When your cousin's hospital bill, your village's school project, or your community's emergency response needs to reach the people who need it — every donor wants to know two things: that the cause is real, and that the money got there.
Sohana is building the donation infrastructure Africa and the diaspora deserve — campaigns verified by our team before they go live, contributions tracked transparently, and disbursements that land where they were promised.
There is no shortage of generosity in the African diaspora — there is a shortage of confidence. Every year, hundreds of millions of euros leave Europe, the UK, and North America heading toward family medical bills, school fees, village projects, and emergency relief on the continent. The problem is rarely the cause. It is the lack of structured, verifiable infrastructure to move that money with confidence.
Existing global crowdfunding platforms were not built with African campaigns in mind. They struggle to verify African organisers, often refuse African bank accounts as withdrawal destinations, and offer little visibility into where donated funds actually land. Donors hesitate. Organisers face barriers. The causes that need the most support get the least friction-free path to receive it.
Across the African diaspora, generosity outpaces infrastructure by an order of magnitude. The flows are massive, but the structure to channel them transparently is largely missing. Sohana exists to close that gap.
Sohana Fundraising is a campaign platform purpose-built for causes that exist on, are connected to, or serve Africa and its diaspora. The mechanics will feel familiar to anyone who has used a global crowdfunding service — you create a campaign, share its story, and accept donations from anywhere in the world. What is different is everything underneath.
Every campaign on Sohana goes through a verification pipeline before it can accept its first donation. Our team reviews the organiser's identity, the documented purpose of the campaign, and the destination where funds will land. We work in eight currencies including XAF, GHC, NGN, and ZAR — meaning your campaign's beneficiary in Yaoundé, Accra, Lagos, or Johannesburg can receive funds in their local currency, with transparent conversion fees disclosed before donors confirm.
Behind every campaign sits the same infrastructure that powers Sohana's other products: identity verification, escrowed funds, audit trails, fraud screening, and a dispute-resolution process. It is not a marketing platform with a payment button bolted on. It is a financial platform with campaigns built into it.
The single biggest reason donors hesitate to give to African causes is doubt. Doubt about whether the organiser is real, whether the cause is real, whether the money will actually reach the people described. Sohana's verification pipeline is designed to remove that doubt — campaign by campaign, before the first donation is collected.
No campaign is published until our team has completed all five checks. The pipeline takes 24–72 hours for most campaigns; emergency campaigns can be fast-tracked to under 24 hours when the documentation is clean and the cause is time-sensitive.
Organiser must complete full KYC — government ID, address verification, and source-of-funds attestation before creating any campaign.
Our team reads every campaign narrative. We check for clarity, plausibility, and consistency. Vague or boilerplate stories are sent back for revision.
Medical bills, school invoices, registration documents, photos from the project site — proof to back the story. Required for medical, education, charity.
Where funds will be disbursed — beneficiary identity, account details, relationship to the organiser. Cross-checked against sanctions and PEP lists.
Approved campaigns receive a verification badge. Rejected campaigns get a written explanation and a chance to resubmit. Emergency causes are fast-tracked.
The campaigns below illustrate the kinds of causes Sohana is built to support. Once we exit beta, every campaign you see here will carry the green verified badge — meaning our team has reviewed the organiser, story, evidence, and disbursement destination before a single donation was accepted.
A 62-year-old grandmother needs urgent cardiac surgery. Her family in Lagos and her children in London and Toronto are pooling resources, but they need community support to close the gap.
A community-led scholarship fund covering full-year tuition for 40 girls from low-income families to complete secondary school. Includes books, uniforms, and exam fees.
A solar-powered water borehole serving 800 residents and 4 schools. Built to last 20+ years, maintained by a trained local technician. Construction begins once funded.
A coordinated emergency response after severe flooding displaced families across three neighbourhoods. Funds cover temporary shelter, food, water, and rebuilding supplies.
Examples illustrative of the kinds of campaigns Sohana is built to support. Real campaigns will be available once we exit beta and the verification pipeline is fully operational.
Different categories carry different verification requirements. A medical campaign needs different evidence from a community infrastructure project. A registered charity follows a different review path from an individual organiser. The pipeline adapts to the cause.
Medical bills, school fees, personal hardship
Urgent crisis relief, disaster response
Funeral costs, bereavement support
Village development, infrastructure, renovation
School fees, scholarships, study support
Registered charities and non-profits
Launch or grow a small business
Wedding gift, baby shower, milestone
If you are starting a campaign, here is exactly what the process looks like — from the moment you decide to raise funds to the moment you disburse them. No surprises, no hidden steps, no algorithmic black box.
Before you can create a campaign, you complete Sohana's standard KYC — government-issued ID, proof of address, and a short attestation about your source of funds. This is the same process that protects every Sohana product. Verified organisers are the foundation that makes verified campaigns possible.
If you already have a Sohana account in good standing, this step is already done. Returning organisers with a track record of completed campaigns and clean disbursements move through subsequent campaigns faster — your past behaviour matters.
