by Francisco Santa María M.
Everything started in June 2009. My twin brother Felipe and I had always looked for a way to create something transcendent and to help others. Making a fairer world is a concern we’ve had since grade school and we had spent months talking about different projects and entertaining various ideas.
With just two weeks until our birthday we finally committed to an idea
Some of the Regala tu Cumpleaños team, Photo Credit: Regala tu Cumpleaños
which we believed would be a fun and easy way to involve other people in our common goal. We’ve always been pretty detached from gifts and material things, and know that there are others who could use our birthday presents more than us. We felt that we had arrived at the perfect moment where everything fit. I called my brother and I suggested that for our birthdays, we request our friends and family choose our gifts based on the needs of a foundation and donate them. This simple idea is the “tip of the iceberg” of the organization that we had been hoping to form.
Felipe thought of the name Regala Tu Cumpleaños or “Give Your Birthday” and we were able to set up a webpage to increase the reach of this simple idea. We invited more friends with whom we shared the same social concerns to participate. Soon we recruited Magdalena Tagle, who became our webdesigner and developed the image of the foundation and Roland Matthei, our executive director and team member.
With our website quickly up, we printed flyers and banners, preparing the first major event to kick off this project, our birthday party. The party was a success where friends and family donated gifts to help the OSCUS elderly and set the example for over 50 subsequent parties that would benefit other charitable organizations.
“Donating a birthday” is simple and there are no conditions for the size or scale of an
Party with Fundación Amiga, Photo Credit: Regala tu Cumpleaños
event. It may range from a very small or intimate group, to larger elaborate or corporate parties.
After the birthday party, we coordinate with the birthday boy or girl to visit their chosen charitable organization to deliver gifts that were collected. We consider this the most important moment, what we call “relationship with reality” and guests and friends from the party are welcome to attend as well.
The types of gifts are diverse and can be varied depending on the organization you choose to support. They may include things such as non-perishable food items for babies to cooking implements. Depending on the skills or situation of the guest, they can also give grant shares, advice, classes or medical care. There have even been times when the birthday boy or girl decided to help cover the basic costs of foundations such as electricity or water consumption.
At our birthday party, the guests told us that they loved that we facilitated the choice of gifts, and that such gifts hold much more value for those who give them as well as those who receive them. The size, scale, or type does not detract from the value of the gift. On the contrary it is the sum of these small contributions from various sources which generate the value chain of this giving system.
The idea behind Regala Tu Cumpleaños is that you are not only celebrating a birthday
but celebrating an opportunity to give small contributions that will be greatly appreciated by the whole community. That vision is what makes the difference in transforming a celebration that has always existed, but now can be an alternative to further assist those most in need.
The idea is noble and simple and is sold by itself. People of all ages have participated and each of them generates a “bridge” between people and lesser-known foundations and charitable groups. These bridges are created just by attending and watching the celebrated birthdays and discussing what it’s about and its purpose. This practically starts a “snowball” effect throughout the celebration resulting in many more people talking about, promoting and committing to the cause.
At one birthday, we explained to a friend that this idea was very special, and that it had always been present, but that we “only had to connect the dots” of something so simple for it to be so effective. To this he simply replied “this is not just a great idea, it is a discovery.”
Additionally, Give Your Birthday volunteers have been very welcome to participate by attending the festivities, to meet new people, expand the network of contacts, and to enjoy the festive, happy atmosphere of a birthday.
Felipe with party guests, Photo Credit: Regala tu Cumpleaños
Currently we have helped about 10 foundations and have participated in about 50 birthdays, generating support not previously covered by each foundation, aiming to cover high costs of some foundations, and give them a break towards the end of the year. We have even given the first birthday in Colombia and are in conversations with partners to open the foundation in Ecuador working with the former president, Rosalía Arteaga, whom we will soon meet.
This project is supported under the ideology of our own NGO called TRASPASA (meaning Transfer) whose main idea is “to provide the people with different ways to transfer the excess of goods and resources that people misspend daily, and to cooperate in the redistribution of wealth, material, intellectual and spiritual resources and goods from the areas of highest concentration to the lowest concentration but highest need while looking for that balance that is a necessary and vital part of sustainable development”.
Our future goals are to grow as a national network and to develop strong international partnerships which will eventually incorporate a platform to donate money online. We hope to embody the concept of CHARITY FUN (BENEFICENCIA ENTRETENIDA ) that we introduced in an effort to engage larger portions of the community in assisting those in need with what we already have.
Eventually, Regala Tu Cumpleaños will develop to include a range of other projects where marriages, Christmas, business and personal anniversaries, and other events are celebrated. These simple measures are innovative ways to take advantage of current practices while supporting the environment, education and economy and increasing general awareness and participation in charitable support.
To date the project is based on our own economic efforts, so we are seeking input from private companies, government and future partners to help us fund some of our operations so we can devote 100 percent of our time to this project.
The way in which Regala Tu Cumpleaños works is as follows; We invite the birthday boy or girl to give his birthday presents. For that we ask you to:
1. Choose or propose an organization, foundation, church or community to support and pay attention to the list of needs it has.
2. Send the following to contacto@regalatucumple.cl:
• Location, date and time of your birthday celebration.
• Foundation or chosen cause.
• Personal picture to appear on the invitation (optional)
3. Send all your friends an invitation that we will design for you, which includes a suggested list of gifts according to the needs of your cause or charity.
4. After your birthday, we will collect the gifts and deliver them together to the foundation or cause chosen. Your guests, friends, and family are welcome to join us in delivering the gifts as well. If you prefer, we can deliver them without you, but the idea is have a contact with the people aided.
5. The organization or foundation gives us a proof of the donation and the inventory of gifts received, which are uploaded to our website.
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Right on!