Donations - Solar Water Pump

Update on solar fountain fundraising.
After some problems with the German donation platform betterplace.org, we ask for donations directly to our donation account.


Very brief summary of the events:

Since betterplace.org is, as already mentioned, is a German platform, we had great difficulties getting the collected donations paid out, which had been always easy before, but suddenly was no longer possible. In addition, our fundraising presence on the betterplace homepage was blocked.
In Germany it is relatively easy to receive a donation favor notification. In Austria you have to have an auditor (costs per year at least EUR 5,000.00) check the books of our non-profit, submit this to the tax office and then after a long wait you will get this notification. Our small association does not have these financial means and we still stand behind our statement that 100% of all donations should go to projects in The Gambia.

After some back and forth I was able to get a certificate of our non-profit status from the tax office (waiting period more than 7 months) by showing all the required information.

Fortunately, betterplace acknowledged it and after 2 further months the remaining amount, unfortunately minus processing and bank charges, was transferred to our donation account.
(Direct transfer would also be better because no platform can deduct any intrests)

When the donation chaos finally came to an end, Corona "happened" and unfortunately there are further delays. We cannot send a container as planned or travel to the Gambia and build the well. However, the plan is still in place and is being implemented reliably. We hope that our means will suffice because on the one hand, the donation goal has still not been reached and on the other hand, we also have storage costs that accumulate due to the many delays. However, these costs are not covered by donations intended for the well, but by separate income. Donations for the water pump will only be used for this purpose! We hope that we can hold out financially in the meantime.
We still lack almost EUR 1,700.00 for the tower construction, which we could not collect due to the blocking of the platform.

We very much hope that there will be positive reports again soon. Until then, we are grateful for any donation for the implementation of the project.


Many thanks to everyone!

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