Unlike many organizations, Ssamba Foundation strives to be transparent about how its donations and contributions are spent. After all, you will have worked hard to raise the funds for your project and we think you are entitled to know how we operate.
With the increasing discontent with giving blind to a charity with little knowledge of where your donation goes; Ssamba Foundation is able to offer a way to ensure your money ends up where intended. You choose your project, and visit it to ensure that the money has been spent the way you wanted. Through limited red tape and administration costs your money in full goes to the people that need it.
Whilst it is impossible to give you an exact breakdown in each individual case, we can give you an idea about the type of things on which your contribution is spent. First of all, though, we would like to explain how contributions / donations are NOT spent!
Ssamba Foundation is one of the few self-supporting organizations in Uganda. Most of our operations are privately funded by income generated from our income generating projects (guesthouse, handicraft, Agriculture farm, services and tour/safari operations). This means that donations and contributions do not end up in shareholders’ pockets, nor do we buy fancy cars, rent trendy offices or appoint flashy public relations consultants or advertising agencies.
As a not for profit organization we allocate your funds to the essential costs associated with running our locally run community development projects, researching and developing new projects, developing the skills and capacity of our hardworking local teams.
Because we don’t have to allocate profits to shareholders we are able to invest more in project development, invest more in our existing projects, providing them with better resources, and equipment and widening the scope of their activities and improving their impact.
Let’s take a look at where your project contribution does go.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
These projects are run by Ssamba Foundation staff, carefully initiated and locally managed. Entry to volunteer with our projects is competitive and follows a registration process. Most our projects have conservation and development components and most have separate educational activities.
When you join a community project, your contribution will go towards developing and sustaining that project. Although we keep all project costs to an absolute minimum, we always ensure that value for money is achieved.
While working on a community project, you may typically be living and working with a group of 2-5 volunteers, all carefully selected by us. This will vary dependent on season and the nature of the project: for instance, teaching projects will typically utilize smaller volunteer numbers of between 2 and 3.
Our community projects incur many additional costs not applicable to our supported projects. During your fundraiser, a list of expenses to which your contribution may be applied will be provided.
OUR SUPPORTED PROJECTS
After establishment of our organization in 2006, Ssamba Foundation has been approached by many organizations or projects in Uganda for assistance with humanitarian projects.
The needs of these organizations vary from project to project. They may require funding or resources, additional man power in the form of hard working, carefully selected volunteers, and specialist skills or perhaps simply they need to build awareness of their activities.
At Ssamba Foundation, we are very careful about the organizations and projects we partner with and you can be confident that all projects supported by us meet our highest standards and endorse our mission.
Without our support, many of these small community run projects would find it hard to implement their programs. They would be unable to develop and extend their valuable and often highly innovative programs. And many worthy causes would fall by the wayside. By working with these organizations, we can give them a chance to flourish while at the same time offering volunteers a wide range of exciting projects and adventures in new environments with diverse cultures and languages.
Working with Ssamba Foundation gives you the chance to contribute directly to a community development initiative: it is a more intimate experience offering you the chance to immerse yourself profoundly in our daily lives, absorbing the details of our lifestyles, customs, cultures and languages.
Conclusion
We hope that by now you will have a better idea of how we apply your hard earned money and we hope that you will approve of the decisions we have made to make our expenditure more efficient and environmentally and socially sustainable.
Although it is difficult to give you an exact figure, 100% of your contribution will be applied directly to supporting your project through a financial support. Contact us for more information.
Ssamba Foundation – empowering vulnerable communities since 2006