We Encourage fundraising for education

1. According to Unicef 12 million girls, youngest of them eight years of age, are forced into marriage yearly. This form of modern day slavery and lack of education could be a reality for almost 280 million girls alive today, if there is no reduction in the practice. 

There are thousands of NGOs helping girls and women under oppression. However, for fundraising, many of the NGOs lack resources and tools, marketing know how, transparency, etc. From donors side, research shows that donors value transparency, follow-up, communal feeling and connection.

2. We are building a blockchain based crowdfunding service for incetivizing families to educate their daughters. With blockchain we are able to build in the transparency and traceablity of the money flow. 

3. Malala Foundation notes that early marriage often prevents girls from continuing their education. 12 years of education would result in a 64% drop in child marriage.

Child forced marriage is a reality for 12 million girls every year. This problem is global, happening even in Scandinavia, Europe and other Western countries for girls in immigrant communities. 280 million girls alive today are at risk of being forced into early marriage. If there is no reduction in the practice the total number of women married in childhood will grow from more than 700 million today to approximately 950 million by 2030, and nearly 1.2 billion by 2050. In Nepal, one of our piloting countries, one in three girls under the age of 18 are married, even the child marriage has been illegal since 1963. 

Even there are cultural and religious reasons behind this practice, the most common reason for girls being married at a very young age is money. Poor families simply cannot afford educating a daughter. For many parents in developing countries, marrying off daughters in exchange for a dowry has become a question of survival. 

According to the International Center for Research on Women and the World Bank, ending the practice of child marriage would save billions of dollars in annual welfare expenditures, resulting in global savings of more than $4 trillion by 2030.

We are building a blockchain-based fundraising tool, which enables peer to peer incentivizing for families to educate their daughters so that it is economically more beneficial to educate a girl than to marry her off for money.

NGO works as an entry point entity to validate the need for funding for the girl's education.

A smart wallet is created for a school, a girl, and a family. Affordable smartphones can be given to the family by our collaborative partner.

A donor chooses a cause he/she wishes to support, donates money, and is able to follow the money flow through the documentations uploaded on a blockchain database.

The money donated money is divided for:

• the school to cover the expenses for the education, 
• the girl for a nest egg for the future and for necessity products such as period pads (one of the major reasons for girls dropping out of school is periods and not being able to afford the pads) 
• the family as an incentive. 

In developing countries, this scenario could be covered for one family roughly with 15€ to 25€ per month donation.

The school and the NGO work as monitoring entities, that the girls are attending school.

The target population is the girls in developing countries and their families. We have been reaching out to different NGOs in Finland and abroad, working with our target group, to learn more about their needs and the challenges.

One of our piloting partner is IDEA Nepal, a Nepalese NGO, established by Rachana Sunar. Rachana was almost forced into marriage at the age of 15. She managed to prevent the forced marriage and has now dedicated her life helping poor families in her community to make them understand the importance of the education for girls and to end child marriage. She is running a kindergarten for the marginalized children and for children of child mothers. The kindergarten will be developing to a school. 

We are collaborating by asking questions, learning about their work and doing our best in understanding what type of support they would need to able to succeed with their mission. Our collaboration happens through online calls and messages. 

Our solution will provide funding for NGOs like IDEA Nepal, to enable them to run it's operation. In addition our solution will provide financial support for families in need, and to enable the education for the girls and child mothers. 

With our solution we are aiming to increase the number of girls and young women participating in formal and informal learning and training.

With transparent fundraising tool, aimed for especially smaller NGOs providing support and help for women and girls in grassroot level, we enable them to give help to more people in their communities. It is important to increase the understanding and awareness about the importance of education  of girls in the community. Awarenerss rising combined with the ability to have a financial support for educating a girl, families willing to educate their daughters, are able to do that. 

Our competitors are Go Fund Me and Finnish crowdfunding platform Mesenaatti. Our difference is that we have a defined focus group for our causes: women and girls. Another differentiator is that we don’t only market the fundraising but also help with the follow-up marketing. 

But, the biggest difference is that we utilize technology called blockchain to enable traceability and transparency for the donations. This increases trust between the cause creator and donors. We help the NGOs to serve their donors better as they are able to trace down the money usage. 

