Chugging along

So, its been about 7 weeks since I first started talking about FORGE's financial position and how we planned to get out of it.  Since then its been quite a ride - a lot of people have stepped forward to offer their help, and even more have stepped forward to offer their opinion.  We have welcomed it all.

Its been hard trying to balance both the public communications side and the nitty-gritty raise-the-actual-funds-side, but we've been working hard to do both.  I plan on writing more about what this whole "transparency" thing means to me (there is a lot to say), but for the past two weeks our team has been focusing solely on raising the physical funds needed.  That is, ultimately, our job.

I'm happy to announce that as of today, FORGE has raised over $55,000 of our $100,000 budget shortfall.  This has all come in the last 6 weeks, and has been primarily from private donors (over $40,000).  We have raised over $20,000 of that from people who have already supported us this year that were generous and passionate enough to reach deeper into their pockets, and thus have accessed a $10,000 matching grant from a community foundation.  We've also received a $5000 grant from Operation USA for our community health program in Kala and a $2000 grant from the Rhodes Scholar Southern Africa Forum for our Peace Education and Computer Training program in Meheba. 

We are officially over the halfway mark in filling our 2008 budget gap.  And yet - we still have our work cut out for us.  Filling the budget gap is only the first objective - the real prize is making sure that our funding model is "sustainable" and scalable to allow us to continue creating the impact that brought us all together in the first place.

-Kjerstin Erickson

www.FORGEnow.org