We're Number Three

Lenara and I attended a seminar this week that focused specifically on volunteerism in Ukraine and also on fundraising. These were two areas that there was some agreement that we could both use some help with. The structure of the seminar, put on by Peace Corps, was that volunteers had sessions in one room while counterparts had sessions in another room and we would learn pretty much the same thing during the day. Then, we would have a joint session in the afternoon where we would outline our own project for our own community, each day adding a little more "flesh" to the idea. By the end of the seminar we would have a presentation that we could take back to our communities and present to our host organizations. We started on Tuesday and by Friday morning we had our project written for a gallery presentation.

Because of some recent stagnation on my project ideas on the library’s part, I decided to let Lenara solely decide the project she wanted to develop over the course of the week. With virtually no thought at all she thought that we should start working once again on our War Veteran Video Archive project. Since this was my idea that was sort of co-opted by the library administration, I can't tell you how happy I was that she said that. It gave me, at least for a moment, a feeling that my idea might actually get off the ground again. So we talked about the project, adding every afternoon to the idea on how to incorporate volunteers to helping us and maybe even performing some of the archiving mechanics. We also got bonus points for showing how a fundraiser could help us meet our goal. One of the ideas I thought of to tie in with our War Veteran's Video Archive was to "sell bricks" in front of the war memorial in town, engraving bricks with the names, ranks, and dates of veterans that would hopefully be paid for by the families of living or dead veterans to remember their service. Sales like this have been successful in the U.S. and there is no reason why it couldn't work here. On Friday morning we had a gallery where each group of two posted their project on the wall and they handed out three stickers to each participant. We all voted for the project that we wanted to hear more about. Then they counted the votes and lo and behold, Lenara and I came in number three! Out of 34 projects, we were beaten only by: an initiative to build a volunteer network to feed the homeless in one of Ukraine’s larger cities, as well as a project revolving around the preservation of a historical landmark in western Ukraine. We were pretty happy and encouraged by the interest in our project.

When the volunteers and counterparts were split up we each had different workshop activities we were asked to work on. One of the things that we take for granted as Americans, is the power of asking for donations. I mean all of us, at one time or another have asked someone for money for an event or cause, right? At the very least we have all given at some time or another to a cause asking for donations- even the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas. Well, in Ukraine this type of fundraising is virtually unheard of (unless they have worked with Americans before). The counterparts were put to a contest on the last day of the seminar and explained to that they had to walk around and solicit donations from anyone connected with the seminar. (we were given the heads up that it was a contest for the person with the best collection efforts would win a prize). Over the night as counterparts who had never had to solicit donations before asked for money- there was an even bigger motive that remained to be seen. The next morning the winners of the donation collecting was announced. There were seven counterparts that took part and between them, they collected a total of 439 UAH(about $55). The winner was a young woman who hustled up 177 UAH by herself. Most impressive considering the parameters they were working within. As the collectors were awarded their bars of chocolate it was announced that the entire pool of collected money would be awarded to the project with the most votes (just like The Big Idea concept I wrote about earlier in the summer).

All of us went around and voted for our favorite projects, not being allowed to vote for your own). As mentioned earlier, we were voted number three as the other two project had tied with 19 votes each. So, obviously not anticipating a tie, they had to determine how to fairly award the winning funds. After just a moment the group who wanted to feed the homeless spoke up and said that their project was not currently at the place where they were looking for funding and deferred all winnings to the historic preservation project. Then, in an amazing twist, that projects volunteer and counterpart magnanimously deferred the winning funds to our archive project, explaining that their project had actually applied for a $100,000 grant for their project and that the 439UAH seemed like it would be more effectively spent on our project. We were stunned and humbled by the gesture. Lenara and I had to get up and present our project to the group and explained that the only funds we needed for our project is for the purchase of an external hard drive to store the audio and video files at the library. The cost is 640UAH and the 439UAH was more than half of what we needed. This made everyone feel like there was a real possibility that the money would actually make a real difference in a project. It is my intention to see that it does.

I also hope that the library directors can understand the concept of locally sustainable fundraising, an idea that is as foreign to them as an American working in their office.