Angels Among Us is 1 Month Old, here’s how we’ve done so far
Yesterday, April 30th, marked a full month of Angels Among Us’ existence, a web application doing the good work of connecting “people that want to help with people that need help” following the devastating effect of the pandemic in Nigeria on some Nigerians.
In the one month of its existence, Angels Among Us’ database has gotten requests from over 1,000 people who have been negatively impacted by the lockdown and are in dire need of financial help. By estimation, over 4,000,000 (4 Million) Naira, approximately $11,000 has been donated so far to over 750 people.
The Angels Among Us platform received a total of 9,236 unique visitors and 234 new users on April 30th alone, mostly Nigerians. The five most represented cities with the highest number of visits are from; Lagos, Abuja, Edo, Oyo and Ogun.
Over time, the platform has also received visits from people from other countries like the U.S who have requested that a feature be enabled for them to make donations as well. It is currently in the works.
Angels Among Us is still in its earliest web version and has seen a couple of iterations; however, we are working on a new version that will be updated soon. For now, we do not entirely regulate the activities that take place on the tool, other than randomly share bank details of three people who request for help to individuals or organizations who are willing to help because we believe people should help and be helped with little meddling from a third party. We, however, ask recipients to share evidence of help gotten with us. Upon confirming this and after 2 weeks on the roster, we would remove the individual's detail from the list of help requesters so other people get a chance of being helped.
We do not repeat individuals who have received help through the platform, thus our request of Bank Verification Number (BVN), a unique number for identification given to each individual irrespective of the number of accounts owned with different banks. “Very soon, there are plans to implement BVN verification through an established payment service provider and this will add another layer of security to the program,” Justin Irabor, founder, in an interview with Zikoko magazine.
What’s next for Angels Among Us?
Even though the lockdown in Nigeria is being eased, we take on new challenges every day, consistently improving, making Angels Among Us an easier-to-use social relief tool, to both recipients and donors. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that helping anyone affected by this pandemic is as easy as clicking a button.
We are launching a new version of the Angels Among Us tool which for starters has an appealing new look, lists corporations who are supporting us by helping a larger number of people than individuals and includes the following features;
An easy-donate button that allows you to split your donation among recipients in one click.
An entire redesign and visual makeover.
A 'Let them know it was you' option where donors can text recipients to let them know they donated.
A share button where donors can share that they’ve helped people on Angels Among Us and encourage others to help as well.
We will be sharing more of these features and their demos in the coming days. We are also making it possible and easy for companies to partner with Angels Among Us for their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). If you have any questions about this contact us at angelsamongusbot@gmail.com.
Thank you for being with us for the past 1 month, we celebrate you. Let’s do more!
Just found out about us?
AngelsAmong.Us is a simple tool for people with relatively secure financial statuses to help people whose means of livelihood have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
When you use the web-tool, click the 'Be an angel' button, you will get a random list of three people you can contribute to, these people are economically affected by the COVID-19 lockdown. Consider sending money to each person on the list (eg. 2,000 Naira to three people is N6,000), or use the easy-donate feature to do the three at once. This is a great way to ensure we reach as many people as possible, as uniformly as possible. Learn more at angelsamong.us/about.
People helping people, that's life!
We send light to the homes of those Angels who render their help and those who have been helped through the platform, thank you! Our sincere well-wishes to the families of those who became victims of the virus, and quick recovery to those in isolation.
The times might not seem the nicest, but let's celebrate all that we can while still staying indoors. Together, we'll defeat this.
Happy Workers' Day and welcome to May!