Support OpenMRS Fundraising

Help OpenMRS Meet the Challenges and Opportunities to Improve Global Health

You can strengthen OpenMRS in our efforts to improve global health by participating in our fundraising campaign. Please consider taking part in these two ways:

First, please make your own financial contribution at our donation page: om.rs/donate. Your charitable donation to OpenMRS will strengthen our ability to support the entire OpenMRS community and effect greater impacts in global health around the world. Your support will also amplify the work of everyone else in the OpenMRS community.

Second, spread the message through email and your social channels of our work, the needs we meet, and how to donate at om.rs/donate. Because our worldwide community has the power to change global health, please share this opportunity to support the mission of OpenMRS by asking people to make a financial donation. 

• If you'd like to share our Tweets, one of them is here. Please follow our Twitter for more in the future!

• If you'd like to share our Facebook post, please go here and 'Like' our page so you can keep up-to-date with all our posts.
  
  
  

With a plan in place to scale OpenMRS operations to meet the demand for our services, we are eager to work with other organizations and individuals to reach our shared goals of global health equity. Our fundraising plan provides additional information and ways that you can help. @Andrew Kanter can provide more details. Please contact him if you want to share your ideas or strategic introductions.   

Thank you for your help as we continue to effect positive change in the world.

Why does OpenMRS need financial support?

Members of the OpenMRS community have spent recent months responding to the increasing amounts of requests we are receiving.  Right now, over 12.6 million patients count on OpenMRS to store their medical records, and multiple countries – Kenya, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uganda, Mozambique, and others -- are using or preparing to use OpenMRS to support their health facilities.  But, so much is still to be done.

Over 40-million people in developing countries are infected with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, and malaria. Outbreaks of Ebola and other viruses threaten millions more. Although humanitarian aid provides immediate care, sustainable infrastructure remains essential to meet the continuing and evolving needs of these vulnerable populations. Such a resilient health system will enjoy a robust electronic medical record system.

Since 2004, OpenMRS has worked to build the world's largest and most flexible technology platform to support delivery of healthcare in the most challenging environments.

Given the immense threats to global health, OpenMRS can play a vital role in improving healthcare in resource-constrained environments. Its impacts in responding to area- and program-specific needs are enormous. Today, hundreds of healthcare clinics and other providers depend on OpenMRS as they care for millions of people around the world. Governments and NGOs look to OpenMRS for health IT solutions to healthcare challenges. They know that OpenMRS saves lives on a global scale with health IT.

As the need for and dependence on OpenMRS grows, our organization is evolving to ensure its viability. Current and projected needs around the world create a moral imperative to strengthen and sustain OpenMRS so that it will remain the essential health IT resource serving vulnerable populations. To meet the challenges of sustaining OpenMRS as a dependable resource for those resource-poor healthcare providers, we need the financial support of individuals and organizations that share our commitment to caring for vulnerable people and communities around the globe.

Why Does Fundraising Matter?

The OpenMRS community has been defined by its generous commitment to serving vulnerable populations through reliable electronic medical record systems. As this community has grown and increased implementations around the world, our responsibility to the people we serve have also grown. To meet their needs going forward, and to be there to sustain them well into the future, we need financial support from individuals and organizations that share our commitment to global health equity. Their partnership with the OpenMRS community will enable us to continue to benefit lives around the world and meet the growing need for reliable electronic medical record systems in resource-constrained environments. Without effective fundraising, we risk being unable to meet the demands for our services while jeopardizing the advances already made in healthcare supported by OpenMRS around the world.

What is the Process for Outreach When Fundraising?

We seek to identify potential supporters – individuals, foundations, businesses, and government agencies -- interested in global health and then engage them in discussion about the need for reliable electronic medical record systems. We will inform them of the needs being met by our work and the extent of the demand for OpenMRS, and invite them to join us in building resilient health systems around the world through their financial investment in our mission.

OpenMRS Fundraising Process

1.  Identify potential funders (foundations, agencies, individuals, corporations) based on their interests, capacity for giving, and receptivity.

2.  Seek personal connections and contacts with these prospects to facilitate warm introductions.

3.  Meet with connections and contacts to seek advice and introductions to appropriate gatekeepers and decision makers.

4.  Develop strategies for approaching most promising prospective funders based on their feedback.

5.  Identify timelines for funding requests, including letters of inquiry and proposals.

6.  Identify specific funding needs

7.  Announce opportunity and outline process on Talk

8.  Draft basic request language, narrative, and budget.

7.  Implement solicitation strategies specific to each prospective funder, and work with each to engage and involve in OpenMRS's mission.