Peace Corps Partnerships

Hi everyone…

Before I post any more project ideas, I’d like to explain what the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) is—if you ever decide to help us fund something, you’ll probably do it through PCPP’s website. It’s tax-deductible that way.

The PCPP website is how people back home can donate money directly to a PCV’s projects. We post a specific project to the site, and then anyone can click on it and donate directly to it—100% of the donation goes to the selected project; no “admin” or “overhead” costs apply. And the funds we raise through PCPP are managed by us personally: once the funding target is reached the Peace Corps deposits the full amount into our Swazi bank account for immediate project implementation. We then write a bunch of reports and document the project costs and outcomes for the Peace Corps and all the partnering donors.

Projects posted to the PCPP website have to meet some basic requirements first. One of them states that the community benefiting from the project must provide at least 25% of the overall project expenses (which could include in-kind labor costs, materials, or money). So if we post a project to the PCPP website, it means we’ve received community buy-in and we’re ready to implement the project asap. If the project doesn’t raise the funding target within a specified timeframe then it’ll be pulled from the list—allowing room for others.

Anyone can donate to any project posted to the PCPP site (any PCV in the world can post projects), but by far the most common way they get funded is through the donations of people connected to the PCV administering the project. Friends and family! So before we post anything, we’ll put our project idea on this blog to gauge interest and potential funding partners. So as we post the different projects we’re working on, we’ll be sure to mention when it’s a potential PCPP-funded one—and if you see something that strikes your philanthropic fancy, just shoot me an email to begin the partnership.