Send Lawyers, Computers & Money

By now if your have been reading about our 2014 goals , you can see one of our major obstacles…money.

We had a volunteer from a March delegation who asked us, “What are the greatest challenges you face both as an organization and personally?”

Becca was quick to answer, “Money.”

If every volunteer who had worked with us here gave $10/month we would receive about $30,000 each month!  If everyone on our mailing list gave us only $10/month we would have $120,000/month!  And even that is not enough...but it would be a good start!

Like most non-profits, we scramble for donations.  Unlike many non-profits, an enormous amount of our budget comes from individuals, churches, meetings, and groups  which gives us the flexibility to adjust to do what is needed rather than doing what is perceived to be needed by outsiders…those who are not on the ground, and, more importantly, who are not the local people in the communities.

This year we want to increase our operating receipts by 25% and increase donations from former volunteers by 50%...that will help a great deal.  We also want to expand more globally…to figure out a way to raise funds from people within Nicaragua and in Europe (we now have a way to donate online via credit card in euros!)

20 years on...our computers haven't modernized much!

On a different note:  recently we received word that Microsoft was no longer going to support XP, which is the operating system that most of our computers were using.  Our stop-gap computer guru Sarah was in the States on her speaking tour and Becca was ready to tear her hair out trying to get work done before she left for Ireland while computer technicians in Managua moved all our computers over to Windows 7.  We realized yet again what an invaluable help an IT volunteer would be for us…so please help us find one! Find out more here.   So much of our work involves computers and for most of us they are like magic until they don’t work, and then they are a plague!

With all the work we do, the hassles, the successes, the day-in and day-out trying to make a difference and the constant looking for funds, you would think that lawsuits would not be something we would need to deal with…but we have paid out so much money that could have been used to do so much good (buy medicines, pay our Nicaraguan staff)…where has that money gone? To lawyers because of one Nicaraguan woman who is trying to take our land, and one South Carolina equipment dealer who didn't fulfill his contract.

Yelba Carvajal

Yelba Carvajal sued us many years ago to get the title to the property where the CDCA and the industrial park are located (not the clinic).  She lost, then appealed and again lost in the Managua courts.  Thousands of dollars and much time later we thought we were finally done.  Last year she filed suit in the Ciudad Sandino courts (surprisingly true, one can do that) resulting in more and more money going to lawyers and more and more energy spent on this.  This is just flat out disgusting! 

Jack Coker

Jack Coker, the South Carolina equipment dealer, accepted $150,000 as earnest money for cotton yarn spinning machinery – money we had borrowed – and he never delivered the machinery.  This led to the dissolution of the spinning cooperative, much heartache, and us paying back a loan for nothing!  We are suing him and he is counter suing us.  Fortunately we have the services of the Wake Forest Law Center who working pro bono, trying to help us get our money back so that we can pay off the loan.

Our final goals of 2014 are to have both suits resolved to the CDCA’s benefit.

We hope sharing our goals with you will help you become more intimate with this work and with the all the projects. -Kathleen