New Donor Reporting FAQs

What is the change iwen is making?

Instead of offering each donor a personalized annual report about the same girl each year, IWEN will be providing all of our donors with the same report each quarter highlighting one of our program participants.  This quarterly report will provide more detailed information than the previous annual reports, such as: the girl’s history, why she needed IWEN support, how going to school has changed her life, and her aspirations for the future.

why is iwen making the chnage?

This change will have two major benefits.  First, it will allow you, the donors, to have a more frequent, and more detailed, look at more of our program participants.  We hope this will better help you understand the broad impact that your donations make in the lives of these girls.  

Second, as IWEN continues to increase the number of students it supports and the donors change, producing a single quarterly report for all donors requires significantly fewer administrative resources than producing individualized annual reports for each donor.  We expect to save many hours each year with this change, time that we can put to better use supporting the education dreams of the girls in Nepal.

How will this change affect IWEN’s work in Nepal?

This change will not impact any of our operations in Nepal. In fact, it will free up administration time allowing our staff to better focus on supporting all of the students and their families with our many programs.

Will my sponsorship go directly to one child?

If I am no longer receiving my annual student progress report, how will I track what is going on with the students?

I currently sponsor a student and I wish to continue receiving updates from my student, is that possible?

Dear Donor,

IWEN Canada has always been committed to making sure that your donations are used effectively. To make sure that each dollar stretches as far as possible, the IWEN board regularly reviews processes to look for ways to improve. This year at our annual strategic meeting, the IWEN board voted to change the way we communicate about our Empowerment Through Education (ETE) scholarship program participants. This decision was made to reduce administrative time so more time and money can go directly to benefitting our students in Nepal. It will not change any part of our programming and our on-the-ground staff will continue to track each student’s academic, family and health situation.

What is the change?

Currently, if you are an ETE sponsor and pay $300 per year, you receive your own individual annual student profile with the name and information of a girl from our IWEN program. 

Beginning July 14th, 2017, all donors will begin to receive quarterly e-newsletters that give the following information:

• STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: information about one of the girls in our program. This will be similar to our student profiles, but with further information about her history, hopes, and dreams.
• NEWS FROM UNAKO: explaining what’s new on the ground in Nepal at the Unako House community centre, the Unako social enterprise and, the locally led Unako banking co-operative.
• NEWS FROM IWEN: highlighting news from our board and Canadian-based programs.

What does this mean for you?

Your donation is used in exactly the same way as it’s always been: to support a girl to attend school and receive an education. However, our ability to maintain matched student profiles for every single donor is becoming increasingly difficult as we grow and as donors change. And instead of receiving a one-time annual student profile, this gives us the ability to send you more communications throughout the year.

While we are confident this is the best move for IWEN, we understand that some of you have established a personal connection with your sponsored student and still want to receive targeted updates. Therefore, donors who joined before July 14th, 2017 have the option to continue to receive the annual student profile. If you would like to continue receiving the annual profile, please inform us by emailing: info@IWENCanada.com.

For more information on how your donation is making a difference in the lives of these girls and women, we invite you to visit our new website, IWENCanada.com. You can also find the latest news and upcoming events on our Facebook page. You do not need a Facebook account, just click on the following link: www.facebook.com/IWENCanada.

I and my fellow board members want to thank you immensely for the contributions you have made to the future of these girls. Your donations are vital to our ongoing ETE programming. We currently have 180 sponsored girls and we are continuing to offer new scholarships in rural Nepal. Each scholarship is making a real difference to each individual girl. We look forward to sharing their personal stories with you!

If you have any questions, please contact us directly at info@iwencanada.com or call (250) 215-1045.

Thank you again for all that you help us achieve! 

Sincerely,

Sylvie Forget
Director of Membership & Sponsorship