“Facing your fear of failure by raising funds for Edhi Foundation”

Edhi foundation was founded by Abdus Sattar Edhi (late). Edhi foundation is working in Pakistan as one of the largest NGOs in Pakistan and the whole Asia. Edhi foundation basically works in providing food,shelter and clothing to elderly people and kids who don’t have parents.
Edhi foundation also runs the largest ambulance network in the world.

In this project we had to collect funds for the Edhi foundation. The aim of this exercise was to get out of our comfort zone, facing our failures and going the #extramile.
For this activity first we brainstormed the ideas, that where and when is our best chance to collect funds. Suggestions like Fortress stadium, Defense Markets, Liberty Market, Race Course Park, Lawrence Park etc were given.
So our team gathered at Race Course Park on Saturday evening, and it was the time when we faced our first failure. We were said, that you are simply not allowed to do this activity, as the government officials said that this kind of activity is forbidden in public places. So, we joined our heads and thought what to do next, and we decided to go #extramile,so we went to the Lawrence Park.We spent around 90 mins there and the response was great, we were able to collect around 2200–2300 rupees.


On Sunday, we decided to do the activity once again. We gathered at the Lahore Zoo after the Amal Session and when we inquired about the fund collection to the management, they simply rejected our idea and explained us why its prohibited in public areas. This was a major setback once again, and we had to face our failure once again. It was a strategic setback too; because the time was not suitable as it was 2–3 pm in the evening and after some time we were totally drained. This gave us a lesson about strategic planning too.

This is probably one of the most fruitful activity of the whole fellowship because it enlightened us with the crucial concepts like #extramile, #getting out of comfort zone, facing failures and strategic planning. Another failure that we faced was the rejection and rude behavior from some people. Asking people for funding definitely was a new challenge for us and it helped us get out of our comfort zone. This activity also helped us understand the human behavior, we were better able to predict which people were willing to donate and how we can convince people to donate. This activity showed us the importance of 10/90 rule which is, “10% of the time spent in planning and organizing, save you as much as 90% of the time once you get started”.
This activity also showed us the importance of human resource management. We were able to generate 4000–5000 rupees from this activity, which is not bad considering the no. of hours spent and our experience level.
