Our donors desired to do more than give a one-time donation, they wanted to share their time and skills and start fundraising campaigns. Soon they also noticed AVSI’s vision was unique compared other humanitarian organizations. Alessandro from Minnesota, who felt called to organize a Virtual Chess Tournament, shared his experience fundraising for AVSI-USA. He remembers that during the planning of his fundraiser, he joined a webinar by Guido Calvi, the Head of AVSI’s Emergency Response Team, where he learned more about AVSI’s holistic development approach, humanitarian response centered around the human person; a perspective that moved him to motivate his friends to not only participate, but also to fundraise for an organization making a real difference. The event was an immense success, and he had unexpected participants join, such as his boss and son, and even strangers (now friends), who found out about the event through social media. One of these new friends “enjoyed the tournament so much that she wants to organize the same initiative in Spain. The same thing happened in Germany, then in the US, and even in Italy… the desire to help others in need is contagious!”