ECW Announces Resource Mobilization Challenge Finalists

The Education Cannot Wait (ECW) fund is delighted to reveal the fundraising ideas selected for the final of its resource mobilization challenge. These ideas – submitted by seven individuals, social entrepreneurs and civil society organisations – have been identified as the best ones among the almost 200 submissions received from all over the world.

Ideas were nominated based on their innovative character, their potential to mobilize millions of dollars to fund education programmes for children and young people in crisis settings, as well as their feasibility, implementation cost and associated risks.

Finalists will have 10 minutes to pitch their ideas to the Challenge Jury during a livestreamed event on Friday 21 September from 7:30 am to 9:00 am (EST). Jury members will then deliberate in a closed session to select the best ideas to be awarded the three $25,000 funding prizes destined to support the development of business plans.

The three best ideas will be announced at the Global People’s Summit on 22 September on the margins of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Finalists for the ECW Resource Mobilization Challenge are:

• Global Investment Fund by Yasser Bentaibi, 4usConsulting, from Morocco Waqf (charitable endowment) which would invest in economic empowerment programmes. The profit generated would be used to support education in emergencies.

• Charity Motivation App by Lisa Biermann from Germany App users can set goals for behavior change for themselves. Whenever users do not achieve their goals they must pay a fee that would be donated to education in emergencies.

• Education in Emergencies Coin by John Gravel from the USA ECW would issue a new cryptocurrency and receive funding through its Initial Coin Offering (ICO), a “tax” on “mining” new coins, and issuing emergency coins that would work like a parametric insurance.

• Reverse Debt Conversion by Richard R. Murray from the USA The idea is to convert defaulted U.S. credit card debt to fund both education in emergencies and partial payments to creditors in return for the creditors deleting negative information from debtors’ credit reports.

• Kanelbullar by Richard R. Murray from the USA IKEA would dedicate its sales from kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls) on Tuesdays, its slowest retail day, to fund education in emergencies.

• College Endowment Excise Tax by Richard R. Murray from the USA Wealthy U.S. colleges would enroll students from crisis-affected countries, which would provide the colleges with a strategy for avoiding/reducing millions of dollars from the new federal excise tax on their endowments.

• Global Lottery on Mobile Phones by Michael Makwani, Randy Mulinge, and Amina Mwatu from Kenya A share of the proceeds of the lottery would be donated to education in emergencies.

• Every Child Needs a School – Book Industry supports ECW by Mary Muchena- Stredwick and Rachel Stredwick from the United Kingdom International book publishers, retailers, and authors would sign-up to contribute up to 1 percent of the net sale of book purchases to the ECW Fund.

• 1-in-9 Fund by Brock Warner, War Child Canada, from Canada Establish a publicly traded investment fund which would direct a share of the fund’s management fees to support children and youth affected by conflict and crisis. 1 in 9 children are living in a war-affected country.

ECW congratulates all finalists for their bold ideas and the quality of their submissions! ECW also extends its sincere appreciation to all those who participated in the Resource Mobilization Challenge.

Our team was impressed by the creativity and variety of ideas that were submitted. It is our hope that the engagement of contestants for the cause of education in emergencies will continue well beyond this challenge.

Read the full Press Release here: Press Release – Resource Mobilization Challenge Finalists

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