What’s up with the name ?
Pronounced: [ek-oh-dah-nah]
The ECO part is quite obvious : our mission is to enable green sustainable solutions to poverty issues. DANA is a Pali and Sanskrit word meaning the desire to give without expecting any form of repayment from the recipient. (Pali is the Latin of many Asian countries such as Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Laos, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. It is best known as the language of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures.)
Is my donation tax deductible?
All donations to Ecodana are fully tax-deductible. (Our US Tax ID is 37-1605519.)
How do I know my money is well spent?
We are a fundraising platform and don’t run any of the projects on our site directly. We ask all our partners to provide a job order and a project report at completion of project. We also ask for visual documentation of the project as it progresses. These pictures and videos are sent to you the donor. You get to choose whether you would rather receive these updates via email, joining our Facebook page, or just checking in on our website. This way you get to see where your money went.
How do you cover operating expenses?
Ecodana takes 10% of the amount our partners need for a given project and adds that to calculate the total goal amount. Say our partner needs $2000 for a project we will add 10% of $2000 to have the total funding goal be $2200. We keep $200 and the $2000 is sent to our partner. We also seek grants from foundations and contributions from individual donors.
How do you choose projects ?
We seek projects that follow these basic guidelines:
1. Fundamentally, does the project help to alleviate poverty?
2. Is the project environmentally sustainable?
3. Who will run the project and what is their track record?
4. Has the project costs been researched thoroughly?
5. Is it a reasonable cost?
6. Can sufficient reports be provided on completion?
A condition of funding is that our partner be required to provide both a written and photographic summary on completion of the project.
We ask our partner organizations for recommendations. We do research and see who has gotten grants before. In this way we find out who has been active for while and who does good work. Also, we look for partners who have projects that could benefit from eco-friendly solutions but who can’t get the funding for them.
What happens if a project is only partially funded ?
It will not get funded. We might reintroduce it at a later date if we feel that eventually it has the possibility of getting funded. There are always going to be more projects.
What happens to my money if the project is not fully funded?
You will have the option of choosing another project to donate to, allocate the amount to Ecodana, or get a refund.
How is the money processed when a project is fully funded?
When a project is fully funded we contact our local partner and let them know the project has been successfully funded and proceed to wire the money to their account. The cost of wiring the funds will come out of our pockets; that’s part of our operating costs.
What if I want to know more about a project before I donate ?
We can put you in contact with our partner and you are welcome to ask them any question you have. At some point soon, we hope to help interested donors to travel to areas where our partners work and have the opportunity to visit or even volunteer with the project.
