TEWA 

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
Results

Organizational Vision
TEWA, which means “Support” in Nepali, was established in 1996 to improve the lives of rural women in Nepal by providing them with funds to start their own businesses. The challenge for TEWA founder and Ashoka Fellow Rita Thapa was to build a locally funded and supported self-sustaining organization that would pioneer her vision of micro-enterprise entrepreneurship as a means of economic empowerment and development for rural Nepalese women. 

To achieve her mission, Thapa is redirecting Nepalese traditional patterns of giving, which typically involve religious and cultural activities, toward economic and social development projects such as those carried out by TEWA. At the root of her strategy Thapa is inculcating Nepalese culture with a sense of local philanthropy, and she is propagating this strategy with a pervasive web of skilled volunteers.

Citizen Base Strategy

TEWA relies on the work of a core group of dedicated, hard working volunteers who are skillfully guided in their fundraising efforts by a team of founders and professional advisors. The volunteer base is comprised of nearly 80 individuals—representing a wide range of ethnic groups, castes, religious faiths, ages, economic classes, and professions.

In order to maximize its volunteer effectiveness, TEWA organizes a three-day fundraising workshop for groups of 15 volunteers twice a year. Their training introduces them to TEWA and to various fundraising basics such as donor solicitation. Each volunteer then commits to spending at least four months to helping TEWA raise funds.

During the training workshops, volunteers look at how Nepalese people traditionally spend their income. They are then trained to use these traditional forms of giving as entry points for getting potential donors to try an alternative form of giving: making a contribution to TEWA. Volunteers also learn to discuss with donors specific ways in which they could ‘save’ funds from their existing spending in order to be able to donate. Examples of such ‘savings’ include discussions with teenagers about spending less money on social events such as birthday parties and, then, in turn, donating the extra funds to TEWA.

The responsibility for fundraising is then distributed amongst each of these volunteers. Instead of one or two people working on bringing in new funds, 80 people are doing so, leading to far greater returns. Everyone involved with TEWA recruits new supporters and volunteers. The fundraising process starts with the individual volunteers themselves—each volunteer is asked to contribute to TEWA’s resources: financially, professionally or simply through their time, energy and advice. Volunteers often will even turn to family members and friends and ask them to join TEWA’s efforts.

Results

TEWA’s innovative strategies and consistent efforts have steadily increased their number of donors and supporters. Their annual volunteer fundraising effort produced nearly 3 million rupees (approximately 70,000 $U.S.) in 1998. TEWA’s volunteers have not only provided for the financial independence of TEWA through successful locally-channeled fundraising, but also have helped reinvigorate the philanthropic fabric of Nepal by rechanneling donations from religious and cultural causes to socio-economic activities.