Haiti Scholars is an organization that believes that children in Haiti, through the gift of education, will bring hope, self-esteem, and empowerment. Education is not guaranteed or funded by the government for most of the country. Not only do we help with scholarships, but we also provide water filters, deworming medicine, vitamin A supplements, hundreds of physicals to staff and children, humanitarian aid when needed, and funding for a computer lab and English lessons.

Our nonprofit started in 2018. Since the beginning, we have shared our story, written thousands of handwritten thank-you letters, sent invites to events, and most importantly, ran fundraising campaigns. Other than handwritten letters, most of our efforts have been through social media and email. We track how many subscribers open our newsletters sent by email. Out of our 500 subscribers, 150 have opted out of emails. In addition, of the 350 subscribers who receive emails, an average of only 150 open our emails. This means we are not reaching almost 70% of our subscriber base. In addition, many of our donors do not engage in social media. This is why we believe it is important to aggressively incorporate print into our communication plans to get to the hearts of our donors.

We are a small organization that wants to grow and reach out more to our donors. A grant would open doors to staying connected with our current donors more frequently. For example, we could do quarterly mailings with our latest news and projects instead of one large mailing at the end of the year. In addition, we could multiply our mailings to potential donors. We could send more handwritten thank you cards and produce more flyers to display at our church. Our goal this year is to reach out to possible corporate donors so that we have additional funds to support our educational efforts in Haiti and to increase the amount we spend on staying connected with our subscriber base.

I did much research to find a printing company that would work with a nonprofit. We just received our first print job which will be used in our mailing from Conquest Graphics and we are beyond impressed with the quality of work. Not only are the pieces beautiful but also the staff was outstanding in working with our team to create this piece.

In summary, we believe print is a valuable source of communication to allow us to stay connected with our donors. With this grant, we will have increased funds for communication to get our message out that will help build our donor base and our nonprofit, which can help more children in the country of Haiti to receive the gift of quality schooling and good health.