Thank you for your donations and update on the next steps
10 August 2020Kia ora
Thanks so much for your donation and support. As you know we’ve been fundraising since 31 May – and have kept our page open a bit longer to ensure that we met our &10,500 target - with our final tally now at $10,845.
Our goal was to ensure that as much as possible of the money raised could go directly to support the people in Refugee camps via the UNHCR COVID-19 appeal, which meant talking directly with the Australian UNHCR team to confirm the best option for transferring the money without losing additional fees for transfer etc.
The charity entity (Third Culture Minds (https://thirdcultureminds.org.nz/) that we’ve been using as an umbrella organisation for our fundraiser campaign on givealittle doesn’t have a ‘overseas donee status’. As such there are limitations around our ability to collect funds on behalf an internationally focussed charitable organisation without the required approval status. The approval isn’t hard or impossible to secure but can take a bit of time as it entails a couple of steps which will likely slow things down, so we’ve instead confirmed an option that won’t result in incurring additional transfer fees and that can allow for the speedy release of the funds. ‘Givealittle’ will directly deposit the donations to a verified bank account, which we can then make a one-off online payment to forward the collected funds in its entirety to ‘Australia for UNHCR’ via the UNHCR NZ website’s built-in donations function.
This has been both an emotional and uplifting experience for both of us - thank you all sincerely for opening your hearts and minds to talk about the situation for displaced people around the world and, whatever the amount thank you for donating to make a tangible difference in their lives. COVID-19 is still a very real threat to vulnerable communities around the world and this money is desperately needed.
He waka eke noa
Ange and Guled
