If a charity want’s to solve social issues on a large scale it needs to grow – that in turn means it has to build strategic overhead to compete for talents, customers and investors.

We recently stumbled upon a TED talk by Dan Palotta, activist and fundraiser, in which he demonstrates how important growth is when it come to making a change on a large scale. Furthermore Dan sums up some challenges growing charities often face because of wide spread prejudices about non profit organizations:

NGOs can’t use money to draw talent away from the for profit sector. They can’t advertise anywhere near the scale of the for profit sector. They are not supposed to take risks like the for profit sector to get to their customers. They don’t have the same amount of time the for profit sector has to find their customers and they can’t go to the stock market to get the capital to do all of this.

Getting to support the most talented and motivated students is crucial to our organization’s success. Therefore every year we have a close look at the result of Kenya’s standardized exam, KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education). Because those scores tell us something about their performance in school and thus about their chances to get to University.

Thus we are thrilled about the extraordinary scores of our AiduFellows. Lots of them scored B+ or above, some even scored a flat 6 – only about 0.5% of all students get an A, some 6% get a B+ or better. An A has been achieved by: Andrew, who is second best among the 8000 Students in the district of Kilifi; Joseph who is Number 144 among all Student in Kenya, and thus the most successful AiduFellow so far; Sora who belongs to the top 0.45% of her year. Frankfaith, Phyllis and Omar all scored B+ or better and thus belong to the top 6.6%.

“I want to become a role model for future children.” These are the words of Esther W., a bright young lady from Nairobi, Kenya – our 500th AiduFellow. Just a little while ago Esther’s faith was unclear. Despite her great marks in elementary school the 13 year old was far from sure if she would continue her education to secondary school due to lack of funds.

Esther’s mom is a teacher and single mother; her father is unknown. Taking care of Esther and her two siblings in Nairobi doesn’t leave her mother with enough money to provide for all of her children’s school fees. So Esther’s dream of becoming a doctor seemed far away. This is where Sarah, from Switzerland came in. Sarah decided that instead of buying the usual Christmas presents this year she would invest in a more lasting gift and support a young talent with a scholarship. She browsed through various profiles and handwritten applications of our applicants, all of them talented young people with not only great marks but also inspiring vision yet lacking the financial means to support their studies. For Sarah, Esther’s particular story spoke to her. That’s why she decided to award her scholarship directly to Esther – A great Christmas present for Esther, the future doctor.

AiduFellow Esther and her AiduMaker Sarah

With young students striving for a better education not for their own sake but for their communities we see good reason for believing in a better future for Kenya. If these ambitious talents get the support they need, a stable civil society can evolve and provide all of it’s members with livelihood opportunities.

some of our AiduFellows

Our AiduFellow Peter from Tana River might teach you a lesson in optimism. While the Tana region has seen tribal unrest that spread to other regions and the government struggles with keeping things calm, he is working hard to realize his dream of a better future for the ones in need. He has just started studying at a national school and tells us that this brings him one step closer to becoming a doctor and building a hospital in his village where patients with low income shall afford treatment. Sarah*, an AiduSeeker from the same district, shares our belief in the power of education: She is willing to study hard to become a medical doctor and educate people on disease prevention.

We believe that young and ambitious high potentials like Peter and Sarah, dreaming of a better future not for themselves but for their community, are key to peaceful and stable nations that provide opportunities to people regardless of their tribal relations or social status. Therefore we continue to make AiduSeekers’ dreams come true all over Kenya by sending them to school with your scholarships or your support of our operations.

* Names have been changed

This is the title of a podium discussion taking place next Tuesday, 2nd of October in Zurich Switzerland, see the event here, where Florian Kapitza, CEO of Aiducation International will take part. In preparation to the event he was interviewed by the NZZ Campus editor in chief Ronald Schenkel who asked him about his motivation behind his engagement with Aiducation and how he and the team built up the organization, how it grew and developed since its foundation in 2009.

see video here