Finances

Since SHONA began we have received several donations. When we were starting up we received the donation of 2 sewing machines, $170 in personal donations as well as $200 from the Rotary club of New Milford.

In October 2008 the SHONA craftswomen were forced to flee to Rwanda for two weeks because of escalating war around Goma. During this time we requested donations to help pay for the cost of housing and food while in Rwanda. We received $450 in generous donations and this was able to cover our costs during that difficult time. For the year of 2009, we have received approximately $3,000. These funds are donations made by individuals to specific needs such as sponsoring a new craftsperson, sponsoring our education program, or supporting our working-capital fund as part of our membership campaign. See our donations page for more information

Other than these generous gifts, we have no outside funding sources. All of our progress has been through the sale of our products, the hard work of our craftspeople, and the loyal support of our customers.

We have low overhead costs because we do many things ourselves on a volunteer basis. SHONA has no office space and no paid staff, either in the United States or in Congo.

Pat and Joe Hurley generously run our stock in the US and ship all orders within the US, donating their time and energy.

Dawn Hurley, founder and director of SHONA, worked full-time on SHONA in 2008 and 2009, and will continues to donate a miniumum of 20 hours a week to SHONA in the year of 2010. She receives no financial compensation for her work because she wishes to ensure that the craftspeople ensure 100% of the profit from their hard work.
When you donate to most non-profit organizations a fairly large percentage of your donation often goes to overhead costs, including offices, staff, vehicles, equipment, and marketing campaigns.

When we say that we are a grass-roots organization, we mean it.
In an environment like Eastern Congo, where the culture has become heavily dependent on foreign aid, International non-profit organizations (NGOS) are often seen as rich. They are expected to pay the best salaries, offer the most comfortable jobs, rent the biggest offices and pay the highest prices on everything they buy. Unfortunately this means that the people who are meant to receive the aid, are often at the end of a very long line of people who are profiting from donations. This is not true all the time, with every organization, but is a significant factor here in Congo.

In everything we do at SHONA, we seek to buck this system, and we refuse to build a top-heavy organization. Sometimes this means that we can't expand as quickly as we like, and often it means that we are very tired, but we think the lesson is an important one. SHONA is about the craftspeople. That is why we pay our craftspeople directly and we refuse to pay anyone else. We think that both our customers and our craftspeople value this commitment and we think it sets a counter-cultural example of serving the poor first.

The following is a list of the expenses which are deducted from our gross profit to achieve our net profit. Our craftspeople receive 100% of our net profit.

International Shipping Costs: $450 per 30 KG package
The Cost of Materials: varies
Ebay fees: roughly 10% of each sale (please buy from our own online store if you can!!)
Paypal fees: roughly 3% of each payment made
Website hosting fees: 5.99 per month
Vstore hosting fees: 15.99 per month
brochure printing: .20 per brochure