Covid19 has impacted every single person and/or business around the world in 2020. The knock-on and detrimental effect of lockdowns have been incredible. Even though each country was affected, some countries were worse off, even before Covid19, like South Africa. Unfortunately our country had already been experiencing a shrinking economy prior to Covid19 and many donors we approached in 2019 elected not to grant money during Covid19. Aware of this, our Fundraiser Karen Rademeyer sought alternative sources of funding as soon as South Africa went into our hard lockdown on 26 March 2020. She turned to our German friends of the programme from various Rotary Clubs in Germany. It made the most sense to do, especially because of how weak the rand is against the Euro (was €1 = R20!! at the time). With the entire 4-phased programme and organsiational budget still to be met for 2020, a donation in Euro would equal 20 x the impact in South Africa.
Notable praise and acknowledgement must be directed to Rotary Helderberg Sunrise, who have supported Phase 1 students on our programme for a number of years (since 2016) and who were the key players in introducing German Rotary Clubs to Go for Gold in South Africa. A special thank you to Mr Richard Saxby and Mr Carl-Heinz Duisberg for your amazing stewardship of the programme abroad. Due to their excellent rotarian network and passion for our programme, Go for Gold has received international support from three rotary clubs in Germany too.
Since 2017, some members from various German Rotary Clubs have visited our programme in South Africa. Our international visitors thoroughly enjoyed meeting and interacting with our Grade 11 and 12 students, who are aspirant technical graduates just starting their journey on our 4-phased education-to-employment programme. One German friend became a brilliant donor for a number of years, Mr Winners, a highly respected business man from Rotary Munich-OST. Mr Winners has given a total of R1.5 million in support since 2017. He cleverly and very generously used his 60th birthday as an opportunity to fundraise for our South African cause. He challenged his friends to donate toward his birthday (instead of gifts) and he stated he would match whatever his friends, family and colleagues donated. As a result, a total of €60 000 was collected in 2017. A truly amazing gesture highly appreciated by Go for Gold!
In 2018, we were thrilled to also be visited by ICC Southern Africa-Germany Chair, Prof. Bernhard Maisch who brought family and fellow members from his rotary club to visit the programme. These visits and regular correspondence has strengthened our international relations and levels of support from Germany. We are very grateful.
Some great news!
All our German friends are still trying to rally support for Go for Gold but they too face their own challenges in Germany at the moment due to Covid19. Despite this fact however, during South Africa’s 2020 Covid19 lockdown, our German friends collaborated their efforts and took the lead to successfully raise €33 000 in Germany for Go for Gold. Amazing! It was so desperately needed since most South African donors were giving priority funding to “essential” non-profits organisations in South Africa such as feeding and housing schemes; and considering our partner companies were not able to work during lockdown, there was a radical reduction in support locally for Go for Gold.
Earlier in 2020, we had shared our desire to fundraise in Germany and offer benefactors a benefit for their donations, as we do in South Africa for South African donations. Mr Handt got to work and collaborated with exceptional professionals within his club to explore what would be the best option for Go for Gold representation in Germany? After much deliberation exploring whether a trust, foundation or bank account should be opened in Go for Gold’s name, the unanimous decision was for Go for Gold to have it’s own bank account in Germany. The reason being is that all Euro donations would receive a tax incentive for donating to our cause. Plus, very graciously, Mr Wolfgang Handt and RC Nuremberg-Reichswald have offered to manage the bank account on behalf of Go for Gold and send us statements once a month. Mr Handt kicked off the giving campaign by writing a brilliant article about his background, links to South Africa and how RC Nuremberg-Reichswald have supported the programme over the years. As a result, the article inspired those reading the newspaper article to donate an incredible €6000! We are exceptionally grateful to Mr Handt, members of RC Nuremberg-Reichswald and the generous anonymous donors in Germany for donating to our cause after reading the article. Thank you!
We would like to encourage our European friends to take advantage of the convenience of having a German Go for Gold bank account and enjoying tax benefits for any Euro donations.
The German Go for Gold Bank Account details are:
Go for Gold – Verein Sozialfonds RC Nuremberg-Reichswald IBAN: DE77 7607 0024 0672 7010 01; BIC (Swift): DEUTDEDB760
A special word of thanks to all South African and German Rotary Club members for assisting Go for Gold’s students and organisation in this way. We will be running a variety of fundraising campaigns in Germany in 2021 eg. Go for Gold’s 22nd Birthday and Madiba Day on 18 July 2021 where we hope to gain more friends of the programme, especially after this Covid19 pandemic, and because we still have a great funding need for 2021 as our organisational budget/target is estimated to be R4.5 million to run the entire programme for ± 450 talented students still on our 4-phased programme.
For more information, please feel free to contact Karen Rademeyer, Go for Gold’s Fundraising and Communications Manager (email karen(at)goforgold.org.za) to get involved and/or if you have any questions or wish to contact Mr Wolfgang Handt.
