DEVELOPmed.aid provides vouchers to patients in Burkina Faso that allow them to exchange them for supplies needed to receive medical treatment.

This is achieved through an online donation platform that enables donors to give in an easy, self-determined and flexible way and provides them with personal feedback on where and how their donation was used.

The marketing and PR strategy is built around social networks with minimal administration costs and a focus on transparency and maturity of the donor’s choice, selecting the purpose of a donation.

We especially want to reach and motivate young and first time donors to help, with micro/mini donations and easily understandable donation concept. Small change, big difference: http://prezi.com/fl-qpr9hwlc-/small-change-big-difference/

Problem

DEVELOPmed.aid provides vouchers to patients in Burkina Faso that allow them to exchange them for supplies needed to receive medical treatment. This is achieved through an online donation platform that enables donors to give in an easy, self-determined and flexible way and provides them with personal feedback on where and how their donation was used. The marketing and PR strategy is built around social networks with minimal administration costs and a focus on transparency and maturity of the donor’s choice, selecting the purpose of a donation. We especially want to reach and motivate young and first time donors to help, with micro/mini donations and easily understandable donation concept. Small change, big difference: http://prezi.com/fl-qpr9hwlc-/small-change-big-difference/

Solution

Well being aware of numerous non-profit organizations engaging in the same field, we want to offer our potential donors and partners a distinctive service that does not exists on the market yet. It is the combination of the following measures that allow us to differentiate from our competitors and thus to attract our different target groups: One donation equals one act: the money donated to us will not disappear in one big pot, where a donor usually cannot understand what happened with his money. Instead we demonstrate that with one donation one person will be helped. Maturity of the donor: after the donor has decided what kind of medicine kit he wants to donate, his donation will only be used for its intended purpose and for nothing else - the donor will not be deprived of his maturity. Transparency: a lack of transparency is the main barrier for distrust in international aid organizations. In order to assure the most possible transparency we create an innovative feedback system, by which the donor will get informed as soon as his donation finds its use. So far this whole initiative is created and executed by students from the Rhein-Main area in Germany. They engage in various disciplines of study, all putting in their work entirely free of charge. We try to leverage this as much as we can in order to keep the overhead cost as low as possible and the workload for all volunteers bearable.

Example

1) health: We want to bridge the surprisingly small gap between a patient in need and his health. A donation on our platform equals one medical treatment, helping a person in need to obtain a treatment he or she could otherwise not afford. 2) motivate young donors: By making this process as easy and clear as possible we especially want to motivate young and first-time donors to make a contribution. Integrative use of social networks and an establishment of (student) ambassador programs aim to make the interested donor an active part of the organization by helping to spread the word.

Marketplace

We will pilot our concept in the capital of Burkina Faso, in Ouagadougou, where the idea first sparked. The “Centre Hospitalier Nationale Yalgado Ouédraogo”, (CHNYO) the University hospital in Ouagadougou, specifically two departments, will be partnering with us. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa. Ranked by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in terms of Human Development Indicators (HDI) Burkina Faso is 161 out of 169 and considered a least developed country (LDC) in Sub-Sahara Africa. about 46 per cent live below the poverty line. Burkina has a population of about 15m people, with over 45 per cent being under 15 years it is very young. Roughly 80 per cent live in rural areas. Ouagadougou, with a population of about 1.5m, has both state- as well as privately held health clinics, with CHNYO being the largest.