First Five Charity – Mission statement: 

The Problem

No governments or existing charities act really fast. Infact, governments are slow to react and existing charities are not that helpful in urgent situations. Rather than helping in the first few crucial hours of an emergency, they rebuild devastated areas after the event. In a way, they come much later to the picture and work later in rebuilding poor areas. If the governments acted swiftly, they could definitely avert the damage and reduce disaster risk.

The United Nations has also said that the first 72 hours after a disaster are crucial and response must begin during that time to save lives.

However, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – is a disturbing scenario. Hurricane Katrina was one such disaster where the catastrophe was our response. 

Hurricane Katrina or wildfires in Brazil have raised a question mark on the respective government’s ability to deal with the consequences of a serious natural or man made disaster. 

Journalists, political leaders, scholars, and citizens have time and again asked the legitimate question of what will the government do as a nation to be prepared for the next Katrina, wildfires or terrorist attack?

The story of inadequate and failed government response has been told and retold in disasters.

 

Solution

The role of ‘First Five’ would be to fill the gap between existing charities and governments in responding to such emergency crisis situations. Rather than waiting for things to get worse, ‘First Five’ team will be ready and prepared much earlier, even before a natural disaster such as a typhoon or flood hits.

Infact, the real work happens not just within the first 72 hours after the disaster takes place. It starts much before that. We believe that the more we prepare in advance, the better our response will be.

Early response to a disaster can be very effective. For instance, in 2015 in Sri Lanka, the Start Network anticipated heavy flooding on the basis of forecast warnings and reservoir levels. The Network helps in coordinating responses between 42 NGO members and their partners. It immediately released funding so that the nation could prepare much before the flooding occurred. This way, they were able to avert damage caused and more importantly, loss of human lives.

Transparency

According to the United Nations, the United States contributed over $11 billion to the United Nations in 2019. Every year, developed countries donate hundreds of billion dollars as foreign aid. But a significant amount of this money just disappears. It is lost to corruption and fraud. This is one big problem that continues to trouble governments, NGOs, and development agencies.

Most of the charities these days claim to be transparent. However, there are discrepancies between what they say and they actually do. In a way, the failure to be transparent has somehow eroded the public’s trust and has resulted in less donations as well.

A charity should be accountable to the people. Afterall, this is where they will get their actual support and funds to carry on with their endeavour. Therefore, accountability and transparency 

for NGOs is of utmost importance. Yet, this is something which is only on papers and has not been implemented yet. If more and more charities are open about their funding and operations, then it will reaffirm people’s confidence in them. Increased transparency can encourage greater donations from more and more people. They can collectively do so much more than what they had planned for.

Not to forget that most of the NGOs and charities have always demanded accountability from governments.Therefore, it is extremely important that NGOs are accountable themselves.

With so many NGO scams out in the open, donors are no longer willing to accept things at face value. This includes a misuse of charity funds (Kids Company) and inappropriate ethical conduct by staff towards beneficiaries (Oxfam).

The word “trust” has a deeper connotation and implications here. The donors want to see evidence of how the charities are using the funds and resources. 

We would like to take transparency to the next level. We believe there is a lot of fraud in charities all around the world so we would like to make a change towards 100% transparency using blockchain technology to store all invoices and transactions for anybody to view.

One such example is AID:Tech, an Ireland-based fintech company. While speaking at a knowledge sharing event at Asian Development Bank, AID:Tech CEO Joseph Thompson shared how his company was able to transparently deliver humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees in Lebanon through the means of blockchain.  

AID:Tech had partnered with the Irish Red Cross to render assistance. How did they do it?

Every refugee was issued a plastic card with an associated blockchain wallet address/ID. Each of these cards were loaded with $20 which could be redeemed at a refugee camp store. The refugee could go to the store to purchase goods using this card. The shopkeeper would scan the QR code which immediately contacted the blockchain wallet address. Once the transaction was done, donors would receive an SMS message informing them of how their donation was used. Isn’t this amazing? Yes, we also feel the same.

We believe the future of charities belongs to those who choose to become totally transparent to its donors and sponsors. People all around the world have big hearts and are always ready to help but often hesitate to donate because they are not 100% sure if their money will be put to the utmost good for humanity or not.

The future

The future lies in being transparent and accountable for each and every penny being donated. And it’s not just money through which you can help us. For us, volunteers and donors are the backbone of ‘First Five. Together we will explore the many ways we can make a lasting impact on the lives of others.

We believe in a beautiful future where we can solve all problems in the world together. With early response and transparency we can achieve a lot. But all this cannot be achieved without your support. 

Do you see yourself as a changemaker? We would like to invite you and be a part of our journey