Daan Utsav 2015

Since 2009, the world celebrates the week of October 2 as Joy of Giving week. In India, we call it the Daan Utsav – a community welfare programme that invites partnerships from organizations of all bandwiths and business interests.

A core value of The 120 Media Collective is compassion. While Sandeep Naug has long been associated with Save The Earth, Vishal Nongbet donates annually to Goonj, an NGO whose founder recently received the Magsaysay Award for his work with the Nepal quake victims. These senior members of the team inspire us to extend random acts of kindness with utmost humility and enthusiasm, to go beyond the paper value and make a difference to those we touch.

We officially partnered with Daan Utsav 2015 and spread our celebrations across four days. The 120 Media Collective picked three outstanding non-profit institutions – Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD), Women’s India Trust (WIT) and Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust – to help make the world around us a better place to call home.

While WSD and WIT held pop-up sales that were runaway hits, we experimented with a novel way to gain maximum engagement whilst also doing a bit of good!

Compassion isn’t just a paper value at the 120 Media Collective. Considering we’re a creatively bustling set-up, we challenged everyone at THE120MC to bring handmade stuff for an in-house sale.

We spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat with the hashtags #DaanUtsav and #HappyDot.

Not even four products were expected.

We receieved at least twos and threes of everything – not just the postcards and home decor stuff, but also the delicious cakes. Most stuff was dibbed on pre-sale and we sold out in an hour.

Need we say more?

WSD sold products worth INR 15775.

WIT made a sale of INR 19736 of which about INR 15000 came in in the first 9 minutes.

Material Donations for Ratna Nidhi came to about 350, of which women’s clothing was the highest percentage – go girl power!

And finally, THE120MC DIY Sale garnered sales worth INR 8600, which will be used for the purchase of textbooks for underprivileged children at Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust.

In hindsight, the theme was apt. The 120 Media Collective is truly a #thinkinganddoingandgiving organization!