India’s Leading Crowdfunding Platform Has Announced the Launch of a New Initiative Called the ‘Doctors for Good’ Program

ImpactGuru.com’s volunteer doctors impact thousands of lives with their practice by examining patients and conducting clinical evaluations

By Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR

Mumbai, India – ImpactGuru.com, India’s leading crowdfunding platform has announced the launch of a new initiative called the, ‘Doctors For Good’ program on National Doctors’ Day. As a part of this program, Impact Guru will honor the role of doctors in our community, whose daily efforts save the lives of millions of people struggling with illnesses, diseases and injuries.

ImpactGuru.com, India’s leading crowdfunding platform has announced the launch of a new initiative called the, ‘Doctors for Good’ Program

The initiative coined by ImpactGuru.com will educate doctors regarding the benefits of crowdfunding for patients who require funds to treat serious illnesses, diseases or injuries like cancer, organ failure, etc. Surgeries coupled with post-surgical care and treatments, have resulted in many families incurring costs of over tens of lakhs of rupees. Patients and their families have traditionally resorted to taking loans or borrowed the funds required at high interest rates from private lenders or family. With the introduction of crowdfunding platforms, many families have been able to successfully raise sufficient funds for such medical treatments.

With this initiative, ImpactGuru.com invites doctors, hospitals, and clinicians as they conduct training sessions in the form of webinars or workshops. These workshops will educate them about how crowdfunding can help patients access and afford quality and reliable medical services from trusted practitioners. The ‘Doctors For Good’ program, will also help provide quick financial assistance to anyone with a medical cause. This program aims to help thousands of lesser privileged patients, access proper and quality treatment without being burdened by the expenses through the enrolled doctors.

Additionally, the doctors that volunteer for this program will also help verify cases and medical reports, as they impact thousands of lives with their practice by examining patients and cases by conducting clinical evaluations. They will impart medical advice to campaigners raising funds through ImpactGuru.com, while sharing their expert opinions on various medical topics via the platform’s website and other communication channels.

Speaking about the program, Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and chief executive officer of ImpactGuru.com said, “Over the past six months we have seen a surge in medical fundraisers. In the last two months itself, we were able to raise around 75 lakhs for many patients on our platform. Most campaigners are not aware of their potential to raise funds to help treat their family members and friends. They approach us with low expectations and are left overwhelmed by the massive response they receive. Through this initiative, we want to multiply the impact by involving more doctors to help us reach more patients and save more lives. We understand running a fundraiser while taking care of an ill family member is not easy, which is why we have a fully equipped team that provides 24×7 support to each campaigner, and we wish to render these services for those in need.”

Dr. Sasmita Panda – Medical officer Shri HN Reliance Hospital said, “I’ve had many patients come to me looking for advice on how to arrange for funds to get the treatment done immediately. In most cases, the surgery has to take place immediately, but is delayed only because of lack of funds. There are times when the patient’s life is lost while waiting for funds. I’ve recommended crowdfunding to many, who have managed to raise 50% to 100% of funds in a week and gotten the required treatment. I think in the time of a rising number of cancer cases, crowdfunding can be a life-saver. It is a great alternative to the hassle faced, after approaching insurance companies or banks.”

Impact Guru offers a complete crowdfunding solution that combines social or donation crowdfunding, rewards crowdfunding for medical or personal causes, nonprofits, and social enterprises for all their fundraising needs – be it small or large. The company was incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Initiation Program in USA in 2014. Impact Guru has offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and San Francisco.

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Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding PR” to see why Mr. Hoskins runs one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding PR, social media and marketing agencies that has amassed a huge social media following and is dedicated to supporting a wide variety of donation, rewards and equity crowdfunding campaigns.

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Crowdfunding Gathers Business Mentors, Financial Advisors and Investors in India

By Deepti Chaudhary

LiveMint – Crowdfunding, a practice that takes advantage of the collective effort of individuals who pool money mostly through the Internet to support start-ups, appears to be gathering momentum in India with at least four such initiatives being introduced in the past one year.

Crowdfunding platforms gather momentum in India

Referred to as crowdfunding platforms in investment circles, they have created a new asset class with shared risks that promises start-ups not just funding but also mentoring and advisory services.

Take the case of India’s first crowdfunding portal, Pik A Venture, launched by an MBA student at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Ruchi Dana, in July. Besides funding, the portal also provides advice on legal and company registration issues and offers consulting and guidance on campaigns.

Pik A Venture targets creative minds, budding artists, technical brains, student entrepreneurs and innovators, according to Dana. “We are currently mentoring 12 business ideas and are putting their campaigns online. We don’t want start-ups to just come on our website and fail,” she said.

Pik A Venture will not take any equity stake but charge a percentage of the funding. It will do a soft launch of the platform in the middle of May.

In India, these platforms seem to prefer the creative arts such as films and social causes for raising capital from the general public.

For instance, filmmaker Abhay Kumar raised around Rs.5 lakh over the last 20 days for his documentary Placebo; Onir’s I Am raised around Rs.1 crore over six-nine months, while Kannada film Lucia by filmmaker Pawan Kumar raised more than Rs.50 lakh over 30 days.

Starting Blocks Media Ventures Pvt. Ltd is launching its crowdfunding platform, Catapooolt, to focus on creative projects such as films, music, performing arts and books in mid-April.

“In case of crowdfunding for films and music, the copyright of the project lies with the producer or the one who posts the project on the site,” said Satish Kataria, managing director, Catapooolt, adding the site is the first ever official crowd-funding platform for the Hong Kong Film Festival 2013.

Experts say while crowdfunding takes time, as much as 8-10 months for a deal, it increases the pool of available capital.

Start-ups can use crowdfunding to make a pitch that can be accessed by investors subscribing to the service. The investors range from professional ones to business people. The minimum investment could be as low as Rs.1,000 with no upper limit.

The pitch includes details such as the background of the entrepreneurs, the business offering and plans, financials and funding requirements.

Once a pool of investors shows interest in backing the start-up, the funds raised are directed to the company through the platform. The platform could have a member of its team on the board of the venture. Investors will have complete access to the company’s financial plans and performance on a monthly basis. The platform typically takes a percentage of the fund raised through it.

Varun Sheth and film star Kunal Kapoor launched Ketto on 15 August to build an online network focusing on philanthropy in India. It connects non-profits and other companies aiming for social impact with the public.

There is a large opportunity in crowdfunding as it resolves the problem of lack of funding, according to Sheth, who added that at least half a dozen more crowdfunding platforms would start by the year end.

“Crowdfunding is a big disruption for financial services industry, it cuts the middlemen away. Social media and Internet growth has increased the awareness and viability of such platforms,” said Sheth. Ketto is right now raising Rs.1 crore for itself and expects to close the fund raising in about 45 days.

Sheth said facilitating donations is an interesting space for a crowdfunding platform as there is a lot of disposable income in India and increasingly more people are looking at giving back to society.

“The mandatory 2% CSR (corporate social responsibility) would also increase pools for crowdfunding platforms,” he said, referring to the new companies Act that mandates such spending. The Act is yet to be passed by Parliament.

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