Transparency on $$$

Even though I got pranked so badly by my members, this call and email still made my day!

For the sake of my members, I shall explain it again:

YEP funding is based on a certain percentage of the project's expenditure, capped at $20,000. By getting 50% funding (the max for a new project), it means that the burden of the expenses will be halved. Nope, it does not fully ease the expenses and YEP does not give the lump sum of $20,000, but with this 50%, we will be able to save $0.50 for every dollar spent.

How is this significant?

The air tickets to Tacloban are not cheap and the materials would be quite costly too. An average trip to Tacloban can cost about 1.5-2x more than that of a trip to Cambodia, but of course it's 10x more meaningful, I can guarantee that.

Say if we were to spend 40k in total for 30 people and on an estimate of 5k from funds raised,
Without funding:
Cost a member need to contribute= $(40,000 - 5,000) /30 pax = $1,167/pax.

Now, say we can claim 20k from YEP:
Cost a member need to contribute= $(40,000 - 20,000 - 5,000)/30 pax = $500/pax. See the importance of the funding now?

On the fine print, there are some additional items we won't be able to claim for, such as the NGO admin fee, Fundraising materials, R&R and telecom cards, but the significance of the YEP funding is there.

Therefore, every amount we can afford to not spend FROM OUR OWN POCKETS matters, and our FUNdraising and Marketing comms are actively raising funds. Your PDs hope that you guys will be able to empathise in this and help the subcomms when they need help!

Oh and on the FAQ on why we need to collect $1,000 in advance, this is because OFA(Office of Financial Affairs) disburse the funds via claims, and we will need to produce physical receipts before we can claim the moolah! The funds is also split into two trenches, we can claim (with suitable receipts) up to $10,000 before we embark on our trip, definitely not sufficient or the whole trip.

Hence, seeing that we may have cash flow issues, we got Sandy to collect the money from you guys first, and we will return the balance to you after the second trench comes in, probably within 3 months after Cheway! Therefore we seek your understanding in this.

Well, to be honest, I have never felt so relaxed and happy for a long while. We have all come so far, fighting for 30 members, NGO, new location, recce, funding and it has really not been a smooth sailing journey seeing people fight or leave. We know that not everyone are seeing the project at the same level as us but we assure everyone of you that we are sincerely appreciative that you have chosen to spend your year with cheway. In return, we will fight for the best for you guys. We believe at the end of the day, you will be able to tell the others that you have learnt a lot, gained new friendships and left a legacy behind.

Thank you, members of Cheway!