The Perils of Setting Up Something New (On A Shoestring)

In our last blog post, we said that we’d let you know about what we’d been up to and why we’d been very quiet. Somehow we got a little bit sidetracked and talked about our vision but now that we’re having a bit of a calm before the storm, we thought we would share exactly where we are.

The great news is that we are now 100% legal and we now have a fiscal code which means that we can open a bank account and start financial operations. We have been really lucky to have the support of Mojo Music Pub who have held a monthly pub quiz for Bridging The Gap which has brought in some much needed pennies to help us with our start-up. The next event is tonight so if you’re at a loose end in Bucharest this evening, why not come along to Mojo at 7pm for a night of intelligence and fun.

We are really pleased with this news but it’s not all been rosy. One of the big things that we are really keen to have up and running is our website however we have been plagued by problems in this area. Sadly, we’ve been let down on more than one occasion and this has resulted in us still not being online. One of the main objectives of Bridging The Gap is to meet the needs of our charity partners by providing them with free resources and we are leading by example by having most of our services, including legal and financial, provided pro bono. From one marketing company who offered everything for free and then saying they couldn't do it and to contacts of friends who are keen and then lose interest, we made the decision that for an impressive image and strong brand, we would have to invest not only money, but time into our website. 

We are pleased to announce that in recent weeks we found a great web designer who has committed to doing the job along with all our design and branding and for a very reasonable price. This is great news! We’ve purchased the theme for the site and the content is all written -  so what are we waiting for?

Well the simple answer is: competence. The owners of the theme website have told us that we cannot access our account as they have not received payment for it. The payment website has told us that they have sent the payment and that we should contact the theme providers. It’s getting very tiresome having to go back and forth between the two but we are keeping a stiff upper lip and soldiering on to get everything sorted. And soon....

Of course, we want to have our website up and running before we head out to recruit companies who will be able to help our charity partners at Bridging The Gap. As one of our supporters has already told us, reputation and credibility is everything and we want to ensure that our professionalism and transparency is there from the start.

Please  join us in toasting the success of the creation of Bridging The Gap. We are excited that we’ll be able to share our successes with you soon on our blog.....and our website!