A Letter to our Donors

Dear Friends,

Since 2006 we have been working hard in cooperation with our Ugandan team to build the most beautiful guitars we could imagine, selling them all over the world. This brought in steady wages (to a degree) for the workers, but it was always supported by donors and funding from our faithful friends in Canada, the US and around the world. Without that support, the project would have never succeeded.

The project right now is at a crossroads, and it needs your help. The guitar market itself, globally, is slow for a variety of reasons, the rising cost of housing, gas and food, too many used guitars in the market and a large influx of cheap import guitars from Asia. Add to this the fatigue donors in general are feeling , connected to the drama created by Covid-19, and we are facing a perfect storm where our guitar sales cannot carry us, and though we have tried to transition away from relying on donations, it seems that for the foreseeable future, we will need your support.

Since the beginning of DuncanAfrica, we dreamt that someday the project would be turned over to local ownership, and become independent of the organization in Canada, and that is the direction we are heading. In order to begin down that road, three important pieces need to be in place.

The first, is enough supplies to really kick things into high gear. That is where our donors can really help – getting the team in Uganda really stocked up so they can run at full speed and get back on track.

The second, is to have the Uganda team delivering top notch guitars that are completely finished, delivering them to a network of distributors instead of sending them to Canada first. We are already at work on this, and have secured orders from both the UK and Germany. These first two are a test case, and if it works, it will become the main way we sell guitars, and we will grow that network throughout Europe, Canada, Australia and the US.

The last piece of the puzzle has me really excited – and that is the opportunity to sell the guitars throughout Africa, to churches, artists and and other projects. Right now we are testing the idea out and this is a sample of how it works.

There is a project in Northern Uganda where they want to offer guitar lessons to young people, in connection with the church, but they need guitars. So we have agreed to sell them guitars at a special price, and donors overseas have agreed to pay the cost as an investment in the church. So – if you know someone with a project , or an artist or a church which needs a good guitar – give us a call and we will see if we can work out the details. Delivering guitars within Africa and empowering the church there – that gets me excited.

I am looking forward to see where the Lord will lead us in the next few years. For right now though I will ask that if you are not one of our current donors – would you please consider helping Simon and the team in Uganda to bounce back stronger than they were before the pandemic? They need support for wages and supplies. Donations are tax deductible in Canada, and we now have a funding partner in the US who can offer tax receipts for us for larger donations, please inquire if this interests you.

Follow this link if you are interested to learn more about supporting the project.

https://duncanafrica.com/donation/

Together, we are relieving poverty and making beautiful guitars. What could be better?