This is a question we get a lot on Facebook: how can I tell a fake Crowdfunding campaign from a legitimate one? The unfortunate best answer here is that you can’t, you can, however, look out for some red flags that do seem common in Crowdfunding scams. Crowdfunding’s advice on the matter is to only donate to people you know and trust.
‘’Harambee’’,swahili, literally pulling or working together. This unites Kenyans to a point where we are today. On my understanding, schools, hospitals, water projects, name them all were put in place by just a single word. Kenyans got a strong metallic bonding whenever in need of crowd funding. Crowd funding It much like a bushfire, starting on a small area and with wind blow in the right direction, and nothing hindering in the way of the fire Kenyans shows their patriotism by donating to their level best without looking our differences. There have been few major scenarios where Kenyans have come together for crowd funding that truly shows we still stand our national slogan.
The best know Kenyans for Kenya food security projects was one where all Kenyans came together after the governments declared drought in the Northern Kenya a national disaster. Every Kenyan hold hands and finally its was reported that the incentive raised a total of KSh 1 billion that’s 700 million in cash and 300 million in kinds ,this was the best of all times.
The resent one brought about concentration in me was #1milliforjedudi, On 4th August 2015 the #1MilliForJadudi campaign was launched, with the goal of raising KES1 million (USD9,492) towards this worthy cause. In just two days #1MilliforJadudi had raised KES 7,256,096 (USD 70,376) towards the cause, seven times the initial goal.
In all this cases show that Kenyans have the spirits of helping hand .but the worst of it all there are various cases people have been reported to use crowd funding to enrich themselves .This through fake pay bill numbers now have become common on social medial and people are being fraud out of the Kenyans kindness.
On the flip side such opportunity are bound to be misused to defraud unsuspecting Kenyans, This occasionally happens on social medial, where these people post images of beneficiaries with pay bill numbers to contribute to the worthy cause only to learn later that the guy was a con trying to make some quick bucks. This ends up creating a negative attitudes toward crowd funding.
Crowd funding is a concept that has been used all over the world for the betterment of society and the biggest successes are the ones that has a sustainability angle to them. If they are not long time projects like hospital bills, we need a new way of looking at them to ensure we are raising money for the said cause not some unscrupulous NGOs behind the faces of the real victims.
Kenyan startups, M-Changa and paykind now offers a solution that can help us avert this concerns by increasing transparency and Integrity of any foresaid funding. With this startups the money is held by a trustee bank and they only makes payment to the Hospital or the accredited service providers.