I was sitting at my desk in our Berkeley office on December 8th when UPS delivered an “Express Envelope” to Margaret, our Development and Communications Associate. When we saw the envelope was from the Grants Department of Schwab Charitable, we carried it into the office where Maureen, our Finance Manager sits. Envelope-opening is one of our favorite events of the day here – we do it in a group partly to comply with auditors’ policies to avoid embezzlement, and partly because we all enjoy the excitement of seeing donation checks.
Even though we’re always happy to receive a donation by express mail, nothing prepared me for what I was about to discover. I opened the envelope and extracted a check for $100,000.
That might seem like a big deal to some, while maybe not to others. Here at International Rivers, that amount is not entirely uncommon. Of our approximately $2.3 million dollar budget, 92% of our funding comes from foundations and institutional funders. We were close to the end of 2015 and had just received some grant awards. The Africa Program was awarded $230,000 from the 11th Hour Project of the Schmidt Family Foundation for work on the Congo River in the DRC. The blue moon fund sent us $197,000 as the first installment for the 2015 grant awarded for the “Strengthening Environmental Policies in China’s Overseas Dam Building and River Ecosystem Protection in the Himalayas” project.
But this check of $100,000 was not payment on an expected grant. It was completely unrestricted, to be used for what we need most. The letter enclosed with the check simply said “Anonymous.”
It started to hit me – I had just opened an envelope with an anonymous donation of $100,000 and I was about to cry. All I could say was “Oh my word,” as Margaret and Maureen asked what had happened. Hearing the commotion, Inanna, our Director of Finance and Operations, came running to Maureen’s office. She took a look at me, then at Margaret and Maureen’s bewildered faces, and asked if I was about to faint. The others in the room didn’t know what was going on, but after looking several times at the donation I was able to share the news. How exciting!
Our excitement, beyond the receiving the gift itself, comes from our need for unrestricted funds for the operations of International Rivers. The majority of the institutional funding we receive to support our mission, “to protect rivers and defend the rights of communities that depend on them” is tied to specific regions of the globe, campaigns to stop specific dams or work with communities along certain rivers, such as the Amazon, the Congo, the Ganga or the Mekong.
Unrestricted funding is what allows International Rivers to remain flexible, to expand where needed and to support our regional staff and offices. Five years ago the board of International Rivers set a strategic plan that directed the establishment of regional offices and registration of affiliated non-profits in the countries being served. It has been critical to have the Campaign Staff in the countries where major dam projects are being planned, and to be on the ground working with indigenous communities.
The unrestricted funds raised as part of our year-end appeal, on Giving Tuesday, at the 30th anniversary dinner last October, and throughout the year provide the basic general support for International Rivers and our operations. One of our goals in the Development Department is to move the needle of percentages for our annual contributions to a higher portion of unrestricted or general support.
Thank you to all of you who have helped us in this way and contributed so generously to our work over the years. We are looking forward to a great 2016 of aiding in the environmental push to get global warming and climate change under control. Thank you for keeping our rivers free-flowing. And to the individual or family that provided the anonymous year-end gift, thank you for caring so much about our global work.