We Only Fail When We Give Up
The feeling of working together for the collective good of our community towards a noble cause was indescribable. It felt fulfilling because of the feeling of satisfaction from working for a social cause. We shared that we were working to collect money for a social cause and for some members, surprisingly a lot of people were willing to help in this Holy month. On the other hand, some members faced difficulties in convincing people to donate as most people had already donated their share. Many of us were collecting money in this way for the first time, and getting outside of our comfort zones for the welfare of someone else felt really good. Our mind was fixated at helping them, nothing else mattered. This made us feel that if we have a greater cause in mind, trivial things don’t matter. We put our comfort and insecurities aside and worked for our goal.
Getting outside our comfort zone and asking people out of the way, didn’t seem like a huge task because we had a goal and a purpose in our mind.
We decided on a targeted amount that our batch had to collect as a whole. We decided that we would collect Rs. 330k, which is slightly more than what some fellows collected last year, and therefore is pretty realistic. #SMARTGoals. And then this amount was divided among all the circles, which was then divided individually as well. In this way, we all got our targets that we had to work for. This was a great strategy suggested by a circle leader (Khursheeda). This helped us stay motivated and gave us something to work for. So, we collected funds individually through online platforms, but we celebrated each donation in our group, which gave us a great feeling of accomplishment! Although we were asking for funds individually, being a part of a team and a greater purpose didn’t let us feel shy and helped us to be bold, which in turn helped us to collect money from unexpected sources because we asked everyone.
There were quite a few challenges that we faced. Firstly, due to COVID-19, we were unable to physically get out in groups and ask for money, which in our opinion may have given us better results. So, we decided to reach out to people through social media platforms.
We first designed a poster to create awareness about our campaign. But as we shared it in groups that seemed like a vague approach. Our group member, Taimoor, shared that he contacted people directly and that gave us a huge turnout and a great response. So, we all adopted this method and were successful in collecting a good amount.
And then, we had to convince people that this was not a scam. So, in one instance, as instructed, we also gave them the option of donating themselves and sharing the receipt with us.
This experience taught us how to deal with rejection and when people ignore us. A lot of people ignored our messages and requests, but we need to understand that every person is dealing with their own problems. We should keep going and should not be discouraged by it. We learned that a good cause demands consistency. The more steadfast we are, the more we win no matter what challenges we encounter.
Despite our efforts, we were unable to meet the goal set for each circle. We were able to donate Rs. 17.5k from our circle, against the target of Rs. 36k. But we learned that we shouldn’t be afraid of our failures, we should always be positive no matter how small our progress is. We should believe in whatever we do and it surely gives results. Above all, we should keep the little achievements in mind and celebrate them! We should learn to focus on the positive.
