to medium and long-term measures to ensure resources and more stable, independent funding channels. Tactically, this translates into the following efforts:
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- The need to work with Alumni and explore how we can work together on regional and national levels. To date, we approximate that World Youth Alliance has about 3,000 Alumni in its network based in all six regions. The first initiative has been to work with the alumni pioneers, create an Alumni Committee and work with them to activate 65 new donors from the alumni network. These 65 donors will give periodic small gifts, ranging anywhere from a base of US$15 to the cost of an hour of their time per month.
- Explore ways to establish new contacts and see if there are new people we can approach with regard to WYA Funding. In the past few months, the Alliance has experienced major changes with the giving and pledges of donors. On the up side, we do extremely well when we find the right people interested in our work. We need help to reach and identify more of these types of contacts.
- Explore other revenue models. Lowest hanging fruit is to consider all possible business models including changes to the Track A and WYA training fees, and possible revenue sources from the FEMM application.
Operational Updates
The Alumni Network
In the 2nd Quarter of the year, an Alumni Committee (AC) was formed with two leads per region. Alumni were invited to be part of the committee and the following accepted the offer to be part of the group:
In line with the goal of activating 65 new and recurring alumni donors, the AC’s first initiative was to touch base with alumni in each of their region (via an invitation thru email). As of this writing, the initiative has produced six new alumni monthly donors from the UK, United States and Mexico (9% of total target). Watch for emails from us about this in the coming weeks! In the Asia Pacific region, Aliah and Erika spoke to a number of the alumni who declined the offer to give money on a monthly basis. Some of the alumni said they would prefer to organize a fundraising event. From these discussions, there are two events currently being planned. One is a Christmas Card fundraiser, i.e. Christmas cards with a holiday ornament will be sold to WYA networks in the Philippines in time for the holidays. The other event is a Film Festival scheduled for the first half of 2017. |
The Cash Crunch & Extremely Generous Gestures
With the alarming lack of money, Anna aggressively reached out to the Board, the Leadership Team and to regional Alumni early this year and again in July.
| Asia Pacific: Aliah and Jordan Cimafranca
In response, Aliah and her husband, Jordan Cimafranca committed to giving or raising the entire regional budget for Asia Pacific. The funding will cover operations from August through December (amounting to US$ 25,000) and the commitment of the Cimafrancas will ensure the growth of the regional team. Since the money will be coming out of their own resources, Aliah and Jordan are funding the regional budget by selling family heirlooms and jewelry. The organization is deeply grateful and moved by the generosity of this couple. This is a one-time gift from the Cimafrancas, and we are working hard to develop the ongoing regional support needed to maintain this income stream in the region.
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| Anonymous Europe donation
On the 15th of August, WYA received the extraordinarily generous gift of Euro 17,000 (about US$ 20,000) to the Alliance. This generous donation was given by a recent alum, closely linked with the WYA, who has started a new chapter in life. We are grateful for this amazing generosity and support. The gift will be used to cover the operations needs of the Europe Office from September to December 2016.
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| North America: Melinda and Liam O’Brien
World Youth Alliance is grateful for the generosity of Melinda and Liam O’Brien. The O’Briens have given an annual donation of US$2,500 for the region. The deep commitment of our former staff members to the work of WYA sustains us as we continue to grow.
Alumni Gifts With regard to year to date monthly giving, WYA receives about US$ 2,500 per year in recurring small gifts from a pool of 27 alumni who donate anywhere from US$15 to $75 per month. The initiative to activate 65 new donors is directly linked to monthly giving of Alumni. The 6 new donors have been added to the above count.
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In sum, we have the following in total donations from Alumni:
| Asia Pacific: The Cimfrancas | US$ 25,000 | One-time gift |
| Europe: Anonymous Donation | US$ 20,000 | One-time gift |
| North America: The O’Briens | US$ 2,000 | Annual gift |
| Alumni Network | US$ 2,500 | Monthly recurring gifts |
| TOTAL | US$ 49,500 |
To maximize these incredible one-time gifts, we’ll be working with Asia-Pacific and Europe to see how we can generate ongoing donations to ensure that this generosity is recurring year over year. Developing regional donor bases to turn these one-time gifts into annual giving is the best way for us to thank these alumni. Building new donor pools for the other regions is also critical.
We need your help.
If you are currently not giving, please consider a monthly gift, or an annual gift. No amount is too small. Many alumni find it helpful to consider giving the value of one hour of their time, each month. Whatever you give helps us financially. Your gift also encourages the WYA staff, interns and members, as well as other donors. Knowing that our alumni continue to support us is critical in every regard.
We also need your ideas. Let us know how we can expand, and how we can bring WYA programs to your communities.
WYA is doing the work that we are not able to do. Our financial contribution is now our key way to help.
We’d love to hear from you soon. I look forward to staying in touch with updates as we move forward.
Sincerely,
Erika Tatad
World Youth Alliance Alumni Coordinator
erika.wyaalumni@gmail.com
