KOA Donations

Background

The KOA organization has its origins in the early social gatherings of several Kashmiri Pandit families in the Washington D.C., Maryland and Midwest. These families soon came to realize the importance of building a community structure which could include other families too in a bond for mutual preservation and growth. It was not until June 1, 1982 when Article of Incorporation was issued to KOA by the state of Maryland and on September 27, 1983 the organization was exempted from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. As more families and members joined the founding group, the organization evolved to become a national outfit with regional chapters, documented By Laws, systems, and procedures as well as a non-profit status to better seek donations and pursue community actions.

This changed in 1989-1990 when our community was forcibly and brutally expelled from our homes and hearths of our ancestral land as a result of intolerance and multiple killings at the hands of well-equipped Pakistan-trained Islamic terrorists. With a history of more than 5000 years, the seventh major exodus of our community members from Kashmir resulted in about 400,000 of them scattered all over India. KOA wanted to help, and its mission was thereby modified to provide financial assistance to needy and deserving Kashmiri Pandit individuals, educational institutions, places of worship and shrines, and preserve historical monuments and sites of religious and cultural significance in Kashmir, India.

KOA Fundraising and Donations

Since 1990, KOA raised $4,971,697 and donated $4,379,001 to various India-bound programs and projects, out of which KOA raised $1,266,833 and donated $1,134,571 in the four-year period (years 2017-2020) under Dr. Shakun Malik’s leadership, which is 25.5% and 25.9% of TOTAL money raised and donated for the past 3 decades respectively. More details will be shared soon.

KOA Programs	Total (1990-Present)		2017-2020
	Revenue	Expense	Revenue	Expense
Medical Fund	$446,249	$386,213	$120,344	$59,905
EAP	$1,571,808	$1,496,715	$389,218	$401,002
SAC	$1,164,636	$1,219,100	$385,437	$419,033
Combined Programs (Medical+EAP+SAC)	$3,182,694	$3,097,628	$895,000	$879,940
KOA Donations to India (Combined Programs + India Associations)	$4,971,697	$4,379,001	$1,266,833	$1,134,571

KOA Donors

The KOA donors need a special mention. Without their generous contribution, nothing is possible. KOA is indebted to them for supporting the KOA programs. Now, who are these donors? It comes down to calling each and every member almost on a daily basis to seek their financial contribution. It is not more than 200-odd US-based donors that meet the needs of our brethren back-home year after year since our exodus. Every year some drop out and a few new ones join. Over the years, they have inculcated the ‘spirit of giving’. Most of them, if not all, are hard-working individuals supporting their families and making their ends meet. During my two separate tenures as KOA president, as well as three years as the program director, the ‘well-to-do’ members, however, largely stayed away from donating money to KOA. They would rather share their pearls of wisdom with us or attach way too many strings to their donations. They would rather donate to bigger charities where, if recognized for their contributions, it means something to them. KOA is too small a fish to be counted. In my experience of donating to other much bigger and recognized charities, KOA is a lot more ‘transparent’ organization that has ‘zero’ overhead. The KOA officials are all volunteers who are not compensated for their services, monetarily or otherwise. That is necessarily not the case with other organizations. Additionally, we have created an online portal for our India-based educational programs that allows a donor to keep track of the beneficiary he/she supports.

Charity begins at home

Time has come for India-based KP Associations to step up to the plate. KOA has been doing this for the past three (3) decades. The milk cow can be milked only so much, it will dry out sooner than later. We have our own needs. With the offshore model adopted by Corporate America, most of the manufacturing and software jobs have over the years gone to China and India respectively. This was done by MBA executives, hired by Corporate America, looking for short-term profits for top executives at the expense of American workers. The ‘filthy rich’ became ‘filthier and richer’ with the American politicians in their pockets, writing laws that benefit the employers, not the employees. Well-paying jobs came hard to come by. Some members, since the pandemic struck, have lost their jobs. Sending a kid to college in this country has become expensive. Medical expenses have skyrocketed. Those of us living in the West do not have dollar trees growing in our backyards. Such perceptions can be deceptive. India in comparison has a larger population of well-to-do KPs, who are as much passionate about helping their own brethren in need as their US-based counterparts. Since early 1990s, after economic boom that India has seen, Mata Laxmi has been very kind to most of our KPs living in various parts of India. Time for them to give back to society, and for India-based KP associations to raise money locally without always expecting something from the West.

It is definitely KOA’s obligation to support our brethren back home who are in dire need of help. It is however not only KOA’s obligation, but a ‘collective obligation’ of all of us, and that of various KP organizations all over the world, especially India. For them to be counted as the ‘collaborators’ and partners of various KOA programs, I urge them to start looking inwards. Before another appeal for funds, I urge these organizations and individuals to look deep into their own pockets and see if they could save some from spending on lavish weddings, building ashrams and bhawans, and performing community hawans.

With a larger base of well-to-do donors in India, we have a huge potential to raise a lot more, definitely more than what KOA donors have contributed over the years, which represent not more than 5% of KP population all over the world. If we can do this much as 5%, I am sure the rest of 95% can do a whole lot better.