One Euro/US Dollar can make a difference

By Jean-Marc Claes

 

Why you should not feel embarrassed to donate just one USD or Euro?

 

Fundraising has changed a lot over the last few years, and going from door to door on the streets doesn’t really exist anymore.

 

But how do charities and non-profit organizations get their well-needed funding? And what part do we play in this?

 

During the last few years, I have seen many good ideas passing by on ‘how to’ protect marine species, ecology projects, marine conservation and lots more! What was the one thing these projects all had in common? They all needed funding. Money was required to be able to get things done.

 

You have probably heard of crowdfunding. Just reach out to the crowd, propose your ideas/project, and wait for the money to roll in. Well, is it just that simple? Obviously not, and this is why…

 

Social Media is flooded with these demands on crowdfunding, making it impossible to get visibility. Who likes to see their social media channels flooded with these ‘money begging’ projects asking to get attention? Social Media operators are smart enough to block these postings as they need to stay ‘popular.’

 

So, what is left? How to get attention? Get famous people involved to showcase your project. How to get in contact with them? Again, spending lots of energy and meanwhile getting distracted from your original goal, in this case setting up a marine ecology project!

 

A few months ago, I had a guest onboard our scuba charter boat SY Blowing Bubbles. This person, Bart, is a world-leading scientist in finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. I am sure that is a name that we all know, and we probably even have family members getting into difficulty with Mr. Alzheimer, or I mean, the disease that was named after him.

 

Now Bart runs a complete lab with a large international team of scientists working toward finding the cure for this disease. Between scuba diving, we had lengthy conversations. Below are some of the things that got stuck in my mind:

 

• The time he spent on actual research was almost nothing compared to the time he needed to spend on getting grants and funding.
• His scientists need a salary, so he is responsible for arranging this.
• The longer the scientist works on a project, the more efficient and successful they are. Therefore, the funding needs to continue regularly to be able to keep on working for a longer time on projects.

 

All this made me think about a few things:

• Are we aware that good ideas need funding to become a reality?
• Are we aware of the fact that good ideas need people to realize those good ideas and that those people need salaries to keep on doing this?
• Are we aware that charities’ employ’ people to get things done and that these people can not do this on free-of-charge voluntary bases?

 

The next part of the article is more related to amounts of money.

 

Would you rather send 5 Euro/USD to one charity or 1 Euro/USD to 5 different charities?

 

Well, last month, when walking in the city streets, meeting many street artists, the idea popped to me to write this article, and you might guess where this is going.

 

While walking the streets seeing and hearing some street artists giving the best of themselves, I always give some pocket money to my son and tell him to give it to the artist in front of us.

 

Besides the fact that I can teach my son some ‘life lessons’ about sharing = caring, I can actually give good use to the coins in my pockets. You know the coins that generally end up under the car seat or behind the sofa at home? Do you know the feeling? The artist receiving the money, even though it might be just 1 Euro/USD, they are grateful for the small things in life!

 

What appears to be a small act often even sets an example for others to follow my sons’ move’ by donating as well. Now the 1 Euro/USD becomes 5-10-20, and the artist can get food and drinks on the table for himself and his family. Don’t forget. He is out there playing for hours and hours for everyone who passes by. A job that depends on charity!

 

So, why should it matter just to donate 1 Euro/USD?

 

Because IT REALLY DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

 

But what about the value of that 1 USD/Euro?

 

Again, walking the same street that day, I sat down for a drink after some time had passed and saw a waiter going over to the table next to us to bring their order. After finishing their drinks, the people paid their bill and left, leaving the change on the table. What did the waiter really do to ‘earn/deserve’ that change?

 

The waiter has a normal monthly salary (at least they do in Europe), and I didn’t witness any special services, kind words or other special actions by the waiter. It was just another day at the job.

 

So, for what reason was the money left on the table? What value did it have for the people that left it?

 

Imagine donating this money to a fundraising initiative to save sharks or turtles.

 

Now imagine hundreds of people doing this.

 

That is called crowdfunding, and those actions make a difference because we can almost all do this and make a difference!

 

We are not all able to donate 10-25-50 Euro/USD to a charity, but what about starting small and looking at the small numbers, like 1 or 2 Euro/USD?

 

Imagine that 5000 people will follow your example!

 

What is my point and why?

 

Well, at ScubaBiz.Help, we are here to help. Our mission is in our name, and so we do HELP!

 

So, we decided to use our resources, which are YOU, our readers, and see what we can achieve!

 

So, we are launching a charity donation counter, live and in the open!

 

We have selected some super ocean ecology projects that deserve our support, and we want to help them get funded by whatever means we can come up with!

 

As you know, ScubaBiz.Help magazine is completely FREE OF CHARGE to our readers, so until now, you never even paid 1 Euro/USD to read this magazine.

 

So, now we are launching the 1Euro/USD campaign via all our channels, like Facebook, Instagram, the online magazine and all other possibilities.

 

Imagine if you would just donate 1 USD/Euro for each magazine you read, which would be 12 USD/Euro in 1 year.

 

But we are already happy with 1 Euro/USD… just 1!

 

We have 14.000 readers, so do you get the picture? So, why should it matter to just donate 1 Euro/USD?

 

BECAUSE IT REALLY DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

 

Donate your 1 EURO or US Dollar today. And SEE US GROW TO HELP Others we will get it there!

Every donation, no matter the amount, will be mentioned in our listing (nameless), so if you want to be unique and donate 1,34 Euro/USD, please go ahead! Let us see where this crowd will get us!

 

Oh, what about the Ocean Ecology projects?

 

What about saving some sharks?? To be continued…