MBA students Launch Crowdfunding Campaign for Nepal

MBA students who traveled to Nepal last year with the International Business Development program, and with Challenge for Charity (C4C) leaders, have spearheaded a crowdfunding campaign for earthquake relief in the devastated country.

Launched on Tilt, the campaign funds will target non-governmental organizations on the ground in Nepal. The goal is to raise $10,000. Student organizers are working with international contacts in their networks to quickly identify the most high-impact organizations, and will keep all donors apprised of how the funds are distributed.

“It’s a very, very scary situation over there,” says Jackie Laird, MBA 15, who was part of Team Beauty for Ashes in Kathmandu last June. “We are trying to get funds there sooner rather than later.”

Beauty for Ashes is a Nepali organization that MBA students in the International Business Development program worked with last spring. The group (pictured) helps survivors of sex trafficking earn money through handicrafts.

You can learn more and donate here.

Laird says she and other students have been in touch with the women they worked with, and all of them are OK—but their families are not. They are not only trying to get help to their relatives, but they are fanning out throughout the city on foot—the only way to get around at this point—trying to help others in need, especially children.

“The way the hospitals work in Nepal is that you don’t get anything for free—including water. Your family and friends have to bring it to you,” she says. “Hospitals are way underfunded. Many of them only have one bathroom.”

She says her team’s experience in Nepal was eye-opening. “Nepal was far worse than I expected, in terms of how destitute it is. If that’s the way it was like in good times, I can’t imagine what it’s like now,” she says.

With monsoon season looming and tens of thousands without shelter, the situation is critical. The 7.8-magnitude quake that rocked Nepal last Saturday killed more than 5,500 people, and injured at least 12,000. The death toll continues to rise, with many remote villages still inaccessible.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the C4C organizers: Marisa Johnson, John Maus, and Sara Oon, all MBA 14. You can also contact Jackie Laird with questions.

Back