Thursday 17 May 2007

Foot prints


I was kind of nervous to go on to the stage after the amazing presentation by Christy. She was so clear, composed, and had the audience spell bound. She was presenting her case on the functions of Foot Prints program, an initiative from the travel insurance company World nomads.

Christy started with a personal story of how her company initiated the program. Having bumped into a disfigured landmine victim in Cambodia kick started a process that is taking the online donations to new level! Seeing the disfigured victim in front of her, she felt so much of helplessness and didn't know what to do. Back in Australia in her office, she heard similar stories from her colleagues Chris and Simon and they decided to kick start the project donation program Foot Prints.

The beauty of the project is the outreach of the program and the amount that is involved in the donation. Whenever their clients purchase a travel insurance, they prompt their clients asking if they want to make a small donations to a needy project in various parts of the world ranging from Nairobi to Nepal.

"Small is big" seems to be attraction. A donation of one dollar or two doesn't look big on its own, but it definitely makes a difference when many of their clients do the same. Smaller donations online also ensures that Foot Prints nor their clients have to spend any extra amount for the donation transfer to project destinations as the clients have already spent their money in insurance purchase.

Within a span of year and a half, Foot print has successfully raised funds for about 12 projects and seen through completion. See here for more details of these projects. Interestingly World Nomads have also sponsored many interesting travels through Australia including the now famous journey of The three lost girls.

Oslo © GP 2007

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man! Does the snap mean you got your camera back?
Inspiring to hear about Christy and Simon's initiative.
How did your presentation go?

GP said...

Yes, I got the camera back :) Honest people around. But will have to wait until i come back to see rest of the pictures as this time some s/w complaints wont let me download images to laptop. Very happy with the presentation :)

Anonymous said...

That's quite an interesting posting. Wish I could do the lost girl stuff. will they sponsor ;)