Help POI continue the good fight
Donation protected
Help Palm Oil Investigations continue the good fight
Palm Oil Investigations Inc (POI) is a voluntary not for profit organisation founded 3 years ago by Lorinda Jane, in response to understanding the devastating impact that palm oil has on the lives of orangutans and their environment.
Since that time we have become a powerful voice for consumers and have gained almost 200,000 Facebook followers. We continue to educate people and brands about products containing palm oil and the impacts of its unregulated production. We are helping to change how brands think about palm oil, and to save the lives and habitats of critically endangered wildlife, and we’ve raised over $200k to assist the organisations on the ground who are rescuing and rehabilitating orangutans and their environment.
POI consists of a handful of volunteers. We have never been paid for the work we do or the countless hours we put in. Our founding team members work globally on this issue up to 15 hours per day, 7 days per week. Our other volunteers work between 15 to 40 hours per week each.
Our grass roots organisation now has a lot of power to apply pressure on the brands, but our work load is huge, the issue we are trying to deal with is massive, our team is tiny, our running costs are constant and our funding is zero.
As it stands, this is not a sustainable way for our organisation to continue. All POI volunteers currently work from their homes and cover costs from our own pockets, including travel back and forth for meetings with brands at a distance of 3 hours each way travel time. Many opportunities for meetings are also reluctantly declined due to lack of funds to attend, and our volunteers have limited hours available to assist.
We need a Melbourne-based office to be able to be more efficient, productive and to continue to exist. Being based in Melbourne will allow us to be able to meet and negotiate with many more brands and head offices, and to increase our volunteer resources.
We need to be in a position to start covering our costs and increase our resources so we can continue to function. We have achieved so much with nothing. We could achieve so much more if we are funded to succeed with our work.
Funding us will allow us to:
· Continue our Facebook community, and monitor and administer the page. We make all our Facebook photo posts (up to 4 per day) and our volunteers answer numerous enquiries on a daily basis.
· Set up and maintain Melbourne-based office.
· Continue to research every single product. We spend countless hours emailing and contacting brands and researching ingredients and certification status.
· Update and continue to develop our POI barcode scanner app to identify products containing palm oil. This took us over a year to develop with countless hours of research and loading of scan results (still a work in progress). Development of our app was expensive as are our ongoing monthly server costs.
· Continue to help the rescue teams in Indonesia. For 3 years now we have always supported the NGO's on the ground in the devastated areas. We have raised countless funds for conservation efforts and rescues. We also encourage our followers to support these organisations and will always continue to do so.
We are now asking for help for our own org so that we can continue to exist and function. Without funds, we simply cannot continue for much longer.
Want to learn more about POI? Have a listen to our journey http://earthworm.net/e17-palm-oil-investigationspoi-founder-lorinda-jane-talks-scott-poynton/" target="_blank">here
Palm Oil Investigations Inc (POI) is a voluntary not for profit organisation founded 3 years ago by Lorinda Jane, in response to understanding the devastating impact that palm oil has on the lives of orangutans and their environment.
Since that time we have become a powerful voice for consumers and have gained almost 200,000 Facebook followers. We continue to educate people and brands about products containing palm oil and the impacts of its unregulated production. We are helping to change how brands think about palm oil, and to save the lives and habitats of critically endangered wildlife, and we’ve raised over $200k to assist the organisations on the ground who are rescuing and rehabilitating orangutans and their environment.
POI consists of a handful of volunteers. We have never been paid for the work we do or the countless hours we put in. Our founding team members work globally on this issue up to 15 hours per day, 7 days per week. Our other volunteers work between 15 to 40 hours per week each.
Our grass roots organisation now has a lot of power to apply pressure on the brands, but our work load is huge, the issue we are trying to deal with is massive, our team is tiny, our running costs are constant and our funding is zero.
As it stands, this is not a sustainable way for our organisation to continue. All POI volunteers currently work from their homes and cover costs from our own pockets, including travel back and forth for meetings with brands at a distance of 3 hours each way travel time. Many opportunities for meetings are also reluctantly declined due to lack of funds to attend, and our volunteers have limited hours available to assist.
We need a Melbourne-based office to be able to be more efficient, productive and to continue to exist. Being based in Melbourne will allow us to be able to meet and negotiate with many more brands and head offices, and to increase our volunteer resources.
We need to be in a position to start covering our costs and increase our resources so we can continue to function. We have achieved so much with nothing. We could achieve so much more if we are funded to succeed with our work.
Funding us will allow us to:
· Continue our Facebook community, and monitor and administer the page. We make all our Facebook photo posts (up to 4 per day) and our volunteers answer numerous enquiries on a daily basis.
· Set up and maintain Melbourne-based office.
· Continue to research every single product. We spend countless hours emailing and contacting brands and researching ingredients and certification status.
· Update and continue to develop our POI barcode scanner app to identify products containing palm oil. This took us over a year to develop with countless hours of research and loading of scan results (still a work in progress). Development of our app was expensive as are our ongoing monthly server costs.
· Continue to help the rescue teams in Indonesia. For 3 years now we have always supported the NGO's on the ground in the devastated areas. We have raised countless funds for conservation efforts and rescues. We also encourage our followers to support these organisations and will always continue to do so.
We are now asking for help for our own org so that we can continue to exist and function. Without funds, we simply cannot continue for much longer.
Want to learn more about POI? Have a listen to our journey http://earthworm.net/e17-palm-oil-investigationspoi-founder-lorinda-jane-talks-scott-poynton/" target="_blank">here
Organizer
Lorinda Jane
Organizer
Melbourne VIC
