Have you ever received emails or texts from unknown people desperately seeking financial help for their own or relatives’ ailments and medicinal expenses? We often regard these as spam as there are many unethical individuals out there using this technique to extract money.
On the other hand, what if you are that desperate individual reaching out to generous souls to get financial help for surgery or treatment? The world is full of good-hearted people, but how do you reach out?
Crowdfunding is a method of raising funds for a project or venture by soliciting small contributions from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. It allows individuals or organizations to access capital without relying on traditional methods such as bank loans or venture capital. This method of helping someone with financial aid was born abroad and we have heard/read many stories of people gathering funds via crowdfunding. But, when it comes to our own country, crowdfunding was still a very alien concept, until the Impact Guru Foundation was born.
Today, The Impact Guru is India’s #1 crowdfunding platform. An online portal where genuine people approach fellow Indians for financial help and big-hearted Indians offer help. This centralized platform offers tools and services to make fundraising an easy and quick task. You can easily start a fundraiser in 5 minutes, get instant approvals, and fund disbursals. Read on further to know how this organization functions.
About Impact Guru
Mumbai-based Impact Guru Foundation is a non-profit organization based in India that is committed to creating positive social impact through crowdfunding. Founders Piyush Jain (CEO) and Khusboo Jain (COO) founded this organization in 2014. Piyush Jain, the creator and CEO of ImpactGuru, holds a BSc in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, he earned master’s degrees in public policy, business, and government policy. Before founding ImpactGuru in 2017, Piyush held positions with reputable companies like JP Morgan, Instiglio, San Francisco-based fintech company SoFi, the Boston Consulting Group, and RB Investments.
Their goal is to give people and organizations a platform to collect funds for a variety of causes, including healthcare, education, women’s empowerment, and disaster relief. Additionally, the Impact Guru Foundation offers guidance and assistance to social enterprises and other change-makers so they can develop long-lasting and significant projects. Utilizing the strength of social ingenuity and technology, they seek to build a society that is more equitable and inclusive.
Impact Guru was granted INR 40 lakh by The Action Covid-19 Team (ACT) to expand fundraising efforts for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers throughout India. The grant took the form of matching funds, with ImpactGuru adding up to 20% in matching donations for select Public and Private Hospitals on its platform. This allowed for a greater impact with each individual donation.
Business Model
If you want to be associated with this foundation, you can click on any one of the options according to your need. You can either choose to :
- Start a medical fundraiser
The fundraising campaign of the Impact Guru Foundation, which enables people and organizations to start their own crowdfunding campaigns on the website, is one of its key features. By establishing a fundraising target, sharing their personal story, and spreading the campaign on social media and other platforms to reach a larger audience, users can build campaigns. The foundation also offers campaign creators help and direction, as well as tools and resources for marketing and promotion.
- Refer a deserving patient
Impact Guru Foundation also offers a “Refer a Deserving Patient” option, where users can recommend patients in need of medical care to the foundation’s network of healthcare providers. This option is available in addition to fundraising efforts. The patient and their family are then assisted by the charity in using crowdfunding to raise money for the treatment.
- Donate to a deserving patient
The Impact Guru Foundation also provides a “Donate to a Deserving Patient” option for people who want to have a direct influence. Users are now able to contribute to particular campaigns and causes, such as those that support healthcare, education, and disaster assistance.
One can choose medical fundraising with the Impact Guru if one has limited savings, needs funds immediately, or if the medical insurance is not enough. Once you click on the start a fundraiser option, the team connects with you over call and discusses the path ahead. One can avail funds for medical treatments like a kidney transplant, cancer, bone marrow transplant, heart transplant, accident or injury, spinal muscular atrophy, liver transplant, pre-term baby care, brain surgery, and other serious ailments.
Benefits of Fundraising with Impact Guru
The platform has many benefits for the fundraisers as well as the donors:
- 0% platform fee
- Free fundraising mobile app
- Access 30+ lakh donor community
- Quick with 24×7 assistance
- All modes of payment accepted
- User-friendly interface
This platform has already benefitted 25,000+ patients across the country.
Revenue
By providing a 0% platform fee, Impact Guru has expanded free fundraising to all charities. Through its platform and international collaborators, it has raised $200 million/INR 1500 crores since its inception.
Impact Guru operates on a scalable, asset-light, and transparent revenue model, charging an average fee of 8% of the total funds raised, with 5% directly contributing to net revenue. In addition to this, it also charges fixed fees for premium services, such as digital marketing, video production, and content support.
Funding, Investors, and Partners
Impact Guru has secured a total of $4.5 million in funding across 5 rounds, with their most recent funding being raised on March 6, 2020, through a Seed round. In October 2016, ImpactGuru established a strategic partnership with GlobalGiving.org, which is the largest non-profit crowdfunding platform in the US and UK.
Impact Guru is the go-to crowdfunding site because it works with Apollo patients all over India. In early July 2021, Impact Guru teamed up with the Cure SMA Foundation of India, a public charitable trust, to assist all registered SMA patients in the nation.
Impact Guru and Fundnel, a Singapore-based investment portal, partnered back in April 2016. Through this partnership, Impact Guru was able to gain access to the Southeast Asian Indian diaspora’s charitable and financial resources.
Project Inspire was started in September 2016 by Impact Guru in partnership with UN Women, an organization under the United Nations. The project intended to assist social entrepreneurs who were interested in empowering women.
Final Thoughts
Being the first Indian medical crowdfunding startup, Impact Guru has already impacted several lives in our country. Today, it continues to raise awareness and help desperate individuals to reach out to a global audience for financial aid.