Also, our goal is to creat the incentivizing peer-to-peer support system for enabling the families to educate their daughters instead of forcing them into marriage. This is a big distinction on the competing fundraising platforms. We enable direct, transparent impact making for donors. This is planned to be done in collaboration with NGOs and schools, so that we can make sure the girls and families receiving help are truly in need, and donors can be sure their money is used for creating an impact. 

Another distinction is that we are offering additional support for NGOs empowering women with our crowdsourced (in collaborationpool with professionals) and open source AI tool, aimed for women suffering from intimate partner violence. Many of the NGOs are suffering from the lack of funding and resources, there might be an urgent need to support a victim of IPV for example, and with our fundraising tool we help them to access those resources. 

Fundraising tool: 

We use blockchain tehcnology to enable the transparency and traceability of donations. This we are enabling with stragegic partnership with Charity Wall. With this partnership we are able to test the solution and get closer towards our main goal of enabling education for girls instead of being forced into marriage. This partnership also allows us the possiblity of simultaneously building the AI tool for intimate partner violence victims.

The NGO opens an e-wallet, we trace the money that enters into the e-wallet, the NGO uses that money for their payment. The money flow inside and outside the wallet is also saved in blockchain automatically. Also invoices and any document or file to underline the use of donations can be uploaded to the blockchain. We Encourage takes its commission automatically from the donation, our share and the Charity Wall's commission is visible and clear for the donor. We can also incentivize donors with the tokens that can be created with blockchain. 

Conversational AI tool 

For our conversational tool for IPV victims we use artificial intelligence and natural language processing. With this technology we are able to create a therapeutic, supportive and guiding tool for victims of domestic abuse. The tool works like an interactive diary or companion, that learns from the conversations with victim, can suggest helping services and also create a psychological profile to help the cauncelor to understand the support the victims needs and by that speed up the healing process. 

Fundraising platform utilizes blockchain technology, which is build on Ethereum, one of the biggest and most used open-source platforms for decentralized applications. 

Ethereum blockchain is use cases in more detail can be found here.

Charity Wall, our strategic partner, has already been testing and piloting with the technology on their own platform. This is one of our reasons for partnership, as building a blockchain solution is not easy and experienced developers are hard to find. 

The growing list of applications and use cases of blockchain technology in business and life.

AI tool uses machine learning and natural language processing.There are different use cases already existing in therapeutic councelling: 

Woebot: chatbot uses machine learning and natural language processing to help users manage their mood and mitigate depression.

Wysa: uses machine learning algorithms to learn user emotions and recommend interventions to help users maintain an emotional balance. For example, using natural language processing, the app responds to texts and suggests interventions including cognitive-behavioural techniques (CBT), meditation and breathing techniques.
Mindstrong: uses machine learning to help diagnose and treat behavioral health disorders by interpreting data generated from using smartphone technology.
Tess: Built by clinical psychologists, Tess is a Mental Health Chatbot that coaches people through tough times to build resilience, by having text message conversations – similar to texting with a friend or coach.

The impact theory has been created by interviewing different professionals on NGOs globally, and by interviewing donors. Also, researching about the topic of early forced marriages and oppression on women. We have done research on the needs and wants of donors and read researches about the topic from various sources. 

GIRLS

If we are able to empower girls to believe in themselves and make their parents understand the importance of education, and by that prevent early forced marriages and get girls into school instead, then they are able to earn a living, participate in community decision making and they will become mothers in a more mature stage of their life. 

If they are more mature, empowered and able to earn a living and to participate in the decision making in the community, then there will be  savings on social expenditures, increased gender equality, increased social capital and justice, less early forced marriages and diminished population growth rate. 

DONORS and NGOs

If we are able to provide transparent and traceable system and tools for impact makers to give money and follow up the cause, then they are more likely to give money more frequently and feel empowered. If we are able to provide tools and processes (marketing and money collecting) for NGOs to make their money collecting easy and transparent. The NGOs are able to concentrate on the causes empowering women and girls, as their workload and costs around money collecting are lower, thus bigger part of the money given will go to the cause, more resources will be available and more girls and women can be supported.

