Fueling Change

Category: Raising Funds to End Charcoal | Date: Feb 08 2008 | By: admin

The 2-5 year goal of this project is to eventually reach 100,000 households in the Goma area, which is the primary demand center for illegal charcoal coming out of Virunga NP. As such, one of the main parts of this initiative is fundraising to support the scope of this project. As Pam suggested, it will be vital to tap into the microfinance arena. Even beyond this, we are looking for ways to catch the attention of organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. If you know of anyone with connections or expertise related to working with microfinance entities or the bigger institutions, please look into those. I always come back my 6 degrees of separation philosophy…

With respect to raising funds on the Charcoal blog, Ephrem and I will be using the information garnered in his research to decide on the best donation categories for the blog. At this time, general donations will be earmarked for helping indigent families purchase plant oil and preheating fuel. We also need to start raising funds for when we get past our initial 100 stoves that BSH has generously offered to donate — to assist families that cannot afford the stoves outright. It is unlikely that we will be giving many stoves away for free because it is important for people to feel as though they have a stake in the project. In speaking with people that have done this kind of thing, the recurrent theme is that people are more likely to follow through if they have some of their own money invested.

The Jatropha/Vanilla Synergy
Paula, it would be a great help if you could dig up your study on Jatropha oil. Jatropha has the third highest yield per hectare of all the oils that the stoves can burn, producing on average, 1728 liters of oil per hectare per year. In contrast, soybeans produce just 408 liters of oil per hectare per year. Jatropha’s high yield and synergy with vanilla make it a top candidate.

Networking with Other Blogs
In the next several weeks I will be working on tying into other blogs, and most certainly, will look into the food blog networks. This is one of the best ways for us to expand our reach.

Have a great weekend!

-Robert

Share This