r.i.c.e.

So many of you have been kind enough to tell us that, when rice is ready and needs it, you’ll be ready to help. That time has now come.

In the past year, we have produced leading research about the effects of poor sanitation on India’s children and about promising solutions. We have been taking our findings and recommendations to local implementers in rural India, to meetings with a Minister in Delhi, and to policy-makers at some of the most important, well-known international organizations. We have a specific plan to scale these efforts up over the next few years, but we’re going to need a lot of help to make it happen.

Fortunately, a lot of help is on the way. Although it’s not a done deal yet, a special large, generous donor is well on its way to providing major support for rice’s research and advocacy on children’s health and Indian sanitation policy over the next few years.

The details of the major support are still being sorted out, and you can help us with one remaining snag: when the IRS makes its rules about which organizations get to be non-profit public charities, it wants to make sure that non-profits do not get all of their money from any one source. The IRS wants non-profits to be publicly supported, by many people. If rice got all of its money from this one big donor, we could lose our public charity status. Moreover, because the big donor wants to support public charities, it is important to them that we be publicly supported, too.

All this means that rice cannot accept the big donor’s support unless we also get at least 10 percent of our funding from many different people – from people like you. We must receive this money every month, and not too much of it can come from any one person.

What do we need in particular?

• At least $1,400 a month, starting January 2013, and
• Not more than $200 a month of that from any one person.

If we can raise this 10% from all of you – rice’s public supporters – then one big donor can fill in the rest of what we need. This means that, if you help us meet our goal, we get ten dollars for every dollar you give. You’re getting to buy rice’s work at a 90% discount!

It’s easy to contribute: click on “donate to rice” at the top of this page, and select an automatic, recurring monthly donation. Options range from $10 a month to $200 a month. Some supporters already contribute $100 a month; others already contribute $25 a month.

There is so much good work to do. If you can, please help rice to do its part.