REVISED IMPACT HYPOTHESIS

If we are able to provide transparent and traceable system for impact makers to give money, then they are more likely to give money to the cause. If we are able to provide services, tools and processes for NGOs to outsource money collecting, then NGOs are able to concentrate their actions on the cause itself, their expenses diminish, thus bigger part of the money given will go to the cause and more girls are being educated.

1. Our fundraising solution is aiming to serve at least 2000 people on its initial piloting stage. This number consists of people and NGOs piloting with our solution, who will be directly served, as well as people indirectly benefiting from the causes created for the women and girls in need. With our AI tool, we will be serving 100 victims. 

2. Our fundraising solution will be serving 10,000 people in one year. Our AI tool solution will be serving 20,000 victims. 

3. Our fundraising solution will be serving 1,2 million people in five years. Our aim is to enable education for 10% of the 12 million girls currently forced into marriage. Our AI tool will have 2 million users in 5 years.

Our impact goals in the next year is to gain visibility and trust among donors and fundraisers. We will be raising awareness about the importance of education for girls, supporting women under oppression and subject to domestic violence, with our AI tool. We will be supporting 100 NGOs with our fundraising tool to gain more resources for their projects. We will expand to Scandinavia and Baltic regions with our AI tool and fundraising platform. 

The AI tool is build in collaboration with NGOs and United Nations Technology and Innovation lab (UNTIL). This strategic collaboration enables us the rapid spreading of our AI tool globally. 

Partnership with UNTIL as well as with Charity Wall, enables us to gain visibility and trust, and naturally expand to globally. 

Funding

Currently our biggest barrier is lack of outside funding for paying salary for our exsisting team members and hiring more team members. We are currently bootstrapping and people are volunteering in building both fundraising tool and AI tool. 

We are determined to work with our solution with the resources we have available. We have a wide network of advisors, who are helping us moving forward. Our team consists of determined people, who are committed working without salary until we are able to access funding. 

Our plan is to pilot test with what we have, gain initial traction, gain visibility, keep moving forward. We are certain that as we are able to showcase positive results relating our solutions, we are able to attract the necessary funding. 

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In our core team we have 5 members. 

Our founder is currently only one working full-time (lack of funding). 

We have 3 advisors, AI, blockchain and business. 

For fundraising platform solution with Charity Wall, our extended team  is 3 persons. 

For AI tool, our crowdsourcing, extended team, consists of 12 advisors and professionals, and from 4 NGOs. 

Our team consists of diverse backgrounds and various skillsets that complement each others. Our strong experience on entrepreneurship and marketing ensures we are able to support and help the fundraising causes to become successful. Our adaptability for fast changes is an advantage, like necessity to succesfully carry on our mission fully remote working during COVID-19. 

Anna Juusela, CEO and founder, visionary entrepreneur for 10 years, skilled in marketing, time management, networking and digging information. https://bit.ly/2ZkNIsa 
Her networking skills combined with visionary mind enables us to keep moving forward.

Kristina Mancheva, head of design, almost 10 years of continuous corporate and freelance experience in UI/UX. https://bit.ly/3bNhyZi Kristina is experienced also in entrepreneurship and her sharp eye on appealing design as well as focus on great user experience is an asset. 

Laura-Maaria Penttilä, UI/UX, tech Passion for creating. A fan of sleek, functional and beautiful designs. https://bit.ly/2LEBkvm Laura-maaria has unique skills and amazing determination on finding solutions for tech problems. 

Trang Nguyen, growth hacker with a huge passion for Marketing. https://bit.ly/36aSHgQ Trang has great ideas and executions on marketing, which is for a great support as we will be marketing the causes and in supporting people to create helpful causes to those in need. 

Emily Stamp, content creator, enjoys content writing as it gives her an opportunity to delve into research and interview people about their passions. https://bit.ly/2z9zZtD Emily's interest in creating to the point content that beautifully raises awarness about the hard topics of the different forms of oppression women are facing. 

We Encourage is currently in partnership with two organizations for fundraising platform and AI tool development and piloting. 

