Associate Board Member @ SEAL
April 2022 - Present-
The Beirut Project is a non-profit co-founded by 3 Lebanese-American friends following the August 4, 2020 port explosion in Beirut. The initiative started as a fundraising effort to support reconstruction and rehabilitation projects on the ground. Over $250,000 was raised in the first 10 days.
Since then, The Beirut Project has focused on numerous other projects that aim to help female entrepreneurs, small businesses, agricultural producers, and others.
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As Co-Founder of The Beirut Project, I was responsible for developing and growing the organization. This included but was not limited to the following:
› Creating a website and GoFundMe page within the first 12 hours
› Developing a grassroots fundraising campaign by leveraging my network
› Working hand-in-hand with other NGOs and governmental organizations
› Mapping all of Beirut to be used for project tracking initiatives
› Coordinating with SEAL to determine where funds should be allocated
› Highlighting and supporting small businesses in affected areas
› Purchasing inventory from local producers for shop owners around Beirut
Project Committee
On August 4, 2020, Beirut suffered the sixth largest non-nuclear explosion in recorded history. The damage was extensive, killing more than 200 people, injuring more than 7000, and rendering more than 300,000 people homeless. Most of the city was destroyed in a matter of seconds, resulting in damages of over $15 billion. Given the country’s deepening economic crisis and the Lebanese government’s vast ineptitude, there was a philanthropic gap that quickly needed to be filled. Within the first few hectic hours of the explosion, amidst constant phone calls to friends and family on the ground, I mobilized two of my closest Lebanese-American friends in the Bay Area to work on a fundraising initiative. The goal was to generate as many grassroots donations as possible and to subsequently funnel the funds to reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. The destruction was extensive and time was of the essence.
Website & GoFundMe
After the madness of the first day, I realized that the best next steps to raise funds would be to create a website, GoFundMe, and social media presence. This would allow individuals to learn more about the project and progressively track the allocation of funds. The website gave details on the initiative and linked directly to our GoFundMe, for which we ultimately partnered with SEAL (Social and Economic Action for Lebanon). With help from other Lebanese-American friends, we established an informative social media strategy which provided followers with digestible statistics about the damage and worsening economic crisis.
Donation Matching
In order to incentivize individuals to donate to the cause, and to demonstrate our commitment to helping Lebanon, we determined that the best way to fundraise would be to match donations up to a certain amount. As a result, we reached out to hundreds of Lebanese-American friends in our network and asked them if they were willing to match donations. The positive response was overwhelming, and we were ultimately able to match over $100,000 in external donations through our network.
Fundraising
Once we had established a group of ‘pledgers’ who were willing to match donations, the next step was to conduct extensive outreach in order to raise as much money as possible. Each individual pledger fundraised independently, leveraging independent contacts and matching funds in return. Through countless phone calls, text messages, and social media posts, we were able to raise over $250,000 in donations within the first 10 days of the campaign. Most of this money came in small amounts, and demonstrated people’s generosity and graciousness during what proved to be a very hard time for the Lebanese community.
Allocation
After reaching our initial fundraising goal, albeit with more funds trickling in on a daily basis, our next task was determining how we wanted to allocate our funds. Working directly with SEAL, we focused on spending the initial batch on urgent reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. One area of priority was rebuilding many of the hospitals that were destroyed in the area. Funds were quickly allocated to start rebuilding the Saint George Hospital in Rmeil, which was severely impacted by the blast. Other funds were allocated in coordination with the Red Cross and other groups to alleviate urgent food security needs on the ground. Ultimately, in addition to the $250,000 raised, I worked in tandem with SEAL over course of the next 6 months to help allocate over $15 million in funds to entities in need.