How Not to Ask for Money When Money is Desperately Needed

It’s the hardest thing for me to do, ask for money. Even when someone stays at the guest house I try to give as much value as possible. Some of these travelers have such a small budget they even skip meals-in Nepal! If you can’t afford to eat in Nepal or India you probably need a better plan for traveling. I really admire them for going after all the adventure they can get before settling down.

I budget about $200 a month for our agency and to help our village from my own funds. That covers administration expenses and it’s a real pleasure to help. We also provide a free room for volunteers, which is an annual expense of a few thousand more in ‘in-kind’ donations. We also have a dedicated room for our agency that the kids enjoy as a library/reading/play room and classroom. Our volunteers just pay for food if they can. Last week we had a couple who only ordered one dinner. We gave them half price so both could eat.

When we get clothing donations we separate the lighter clothing for the poor women 
here and send the heavy items to the mountains. 

It kept coming up, how to get enough money to do more than just run the NGOs monthly costs. I want to do more. There is the hilltop at the temple with several trees having exposed roots. It’s just a matter of time before it landslides, so it has to be fixed ASAP. The sad thing is it would only cost a few hundred dollars to make it look lovely and be secure. Yes, I’m sure it will come out of one of my ‘oh so deep pockets.’

Our lovely guests leave money, warm clothing and even used laptop computers. Even people who have never been to Nepal help us with our computer issues from home. We have a friend who is encouraging our women’s group and that project is finally just about ready to launch. We are so grateful.

We have 4 women who are looking forward to working in our women's workshop. 

Our new plan: We’ve recently joined an affiliate website that is providing us with a platform to teach the local, young people while generating some funding. It’s so simple to use. Even though it is a busy website, once you get the layout it’s pretty easy to navigate. The tutorials and chat features are quite beneficial. I hope many of our former volunteers and our supporters will sign up to give this website a try. I think it will prove to be an excellent source of travel money for you and will help our agency, as well.

We are using this site to teach our young villagers. However, due to the language barrier, we have not been able to find students who could keep up with the lessons.

Our next classes begin on Feb. 4 and will have only college students from nearby colleges. We will be offering the classes at no  charge and offering jobs after the training. 

We are also starting a new website offering excellent handmade products from Nepal. We are also going to be starting a crowd funding project to help us do it right. I've been struggling with this website idea for over 4 years and find I just cannot do it on a shoestring. 

More to come. (Note from June 2018: We've had two training sessions for computer, but no talent has shown itself.)

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