Fankind Brings Together Celebrities, Fans & Charities
In an in-depth conversation with BW Wellbeingworld, she shares insights about his idea, the NGO itself and her journey of how and why there’s a need to promote the cause.
What is the whole idea behind Fankind?
Fankind is a fundraising platform where we curate unique and fun celebrity-related experiences with the aim to raise donations for NGOs across the country. For every INR 300 transacted on the website, a user has 1 chance of winning the celebrity experience they donated towards.
From each transaction, effectively 70% of the money is directly transferred to an NGO and an 80G is issued and emailed to the user. Each campaign is active and lives on our website for about 40 days, and you can donate as often as you like, as many times as you want.
After the campaign has ended, 1 winner is picked by a third-party randomiser, in a fair unbiased way and we then begin the process to get them and a guest of their choice to the city where the celebrity experience will take place. We take care of their travel and stay as well.
The idea behind Fankind is to offer a platform where people have a legitimate platform and means of meeting their favourite celebrities while doing good in the process. Every donation goes to a great NGO that is chosen by the celebrity, and with each donation, we cumulatively help make a huge positive impact.
What makes Fankind as a different option of donation?
Fankind is a platform that not only promotes a sense of giving back, but it also provides a sense of hope and joy to the person donating, by providing an opportunity to meet their favourite celebrity and spend quality time with them while doing an activity together.
Most of us have role models, or celebrity crushes and people we idolize - these are people we've never met before but would like the opportunity to do so. I wanted to provide a platform that gives you a way of making that dream come true while you intrinsically perform an act of kindness by donating to a charity. All this, to ultimately spread smiles and make a positive change. In the bigger picture, that is what matters most.
Additionally, we have so many NGOs on the ground doing great work and each of them has programs they wish to implement in order to continue their mission. We help them by supporting those micro-campaigns and raise funds for their programs so that it makes it a little bit easier to implement.
Are there any specific causes for which Fankind will be supporting? If yes, then what makes them special for Fankind?
Each experience on Fankind supports a specific charity. For example, each of the first 4 experiences supports NGOs in 4 completely different causes - farmer welfare (Varun's choice Manavlok), animal welfare (Alia's choice of World For All), healthcare and mental health.
Every celebrity we have interacted with so far has a cause they already support and are passionate about. It's always special to lend a voice and amplify a cause that is straight from the heart, and this is exactly how each of our NGO's gets attached to an experience. This is what makes them special, as the passion rings through.
The objective in the first year is to support at least 30 NGOs, and our aim is to do our best to raise as much donation and awareness as we can for each of them. We want to reach a stage where we are able to cover a gamut of causes and help make a positive change in whatever way we can, across the country.
As giving leads to overall wellbeing, what other perspectives of giving motivates you to promote the concept?
If you think about it, the concept of giving and helping others is very deep-rooted in our culture and our country. Whether it is how the country comes together to contribute when a natural disaster strikes, or Daan at temples, or zakat, or langar, or by donating our gently used books and clothes - we have all taken part in giving back to society, one way or another.
We like helping people, we've been raised by our parents and grandparents where we've always been told to help others. Even something as basic as sharing your ‘Ghar ke khaane’ ka dabba is something that has been ingrained into us from our grandparents and parents. With most of our country's population being under the age of 30, we are a mobile-first internet-savvy generation.
With that in mind, it made sense to provide a platform that promotes this same sense of giving back, while also providing hope and joy to the person donating, by offering them an opportunity to fulfil a dream of their own. Online donations are nascent but have the potential to grow to become a significant channel of giving. I hope Fankind can contribute towards that growth.
Is there any minimum amount for donations? If yes, then why that particular amount has been selected?
The minimum transaction amount is Rs 300 and effectively 70% of that value is directly donated to our NGO partner GiveIndia. I wanted to keep the base price as affordable as possible, but I wanted to ensure that even with the base price purchase, the donation amount (70% of the base price) is significant enough for the NGO to receive as a single donation.
Additionally, when a winner is selected, they get to bring a friend or a companion along with them for the experience. So, the way I looked at it was that at a price of Rs300, 2 people get to experience a dream come true moment. This equates to roughly Rs150 per person, and it is significantly lower than the average movie theatre experience in India (ticket + 1 concession).
Currently, you have curated experiences with Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt. Are we expecting Arjun Kapoor in Fankind’s next experiences?
After Alia, the next 2 experiences will be with Sonakshi Sinha and YouTuber MostlySane. Yes, in the future I would love for Arjun bhaiya to do an experience with Fankind, and we have spoken about it, but we have not locked an experience yet. It will happen soon.