Write the campaign story in your own words. Be specific. Vague descriptions ("help my family with bills") are sent back. Strong descriptions explain what happened, who is affected, what the funds will pay for, and what success looks like. The story is read by our team during verification and by every donor before they give. Detail builds trust.
Set your goal amount, deadline, and currency. Choose a category. Upload supporting evidence — medical bills for a health campaign, school invoices for an education campaign, registration documents for an NGO, photos from the project site for community work. The more documented the cause, the faster the review.
Your campaign goes into the queue. Our team works through the five-check pipeline within 24–72 hours for standard campaigns and under 24 hours for urgent emergency causes with clean documentation. We may reach out for clarification, additional evidence, or revisions — this is normal and not a sign of rejection.
Approved campaigns receive a green Verified badge that appears on every public listing and donation page. Rejected campaigns receive a written explanation and the opportunity to resubmit. Verification is one-time per campaign — once approved, you do not have to go through it again unless you make material changes to the goal, beneficiary, or category.
Once live, your campaign accepts donations from anywhere in the world, in any of Sohana's eight supported currencies. Donors who already have Sohana wallets contribute in seconds; new donors register, verify, and donate in a single flow. Every donation is logged, attributed (or kept anonymous if the donor prefers), and visible on the campaign's public ledger.
You see your raised total, your individual donor list (with messages), and your platform-fee breakdown updating in real time. Sohana takes 2.5% on each donation — significantly lower than most international fundraising platforms — and that fee is itemised on every transaction so donors can see the net amount your campaign actually receives.
When your campaign closes — or whenever you reach a milestone, depending on the campaign type — funds are disbursed to the verified beneficiary destination. Local bank accounts in supported African currencies, mobile money where available, or another verified Sohana wallet. The destination was confirmed during the verification pipeline; it cannot be changed at the disbursement stage without a new review.
Every disbursement generates a permanent receipt, available to the organiser and to any donor who wants to see where their contribution landed. This is the part that closes the trust loop — donors don't just hope the money got there; they can see it.
When a donor lands on a Sohana campaign page, they are not relying on the organiser's word alone. They are relying on infrastructure that has already done the work of verifying the cause, holding the funds in escrow, and producing the audit trail that proves where everything went. These four guarantees are not marketing language — they are how the platform is built.
No campaign goes live until our team has reviewed the organiser, the story, the supporting evidence, and the disbursement destination. The green badge on every listing is earned, not automatic.
Donations sit in the campaign's escrow account — they are not pooled with other campaigns or platform funds. Disbursement happens only to the beneficiary destination verified at campaign creation.
The donor list, contribution amounts (where not anonymised), platform-fee breakdown, and final disbursement are all visible on the campaign's public ledger. No off-platform side-channels.
Every disbursement to a verified beneficiary generates a public receipt — searchable by campaign ID. Donors don't have to wonder where their money went; the receipt is right there.
Verified campaigns and transparent disbursement are the foundation. Beyond that, we are actively building a roadmap of donation innovations specifically designed for African and diaspora giving — features that go far beyond what global crowdfunding platforms currently support. Some are already live in beta; others are scheduled for rollout as the platform matures.
Five-check verification pipeline, KYC-anchored organiser identity, evidence-backed approval. Every campaign carries the badge it earns.
Donors give in EUR, GBP, USD, CAD; recipients receive in XAF, GHC, NGN, ZAR. Conversion fee disclosed before donation confirmation.
Anonymous-friendly donation register visible to all viewers. Builds confidence by showing real momentum from real donors, not fake counters.
For larger campaigns, funds release in stages tied to documented milestones (e.g. construction phases) with photo evidence required between disbursements.
Post-campaign updates from organisers — photos, videos, testimonials, receipts — pushed to donors who contributed, so the story doesn't end at the disbursement.
Registered charities on Sohana issue automatic tax-deductible receipts to donors in eligible jurisdictions, generated and archived on the platform.
Vetted partnerships with established African NGOs — rapid deployment for emergency response, with pre-approved disbursement channels and matched-giving options.
Set up automatic monthly donations to a chosen cause or charity. Pause, adjust, or cancel anytime. Platform fees apply once, not per donation.
Every donation is charged a single, transparent platform fee — disclosed before the donor confirms, itemised on the receipt, and unchanged regardless of the campaign's size, category, or country. The fee covers verification, escrow, fraud protection, customer support, and the infrastructure that makes the platform work.
Platform fee plus payment-processor fees plus suggested "tip" stacked at checkout, especially for international transfers.
One flat platform fee. Conversion and disbursement fees disclosed separately and charged only when applicable.
Fees apply only after Sohana exits beta and processes real funds via licensed payment partners. During beta, all operations are simulated and no fees are charged. Final fee schedule may be adjusted before launch and will always be disclosed in-product before any charge is applied.
Whether you are raising for a medical bill in Lagos, a school project in Bamenda, or an emergency response in Accra — the infrastructure is ready, the verification is rigorous, and the donors are waiting for a reason to trust again.