Ola Foundation to leverage Milaap’s platform to disburse financial support for medical emergencies under ‘Drive the Driver Fund’

• Milaap will help Ola Foundation with its efforts to help drivers and their families manage expenses for medical emergencies and critical care

• The Milaap platform will receive, evaluate and action requests from drivers and their families in need of support

National, 8 April, 2020: Ola Foundation, the social welfare arm of Ola, has partnered with Milaap, South Asia’s largest crowdfunding platform, to action requests of financial support for medical emergencies and critical illness for drivers and their families under the ‘Drive the Driver Fund’. The Milaap platform will be leveraged towards identifying, evaluating and allocating aid to those drivers who would need financial assistance for medical emergencies for themselves or their immediate family members.

Owing to the lockdown, the livelihoods of Cab, Auto and Taxi drivers across the country have been impacted. A medical emergency at such times can be extremely difficult for them to manage. Through Ola Foundation’s ‘Drive the Driver Fund’, Milaap will help manage incoming requests from drivers for medical expenses, both for themselves or their families.

As a part of this partnership, Milaap will evaluate incoming requests through its platform as well as evaluate the funds towards this initiative. Drivers operating on the Ola platform can seek support from this initiative by directly accessing the ‘Ola Foundation’ section on their partner-app. On the profile section of the app, the driver-partners can click on the tab ‘Drive the Driver Welfare Fund’ and seek assistance. Cabs, Autos or Taxi drivers from across the country can seek support by following simple steps after calling a registered IVR number 080 4683 1460 that has been set up for this purpose, which will be managed by Milaap, for the pilot phase of the program. 

Pranay Jivrajka, Co-founder, Ola & Trustee, Ola Foundation, said, “Drivers and their families across the country are going through a very difficult phase amidst the lockdown and a medical emergency in the family can cause severe financial strains during this time. Ola Foundation’s Driver the Driver Fund aims to help drivers through this phase, by supporting such emergency cases financially. Milaap, with its expertise in evaluation and funding of various causes across the board, will help with the operational structure to swiftly evaluate and process incoming requests from drivers and their families. We look forward to extending the support and wishes that the fund has received from the tens of thousands of contributors to as many families through this initiative, as we come out of this phase stronger together.”

Speaking on this partnership, Mayukh Choudhury, Co-founder & CEO, Milaap said, “Trust and Verification are as crucial as the fundraising activity itself. Over the years, we have built our competence in verifications for healthcare crowdfunding, to ensure that donor money is spent exactly the way it was committed to the donors. We are delighted that Ola Foundation lays equal importance to a meticulous verification process and we are happy to offer our Trust & Verification Services to help in a grand success of the Driver Fund.”

Ola Foundation launched the Drive the Driver Fund to support Cab, Auto-rickshaw and Kaali-Peeli Taxi drivers towards welfare and support initiatives through and beyond the phase of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, given the impact it has left on the driver community and their families. Ola is looking to raise a sum of INR 50cr towards this long term contingency fund with the company and its employees having committed a sum of INR 20cr towards the fund over the year.  Individuals and institutions can make their contributions to the fund on https://ola.foundation/donate.

About Ola Foundation:

Ola Foundation is a private charitable trust formed under the Indian Trusts Act. The Foundation, backed by Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd), aims to enable sustainable livelihood for women across India through programs that enable financial and social empowerment. Its most recent initiative, Drive The Driver Fund aims to bring relief to families of drivers across the country through and beyond the difficult times as a result of COVID-19. For more details, visit https://ola.foundation/

For press enquiries, please email media@olacabs.com

About Milaap:

Milaap is South Asia’s largest crowdfunding platform for personal needs, especially healthcare and related needs. Constantly endeavouring to make it easier for people to raise money online for the causes that matter to them, the platform enables lay-people to raise funds for personal causes and emergencies, especially for tertiary healthcare like Cancer care, organ transplants and accidents. Milaap’s community of funders come from over 130 countries across the world and have contributed over 800 crores for 200,000+ projects across India. Over the last eight years, Milaap has become a preferred platform for people to raise and contribute towards the causes they care about in India. Milaap.org is constantly working to take crowdfunding to the masses. The website has over 2.5 million page views every month and is growing 3x yearly. The platform constantly adds new features based on user feedback to ensure a hassle-free experience. The e-mail support extends over 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is rendered via a dedicated team that hand-holds users through any procedure on the website.

For media enquiries, contact: Megha Saxena | pr@milaap.org