Thinking Big on a Small Budget

Yesterday I visited Rescue Life Orphanage, a donation reliant centre for children whose parents had either died or abandoned them in the slums of Nakuru. Escorted by the owner of a business I am advising, I met Pastor Enos Khamala who set up the project in June 2012.

With 18 children aged between 4 and 8, I was impressed by how well-presented, polite and behaved they were. With little money to pay school fees, the project has recently opened its own part-time school for orphans and hopes to make this into a full-time thing, including sewing and business training for widows. There is plenty of room within the compound for expansion, and Pastor Enos is eager to bring as many children off the streets as possible.

However, big ideas often need big funding. I was shocked when I realised that the children would have gone hungry that night, had I not brought £20 worth of food with me as a gift. The centre volunteers believe God sent me, just as they desperately needed. I was upset by just how poor this project really is, and so questioned what they are doing to obtain sustainability. The answer was worrying. “The people of this community have open hearts and give what they can, when they can”. I refused to sit by and hear this, and so I introduced the idea of partnering with local super-markets to obtain their waste food supplies. With super-markets losing no money through a collection service, and if anything getting good publicity, it is a potential win-win situation for everyone. This idea was taken with great hope, and I will be supporting the orphanage into setting up meetings with key decision makers.

With a constant food supply, the Orphanage can use the little money they have to grow bigger and put in place the big ideas they have. Although a non-profit organisation, it needs to think like a business. Reducing costs through partnerships and new delivery channels, it allows a higher percentage of revenues to be spent on expansion and delivering the core aims. By simply moving away from traditional thinking, innovation can bring prosperity. It really is possible to think big on a small budget.