twestival local - Tweet.Meet.Give. - March 24, 2011

Funds raised by Indian cities:

• Hyderabad for Aashayein Foundation - INR 2,90,967 (approximately USD $6,488.56)
  
• Cochin for Adarsh Rehab - INR 1,71,755 (approximately USD $3,830.13)
  
• Bangalore for Snehadeep Trust for the Disabled - INR 1,01,723 (approximately USD $2,268.42)
  
• Mumbai for Welfare of Stray Dogs - INR 56,240 (approximately USD $1,254.15)
  
• Delhi for Protsahan India Foundation - INR 50,000 (approximately USD $1115)
  
• Pune for Equal Community Foundation - INR 29,400 (approximately USD $655.62)
  
• Kolkata for Lake Gardens Women & Children Development Centre - INR 5,500 (approximately USD $122.65)

The amounts above include funds generated at the offline event, online donations via GiveIndia (Delhi and Kolkata were not part of online donations), GiveIndia grants (Hyderabad - INR 1,15,000, Cochin - INR 50,000 and Bangalore - INR 26,866), the Twestival Challenge prize amount of $750 (Hyderabad, Cochin and Bangalore - $250 each) and the Blog for a cause donations.

Congratulations to team Hyderabad for being the top city in India to raise the maximum funds for their charity!

Around two weeks back, we had announced a Blog Campaign through which one could have raised money for their favorite Twestival India 2011 charity. All one had to do was write a post on the topic of 'Giving' (a minimum of 250 words), link back to the campaign post, and alert us about the blog. The qualifying entries would each win INR 250 for the charity they had supported via their post which would be donated by GiveIndia on their behalf.

Happy to share that we received many entries and four of them qualified to help raise funds for our charities. Here are the qualifying blog posts:

1. Giving in India by Poorvi Shrivastav in support of Twestival Hyderabad and Aashayein Foundation
2. On Giving by Jessie Cherian  in support of Twestival Hyderabad  and Aashayein Foundation 
3. Giving by Volunteering by The Illuminator in support of Twestival Hyderabad and Aashayein Foundation
4. Giving In Memoriam, Panchavati by Anil P in support of Twestival Mumbai and WSDIndia 
5. We need hands that give, more than lips that pray! by Arvind V Iyer in support of Twestival Pune and Equal Community Foundation
   

GiveIndia will be donating INR 750 to Aashayein Foundation (Twestival Hyderabad), INR 250 to ECF (Twestival Pune) and INR 250 to WSDIndia (Twestival Mumbai) for the blog posts above. Thank you Poorvi, Jessie, Anil, Arvind and Illuminator! Do let me know your Twitter handles in the Comments section or ping me on @twestivalindia.

In case you've written a post for this campaign and it has not been listed above, its probably because it doesn't satisfy our requirements one way or another (mostly for not linking back to the campaign post or specifying a Twestival city or for not being on the topic). But Thank you so much for trying to help these charities though.

Hello! At the onset, if you had attended one of the seven Twestivals that happened yesterday in India, let me thank you for joining hands with us and showing your support to our NGOs. We couldn't have done it without you. And if for some reason you had not been able to attend (Not for the match surely as we had screened it at almost all our events!), I hope you had taken note of the online donation options we have for five of the seven charities we are supporting through our GiveIndia donation platform (Click here to donate online). Please do give generously - though of course you can contribute as less as Rs.110. Our online donations will be open till Sunday, 27th March.

And now for some exciting news! We have already crossed the target (INR 5 Lakhs) we had set for ourselves this year - That's right! And we still have online donations coming in till this Sunday. And most importantly? I had said in our press release that we are hoping to more than double the amount raised this year (Last year, we had raised INR 3 lakhs all over India) - Wohooo, we have been able to do that as well!

Here are the final figures for Twestival India. Feel free to use it, quote it and generally feel great about it - Who said, India doesn't give, uh?

Total funds raised in the 7 offline events/cities: INR 2,50,110

Total funds raised through online donations: INR 2,28,759 

Additionally, three of our cities had won prizes in the Twestival Challenge - a total of $750. Converting that to Rupees: INR 33,600

Also, as you will know, we had partnered with GiveIndia (our fundraising partner in India) this time to enable online donations. GiveIndia will also be providing matching grants to the top three cities that raise the most money/most number of donors online through their platform. Plus, they had announced two surprise prizes last week for the city that manages to reach 10k in funds raised first and 50 unique donors first. Hyderabad won in both categories.

So adding the prize from GiveIndia: INR 15,000 

GiveIndia donations (INR 250 for every eligible blog post) for the Blog for a Cause! Twestival India campaign: INR 1,250

And that still leaves us with the GiveIndia matching grant of 2 lakhs (to be given to top three cities by funds raised and number of unique donors upto a maximum limit of the funds raised by those cities or the caps given by GiveIndia, whichever is lower): INR 1,76,866 

That's a grand total of INR 7,05,585 (App. USD $15,734.55) - more than double our funds raised last year and higher than our target of 5 lakhs!

And before I forget, a big Yay!!!!!!!!!!! Hurray and kudos to all our leads, volunteers, sponsors and supporters - you folks made this happen!

*City-wise totals will be published shortly.

 They are giving away T-shirts and discount coupons to some lucky few attending Twestival in India

They are sponsorsing gift vouchers for all the cities

They are giving away T-shirts to some lucky few attending Twestival in India

Our events across the seven participating cities:

* The India-Australia World Cup cricket Quarter-Finals will be screened at most of our cities event so don't let that stop you from attending a Twestival!