Fundraising should be easy. It should be dignified. It should be simple and hassle-free and it should not take a lot of time because those of us who have to do it have a lot of other things to do as well. Like, for example, the work we are asking people to support.

Many of us in the voluntary sector depend upon grants from foundations and corporations to support our work. But while the large amounts we receive are welcome and exciting, the paperwork is overwhelming. We spend so much time writing proposals and then filing reports, impact assessments and financial statements that it is essential to hire staff just for that. Yet in a typical Catch-22, funders never want to pay for admin. They are only interested in the “beneficiaries.”

So are we. That’s why we started this whole thing in the first place. That’s why we stay.

But sometimes, on some days, it’s hard to remember why we came. It’s hard to keep the kids in mind. It’s hard to believe that this whole enterprise is about THEM, that without them, all the paperwork is meaningless and hollow. Because the annual report still has to be written, and the audit is due, the Board meeting hasn’t happened yet, and the bank balance – as usual! – is too low.

So Scramble! Rush! Write it down! Put it in an Excel sheet! Make a Powerpoint! DOCUMENT IT.

Or don’t.

A few weeks ago, worried about our finances, I called Virender Gulati – an old friend, a successful local businessman and a long-time supporter.

He said: “Let’s do a raffle.”

I said: “Great!”

I thought: “Are you nuts?”

A raffle? Selling tickets for prizes? What? How does that fit with our vision?

But then I thought (and I want full credit for humility and grace): Maybe he knows something I don’t know.

And – oh my goodness – I was right. He did.

Virender’s plan turned out to be a carefully crafted exercise in community outreach – letting people all over Dehradun know what we are doing and offering them the opportunity to be a part of it. Here’s how it goes:

A team of us (five or six people, Virender insisted, because we have to make people stop and look) hit the streets together:

We go into almost every shop we pass and explain our mission: we work for children with disability and we need to raise 20 lakhs. We are organizing a raffle and we need prizes to be donated or sponsored by the shopkeepers.

Virender Gulati is a beloved figure in the Dehradun business community. Every other shopkeeper respects and reveres him for his honesty, his sense of humour and his open, generous heart.

Nobody can say no to him.

In every shop we entered, we got a warm welcome. Jewellers donated necklaces, earrings and pearls:

Fancy saree stores gave us beautifully wrapped suit pieces and sarees.

Someone sponsored a washing machine; another man gave us a microwave while a third offered to sponsor the printing of the scratch tickets.

Every now and then we would pause to add up our totals – each day’s goal was higher (from 50 on Day One to 300 on Day four!) and as we walked we would analyse our strategies and refine our tactics:

Every shopkeeper seemed genuinely happy to make a contribution. Everyone seemed excited about the work we were doing and the chance to be a part of it. Because we weren’t just asking for donations. Raising awareness was just as important as raising money. In every shop we went into, we caused a bit of a commotion.

Six people all at the same time, entering a small place with an air of purpose and resolve, are bound to create a stir. Clerks stop whatever they are busy with, customers get distracted, the man whose job it is to open the door forgets what he is supposed to be doing . . . and our team fans out. While Virender and I speak with the manager, the others work the room:

 

Customers, helpers, managers – everyone gets the pamphlet and the “elevator spiel”: if you know of a child who has trouble speaking or walking or seeing or who seems slow in any way – we can help. Gubbara – state-of-the-art! world class care! – is the centre we pitch because everyone knows the Doon Hospital and everyone knows that it’s free.

We leave every shop with our arms full of gifts and the exciting knowledge that people not only now know about our work but are feeling good about having contributed to it.

And for the raffle itself, we plan to sell 100,000 tickets at the rock bottom price of only Rs 20 each. Anyone will be able to afford it – rickshaw drivers, subzi wallas, school kids and old people. We’ve got 500 t-shirts donated and we will be sending an army of school kids out on the streets to sell for us.

100,000 tickets, twenty rupees each – there’s our twenty lakhs, and, perhaps more important, thousands upon thousands of people feeling they have made a contribution to a better, more inclusive community.

No wonder we’re eating kulfi (free, of course, and after getting twenty boxes of mithai pledged for the raffle).