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We could keep the network alive indefinitely for probably $2K-$3K per month. This network provides free and open internet to dozens of sites all over east Afgha

by trevore 14y ago

We could keep the network alive indefinitely for probably $2K-$3K per month. This network provides free and open internet to dozens of sites all over east Afghanistan including hospitals and schools. This is way down from just two years ago when bandwidth was $5K per month for 1Mbps. I can only speak for myself and this is where I am at with this right now. I don't know if you have ever done fund raising but it is very time consuming and frankly unpleasant. Also, if you start including pay for yourself in the cost not only does the amount needed go up drastically, but people start questioning your motives. That makes it even harder to raise funds. So between working jobs and spending our free time trying to make a difference in a very difficult situation, I just don't have the cycles to spend raising funds. I think it boils down to the fact that I am an engineer and want to spend my time solving problems over there, not in endless meetings and hoping for little bits of money here and there. That is what we have been doing and for me personally it's starting to burn me out. At this point what we really need is bandwidth costs and a small salary for the Afghans keeping it running. And we need the money to be painless for us. It's a hard to find a sponsor like that.

kanamekun 14y ago
I've fundraised for my own startups before (not fun). But a while ago, I headed up marketing for Kiva.org (a crowdfunding site for entrepreneurs, mostly in the developing world) and found crowdfunding to be a really powerful way to raise money. I also did a Kickstarter a while ago related to poverty alleviation that raised $21k... not a huge sum, but one that helped get the project going. It sounds like you guys are at a point where you'd like to raise a year's worth of funds upfront, or you're leaning towards burning out and canceling the entire project. This is an ideal situation for crowdfunding: people have a real incentive to donate, as they know their funds will truly make a difference. I would recommend doing an Indiegogo campaign for $25-30k to get things started. As part of it, you could promise regular updates on how things are going in Afghanistan. At Kiva, people really loved hearing from our entrepreneurs on how the loan was going. As for marketing the piece, Peretz is a really wonderful writer. Would he be willing to write 2-3 shorter stories about the network, and the impact that it's having in Afghanistan? Then we could share them here on HN (and elsewhere), and link to the crowdfunding campaign at the end of the piece. It also wouldn't be too hard to get an article or two written about this, either in HuffPo, TC or maybe PandoDaily (I haven't worked with Pando before, but it's probably similar to TC). That would definitely drive significant fundraising... plus there are poverty alleviation blogs and social media gurus who would definitely help out. If you're interested, I'd be glad to help you with the marketing and PR gratis... a project like this makes it incredibly easy to drive publicity and fundraising. Either way, I wish you all the best with this important project!!
- trevore 14y ago
  Color me interested. Can you shoot me an email (trevor.ellermann@gmail.com) and let's continue the discussion?

by trevore 14y ago

kanamekun 14y ago

I've fundraised for my own startups before (not fun). But a while ago, I headed up marketing for Kiva.org (a crowdfunding site for entrepreneurs, mostly in the developing world) and found crowdfunding to be a really powerful way to raise money. I also did a Kickstarter a while ago related to poverty alleviation that raised $21k... not a huge sum, but one that helped get the project going. It sounds like you guys are at a point where you'd like to raise a year's worth of funds upfront, or you're leaning towards burning out and canceling the entire project. This is an ideal situation for crowdfunding: people have a real incentive to donate, as they know their funds will truly make a difference. I would recommend doing an Indiegogo campaign for $25-30k to get things started. As part of it, you could promise regular updates on how things are going in Afghanistan. At Kiva, people really loved hearing from our entrepreneurs on how the loan was going. As for marketing the piece, Peretz is a really wonderful writer. Would he be willing to write 2-3 shorter stories about the network, and the impact that it's having in Afghanistan? Then we could share them here on HN (and elsewhere), and link to the crowdfunding campaign at the end of the piece. It also wouldn't be too hard to get an article or two written about this, either in HuffPo, TC or maybe PandoDaily (I haven't worked with Pando before, but it's probably similar to TC). That would definitely drive significant fundraising... plus there are poverty alleviation blogs and social media gurus who would definitely help out. If you're interested, I'd be glad to help you with the marketing and PR gratis... a project like this makes it incredibly easy to drive publicity and fundraising. Either way, I wish you all the best with this important project!!

trevore 14y ago
Color me interested. Can you shoot me an email (trevor.ellermann@gmail.com) and let's continue the discussion?