Mlimani eXpress

I finally got an opportunity to send out letters to almost all donors. I have wanted to do this from the beginning, but the responsibilities increased tremendously, and my time became very limited. 

Alumni and friends of Mlimani have been more than supportive. So thank you everyone!!

I am missing mailing addresses for two alumni and Marieke’s friends from Netherlands. I will send Marieke the newsletter and our annual report so that she can share with all friends of Mlimani from The Netherlands. I will send personal email to those alumni with missing address on file. 

Nevertheless, MAO says thank you for everyone’s kindness and generosity. It was actually fun writing each letter, and I hope you will contact us if you have any questions.
Donors should be looking out for a letter from MAO in their mailbox J
Cheers!

After much consideration, the integrated phpbb2 Discussion forum had to be removed because of security concerns. I will create a simple discussion board that alumni can use to send messages (hopefully soon).
I also removed the gallery that was using Coppermine. I undestand this is such a bummer L, but the gallery was too slow and some crazy dude/dudette had posted some spam photos. I just had enough of that.
So, hopefully soon, I will be adding a new gallery which is much faster and user friendly.
All the photos are safe. I have stored them somewhere. So not to worry for those who have submitted their photos.

I apologize for any inconvenience.
Cheers!!

The Fundraising auction is officially open for bidding!!  This is an exciting opportunity to show that you care! We are auctioning the Taifa Stars Jerseys that were donated by Mlimani alumni, Imani Kajula from NMB bank.  This is a great deal! You give and receive J Buy for a good cause. Choose to make a difference. Here is the link to the auction. http://www.mlimani.org/charity/auction.htm 

I will be adding more items everyday.   It takes about a day for MAO missionFish Account to get updated from ebay. So some of the items have been posted but are not showing up yet.

Cheers!

We are officially part of MissionFish! Therefore, we will be able to host our auction with Ebay Giving Works. I am still reading the Missionfish website to understand everything.

May be later i will have more comments.

 Cheers!

Ok, Mlimanians!! We are on map! Alumni of Mlimani Primary School, Mr. Godfrey Mwampembwa (Gado), who is a Cartoonist, was interviewed by CNN on early March.  I got an opportunity to speak to him briefly on the phone last week. He was at Washington University in St. Louis. I will be interviewing him this coming week for Mlimani Connection Newsletter!

Here is his interview with CNN

Today, I spoke to Kim, who is in our Advisory Board. Kim went to Tanzania last month. Even though he is in vacation, Kim has been following up with MAO projects.  It’s great to have such a dedicated person in our team. He is following up with the final stage of Electricity Project and checking prices for Desk Project. As a Board member, Kim understand MAO’s mission and thus he can provide us with a different view on things. Especially, since he has opportunity to check the results of our work first hand and speak to the teachers and vendors that MAO is dealing with during the projects. 

MAO is always looking for ways to minimize the costs, which will means achieve bigger results and have even greater social impact. Cheers!

Lately, I haven’t had much sleep, but finally, all the planning is coming together. The 2008 Bonanza is launched and all events will unfold as we are moving along.  I am now working on auction site. I had to put that aside to deal with everything else. I am really looking forward to the Bonanza events. I hope you are too.

Cheers!

As I was trying to find a way to setup an auction in our website for the Fundraising Bonanza, I came across “eBay Giving Works.”  After I discussed the matter with other Mao officers, we agreed that it will be best to host our auction at this site, especially, because it is specific for charity.

To be part of eBay Giving works, you have to register with missionFish. Yesterday, I submitted our registration application to missionFish. We are registering as small non profit with less than Revenue of $5,000 annually (per IRS definition).

As I was defining MAO in missionFish application, I had to spend sometime reading IRS rules on tax-related matter for charity. We didn’t have much fundraising in the middle of last year, but in the end we had raised money for electricity project. So I had to be sure we are still called “small non-profit”. Especially after I found out that once the organization does not qualify as a small non profit, then organization has to file for tax-exemption within 90 days after that tax-year end.

After I applied the Gross receipt test provided by IRS, I was RELIEVED to find out that we are still a small non profit.  But nevertheless, we are going to submit our exemption application this year, probably sooner than later.

Here is the Gross Receipt Test
-

For purposes of the gross receipts test, an organization normally does not have more than $5,000 annually in gross receipts if:

1. During its first tax year the organization received gross receipts of $7,500 or less,
2. During its first 2 years the organization had a total of $12,000 or less in gross receipts, and
3. In the case of an organization that has been in existence for at least 3 years, the total gross receipts received by the organization during the immediately preceding 2 years, plus the current year, are $15,000 or less.

We pass both 3 test. So, we have nothing to worry about for now. This year, our goal is bigger, thus, before this tax-year ends, it will be best to have exemption applied for.That’s what we will do.
Cheers!!

I would like to apologize about this matter. Even though we were hoping to launch the fundraising Bonanza by mid- March, we have had some challenges that could not be avoided. Consequently, in the last Advisory Board meeting, we agreed that the events will be extended to April 30^th, 2008.  The event details should be out by end of next week. Therefore, stay tuned and thank you for your understanding.