By the time this publication comes out on the 4th of December, it will mark the official 2 year anniversary of opening our first office at CEO suites in Q Sentral. Congratulations to OmniRaise Malaysia! Luke and Aaron have mostly covered our vision and successes so far so I’ll cover this newsletter from my personal experience in Malaysia.
Honestly, we have come such a long way to where we are now, and remember the first word introduced to me being “Dave, makan?” I instantly knew I was in the right place.
Sharing my first experience of amazing Nasi Lamak and ticking it off my bucket list for 28rm I was met by somewhat confusion and anger amongst the community, stormed with a barrage of questions “Where did you eat Dave, we must go there and check the price again!”. But it’s this level of care for a team whom I’ve barely known for a couple of days I’ve felt the immediate connection and knew the family environment was one of the highest values adopted in Malaysia.
Fundraising has always been a core part of me. It’s the first job that I’ve ever had when I was 20 years old and never have I considered moving on for the main reason which was “How can I do something more and make an impact on this world?” as any other job could never solve this issue. Whether it’s from Australia or Malaysia we’re still seeing the same impact of humanitarian crisis relating to hunger, human rights, welfare, and refugees to environmental issues which we’ve just experienced one of the most gut-wrenching pandemics like Covid disrupting all parts of the world, mother nature at times shows us no mercy.
As we adapt to the brave new world it became my duty to not only support but to action and here we are today with 3 managers, 4 assistant managers, 18 leaders and surpassing 100 fundraisers across KL, JB and Penang. Quite different to 2 years ago swiping my card alone into a musky small room with dust evident from light rays.
Starting small from our first event at Aeon Bukit Raja to now having more than 100 sites across Malaysia and more it’s really exciting to see the growth of OmniRaise with big thanks events, finance, tele, HR, recruitment and F2F travel trip teams who’s sacrificed away from their family and friends to keep raising funds for charities who’s had a devastating impact from Covid-19 a lot more than us.
To me, we all share similar problems but not enough who share the same vision to fix it and that’s why I’m still here today all starting from one conversation at a time dating back 15 years ago.
I’ve always given belief to my leaders that this game is not about luck. It’s about patience, grit and hard work that positions yourself for success and what an amazingly rewarding journey it has been to see such talented young individuals create a name for themselves along with a bright future ahead.
To all that’s reading this newsletter, believe in yourself and anything is achievable. You are all capable of more than what you think you can do just the same way as Luke, Aaron and I had to start from somewhere when we were young.
