Forever Projects is proving you don’t need money to help change the world

When Mark and Anna Dombkins moved to Tanzania to grow their family via adoption, little did they know the experience would lead them to build a charity that helps thousands of women break the poverty cycle and keep their families together.

Mark joined editors Cec Busby and Adam Bub on the First Act podcast to share the remarkable genesis of their charity organisation, Forever Projects. The not-for-profit raises funds to educate Tanzanian women to become self-sustaining and help quell the terrible poverty cycle that forces women to give up their babies.

Mark explains that the process of adopting three of their six children opened their eyes to the desperate struggle of families living in poverty in Tanzania.

“A big part of it was access to nutrition,” he says. “If a woman cannot lactate and feed her newborn, alternative nutrition is completely unaffordable. Here, one of the options would be formula milk. But, in Tanzania, it would cost their entire week’s wage. So if you are in a position where you can’t feed your newborn, they’re quickly losing weight, and there’s no support from the government, then poverty is a huge obstacle to families staying together. It’s tragic.”

The power of a story

Upon returning to Australia with their family, Mark and Anna decided to fundraise to support a 12-month pilot program run by local Tanzanian teams. The program provided women and their babies with nutrition and crisis support and educated mothers to set up a small business to provide for their families independently.

Creating a temporary art gallery event in a local café, Mark and Anna showcased the powerful stories of 16 women who had used the program to break the cycle of poverty and create an autonomous future. When the event raised over $16,000 in one night, they realised that they could have a significant impact with compelling storytelling.

“We were able to send a hundred per cent of that over to Tanzania, and that quadrupled their initial pilot budget for the project,” Mark recalls with pride. “That was the moment when we knew this project was working.

“I think we’re waking up to the power of a story, and we’re seeing that a lot in how people talk about marketing and strategy. People in Australia want to be part of this, but they’re not gonna just give if there’s no personal connection to them. So, that was the heart of Forever Projects – how do we use storytelling to inspire people to give, to connect them to the impact of their generosity and show them how far that money goes? That was the DNA for Forever Projects.”

What’s in your hands can make an impact

In 2014, after three annual events had raised significant funds to get the program growing, Mark and Anna registered Forever Projects as a not-for-profit fundraising charity to help the projects continue to scale across Tanzania.

When one donor, a house builder named Matt, used a unique way to donate by giving a percentage of his building profits to Forever Projects, their catchphrase, ‘Using what’s in your hands to make a forever impact’ and a way to encourage year-round donations was born.

Sharing why he was inspired to give at one of their events, builder Matt said, ‘As I looked at what was in my hands, it was a hammer. And so I thought, how can I use my hammer and my skills to help?’

Mark says this moment inspired them to build on that idea to grow the impact of the Forever Projects brand.

“We thought, let’s commit to building a brand where we celebrate people like Matt or people like Todd – a kid in my year eight class, great at trombone, who would busk in the mall and donate his profits to us. Or Mel, who ran a café in Wollongong and said, ‘Today all profits are going to Forever Projects’.

“Some people don’t have the time or the skills to give, but they’re happy to give money; others have time, skills, networks and connections. We all can help those in need, using what’s in our hands to make an impact. People started to see these stories on social media and came to us with their ideas. That was how we grew the community.”

The Forever Projects team have continued to expand on this idea, launching their What’s Your Kilimanjaro? campaign, inspiring participants to fundraise by choosing their own challenge to conquer.

“We’ve had 415 people conquer their own ‘Kilimanjaro’, whether it was swimming, running, writing, or reading lots of books. For example, 13-year-old Penelope swam 18 kilometres with her brother Angus in the local pool and raised enough money for a whole family to go through the 12-month project.”

Be the change you want to see

For those wanting to start their own purpose-driven business or charity, Mark has four great pieces of advice to help drive success.

1. Separate your ego from your business

“I think it’s first and foremost being crystal-clear on what your values are and what your mission is, and that the organisation owns that. So, when you are making tough decisions around finances, resources and goals, you can almost have a conversation with your organisation,” Mark advises. “Your organisation is a living organism that’s growing, and it wants to manifest this impact in the world. So, if you can separate yourself from it and ask it what it’s trying to do based on its mission and values, you can make better decisions for how to fuel and accelerate it.

“It takes a lot of the ego out of it as well. It can be hard not to self-identify with the impact you’re having, but I think that’s an important piece of advice – to be self-aware early on so that it can be what it wants to be.”

2. No virtue signalling

“Forever Projects has been very clear on our role in the story,” says Mark. “We’re not the hero; the heroes are the women breaking the cycle of poverty, the local partners walking alongside them, and the generous donors in our community. And we’re the guide trying to help people overcome the obstacles they’re facing.

“You do see businesses that get that the wrong way around and they think they’re the hero. That doesn’t look very good from a consumer’s perspective.”

3. Mutually beneficial partnerships

“I think the best partnerships are values-driven,” Mark says. “When you show up with your hand out, it doesn’t create long-term partnerships.”

To explain, Mark uses the example of their current brand partnership with online digital assets platform, Canva.

“When you think about Canva, where are they going and how Forever Projects could help with that, they’ve got this two-step plan – they’re vocal about being one of the most valuable companies in the world, but also doing the most good they can. They’re interested in highlighting how not-for-profits are benefiting from their product, not in a self-bragging way, but in an actually true way.

“So, they needed examples of how not-for-profits were using Canva and stories that helped with that, and they also needed opportunities for their volunteers to do skilled work. If you’ve got capable people in your company who want to use those skills for good, you need not-for-profits to show up and help you with that. Offering a solution to some of their problems has been key to a good partnership. We’re not just turning up asking for money; we’re showing up with generosity and empathy.”

4. Honesty and transparency

Finally, Mark says that transparency as a charity is essential to reassure donors that their money is going to the right place.

“There’s a lot of obstacles around giving to charities when people wonder how much is actually going to the cause,” Mark admits. “So, we segmented our operational costs by asking those early annual event donors to form our core community. These donors generously fund our operational costs for projects like What’s Your Kilimanjaro, so every cent you raise or give will go to Tanzania. The question of how much is going is just off the table; it’s a hundred per cent.”

Mark shared lots more in-depth detail about how they built their charity into a real world-changer. Listen to the full First Act ep now.

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