About Friends of Amani Canada
Friends of Amani Canada was established in 2008 to raise funds to support the work of Amani Center for Street Children in Tanzania.
In the period since then, volunteers at Friends of Amani have raised over $2 million to support Amani’s work, via:
- Ten annual dinners held from 2008 to 2017 that targeted Toronto’s financial industry
- Annual fundraisers targeting Grade 12 students in Toronto
- Fundraising climbs up Mount Kilimanjaro
- Support from two mid sized charitable foundations (Blossom Foundation, Grapes for Humanity)
- Annual donations from core supporters
- Monthly donations via PayPal
- Individual fundraising events such as a wine tasting event and a Go Fund Me campaign around covid relief.
Today, Friends of Amani has a committed board consisting of a dozen successful business people, largely in the Toronto financial community.
About Amani Center for Street Children (www.amanikids.org)
Since its founding in 2001, Amani Center for Street Children has grown to become one of the largest Non-Government organizations dealing with street children in East Africa. Today 80 social workers, educators and caregivers in three locations work with and support over 800 children who were previously living on the street.
Amani’s overarching goal is to reunite children with family members and their local communities. Promoting education is a major focus and in some cases Amani provides financial support for school fees or modest family support.
Where it’s impossible to reunite children with family members, Amani operates purpose built facilities where children live and attend school. In some cases Amani also funds vocational training and for the most talented children it will pay for private secondary school and college or university.
Amani Children’s Home 20th Anniversary Global Livecast
Below are links to videos from a global livecast held on October 2nd to celebrate Amani’s 20th anniversary
Excerpt One: Maimuna’s Story (8:04)
Excerpt Two: The First 10 years – Building the foundation (15:12)
Excerpt Three: The Last Ten Years – Growth to Present (19:25)
Excerpt Four: Amani Children’s Home Today (10:42)
Excerpt Five: Looking to the Future (13:18)
Full Recording: October 2, 2021 (1:21:46)
Amani Success Stories
The videos below were produced in 2014 and 2016 for the annual fundraising dinners in Toronto, to provide attendees with a sense of Amani’s work.
Godfrey describes how Amani changed his life
Katherine contrasts her hope for the future with life before Amani
Erick talks about his plans after being trained as a welder
James describes Amani’s dramatic impact in transforming a young boy’s life
Mwanaisha and her aunt talk about their life together
This shows the experience of a supporter during a visit to Amani:
McGovern (edited) lets viewers see a father and son’s day at Amani
The Role
An early task for the successful candidate will be to work with interested members of the Friends of Amani Canada board to develop a fundraising plan for the next 12 months and then to begin implementing that plan.
Beyond that, we expect that the successful candidate will meet weekly with the Chair of the Friends of Amani Canada board and potentially other board members to discuss progress and plans for the coming week. As well, this position will regularly communicate with Amani’s Executive Director and Amani staff to ensure that communication with donors and fundraising activity is coordinated.
Specific goals for the fundraising officer include:
- Reach out to existing supporters to solidify and in some cases expand their support.
- Coordinate with Amani’s Executive Director and Amani’s Canadian supporters to build connections to Canadian foundations whose mandate is a fit for Amani and to ensure that proposals and reports to foundations that support Amani are submitted in a timely fashion.
- For some committed supporters, explore the possibility of gaining introductions to some members of their network who might be interested in hearing Amani’s story and potentially making donations.
- Provide assistance to supporters who want to organize fundraising events, as required and merited.
- Reach out to past supporters to explore potential interest in supporting Amani, utilizing the recently compiled database of historical supporters.
- Follow up with existing and potential donors using events such as the October 2 global webcast to mark the 20th anniversary of Amani’s founding and the twice yearly webcasts for global donors that are planned for the future.
- Explore possibilities for existing and potential Canadian supporters to travel to Amani to visit Amani – possibility in tandem with a Fundraising Climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. This will likely take place starting in 2023.
- During visits to Toronto by Amani’s Executive Director (which we hope will resume in 2022), organize meetings with existing and potential supporters and then follow up afterwards.
- Refine and expand the pipeline of potential donors. As part of that, identify other potential supporters for Amani’s work in Canada and coordinate with existing volunteers to approach those donors.
- Communicate with the recently hired part time Director of Development for the US branch of Friends of Amani, to share success stories and coordinate on activity where appropriate.
The Candidate:
The qualities that you will bring to this role include:
- At least five years of fundraising experience and demonstrated success with small or mid sized not for profits, preferably with some exposure to charities that work internationally.
- A track record of taking initiative that has led to results – the candidate will bring a proactive mindset that goes beyond an “order taking” mentality.
- A high degree of organization and self motivation, with the ability to work independently.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
- The proven ability to operate effectively with donors in a variety of categories, from modest monthly supporters to those with the capacity to write sizeable cheques.
Compensation:
The base compensation for this role is $36,000 annually. Depending on performance against predetermined goals, this will be supplemented by a bonus of up to $5,000.
Application deadline of November 26th:
The deadline to submit your application is Friday November 26. Please email a short cover letter with your resume to the Chair of Friends of Amani Canada:
Dan Richards