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Mar 14, 2022 - World

Ukraine native organizes fundraising effort for families in need

headshot
Illustration of a life preserver in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios

Watching the horrors unfold in Ukraine has been debilitating — wanting to help but not having any tangible way to do so other than social media shows of support.

Driving the news: Alex Iskold, a New York City venture capitalist who immigrated from Ukraine in the early 1990s, has created a program whereby you can get money directly into the hands of needy Ukrainian families.

  • It's called the 1K Project, and it operates like a matching program. The request is that you "sponsor" a Ukrainian family in need via a $1,000 donation.
  • Iskold's organization is vetting applicants, and there are no middleman fees. He says the current priority right now is families with two or three kids, particularly single mothers. The entire process takes about 15 minutes.

By the numbers: 1,150 families have been funded so far, representing around $1.3 million contributed. But there is a backlog of around 11,000 families who still need help.

  • There also were over 3,000 applicants who either were declined and/or were missing the requisite information.

The bottom line, per Iskold: "If every one of us can touch the lives of just one family, we'll make such a huge difference as a collective. When you type in the routing instructions and it's received on the other end, you've literally helped save them."

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