People who are moved by the plight of the poor during lockdown have raised over ₹78 crore through the crowd funding platform Milaap in the past one month. The money was generated for food and other resources for the homeless, migrant workers, transgenders and other sections of the society.
Around 1,653 people from different parts of the country started online campaigns and 1.4 lakh donors from across the world contributed to the cause. However, over 96% of funds were collected within India. People donated whatever they could afford, starting from ₹15 by students through online payment windows.
Co-founder and CEO of Milaap Mayukh Choudhury said that people’s willingness to donate and express solidarity spikes during natural disasters or crisis. Recalling past ten years’ observations of responses to online campaigns, Mr. Mayukh said that willingness of people to help each other always existed. For the first time, they observed this behaviour on a large scale when floods ravaged Chennai in 2015. Around ₹50 lakh was donated in a span of two days.
A similar expression of reaching out was observed when floods hit Kerala and other States over the next few years.
“The fundamental behaviour is the same. The (online) medium of expression has become more prominent. In case of COVID-19, unprecedented amount was collected because of the magnitude of crisis and enabling ecosystem — more people accessing Internet and payment system, people’s understanding of crowd funding,” he said.
Over the past one month, campaigns for COVID-19 relief work were centred around three themes (a) Individuals, NGOs, private organisations collected money to provide food (b) Money to small group of people from poor background (c) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to healthcare professionals. It is anticipated that campaigns might be floated in May to help micro businesses.
Usually, 5% of platform fee is charged on funds raised through the platform. The Milaap team members said that the fee is not charged for campaigns association with COVID-19. They check for authenticity of the fund-raisers, individuals or organisations. To know if funds are utilised for the stated reasons, they ask for bills issued by vendors, PAN cards and account details.
The online platform will be the temporary custodian of funds collected so far. While withdrawing the funds, beneficiary details (account details, ID proof) are asked for.