1. Charity Wall for enabeling the blockchain technology for our fundraising platform. 

2. United Nations Technology and Innovation Lab for building the AI tool and piloting it, and taking it global. 

In addition, we are collaborating for AI tool developement with these NGOs: 

Nicehearts ry

Naisten Linja

Kynnys ry

For our fundraising platform our business model is commission based. We support and help the fundraisers in creating the cause. These fundraisers can be individuals creating causes for their preferred NGOs, or these fundraisers can be NGOs creating fundraising for themselves. 

We also provide help and support in marketing the cause and with follow-up marketing, as we find it important that the donors are able to see and learn how and where the money is beign used for. 

Our commission is estimated to be around 10% of the donation. 

We are also planning to provide additional consultative services for NGOs for budgeting, marketing and customer services.  

AI tool, as it is crowdsourced and open-source, not aimed for commerical use, but has to be available freely for victims, we are planning to keep it running with crowdsourcing, governmental funding, and funding from foundations. 

Currently our founder funds the building of the company from her own funds. The first stream of revenue will be created as we are able to launch our piloting in July-August. Our business-model is commission based, from every donation we take our share to cover our expenses. 

We are also planning to raise investment capital to be able to scale our projcet. 

For AI tool we are looking for sustainable funding model to be able to keep the AI tool updated and developed further. 

We are looking for expanding our collaborative network, as well as funding to speed up our developing process that has been currently build with bootstrapping budget. 

We are hoping to also learn from the evalutation process how we could improve our approach and make it better. In a world build largely around businesses with pure profit in mind and impact aside, it is not easy to make impactful business ideas taken seriously, also many of the investors are not finding impact startups as good investment opportunities (even studies show those are actually more profitable in the long run). 

We have a quite large board of advisors on gender equality and violence, but we are looking for also advisors with more understanding and experience on globalization and scaling up our solution to enter new markets. 

We would like to learn about the process on expanding on different markets. Also we would like to learn about automating many of the processes on our company to free up resources to creating an impact. 

In addition we are also interested in learning the new hybrid business models for combining non-profit elements with fro profit business, and ways of creating maximum impact with the help of company strategies. 

We are open for partnerships with organizations from businesses to non-profits, individuals. Our requirements is an open mind and courage to do things in a new, innovative way. We are firm believers in collaboration and joining forces with different types of peoples and organizations, and we see the value in combining forces with experts from different fields, instead of being closed in our own silos and bubbles.  

We will use the prize for paying salary for the team members who have been creating the solution without compensation almost a year. We would also hire a developer to enhance our solution from the protoype face towards the actual product.  

We would be able to buy some helpful tools to automate and make better some of our processes, such as application forms and cause marketing templates. 

Also, we would use part of the money to marketing our piloting causes to help them getting wider audience. 

We will use the prize for paying salary for the team members who have been creating the solution without compensation almost a year. We would also hire a developer to enhance our solution from the protoype face towards the actual product.  

We would be able to buy some helpful tools to automate and make better some of our processes, such as application forms and cause marketing templates. 

Also, we would use part of the money to marketing our piloting causes to help them getting wider audience. 

We Encourage builds an AI tool for providing psycho-social support and guidance to women victims of intimate partner violence, gender-based violence and promoting sexual and reproductive health. Violence against women – particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence – is a major public health problem and a violation of women’s human rights. Global estimates published by WHO indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

The AI tool is expected to act as a reliable source of information for women on their rights and where to seek different levels of support. The tool will be providing step by step recommendations to victims and act as a helping friend. This intervention is expected to address a chronic development issue and to have a cross-cutting impact on SDG 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) and SDG 5 ( Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls). Furthermore, the AI tool could also help in building a network for anonymous peer to peer support networks among users who are experiencing similar incidents.
The tool is an open-source project and it is community build in collaboration with IPV experience experts, professionals and collaborating NGOs Nicehearts ry, Naisten Linja and Kynnys ry. The company is in conversations about partnership for collaboration with United Nations Technology and Innovation Lab (UNTIL).
The AI tool is a collective voice and help from survivors to those currently victims, aimed to support them to become survivors.