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Being a passion project, Desi Writers’ Lounge (DWL) has traditionally been supported by its team, which pitches in money to run operations. The year 2013 saw our first forays into fundraising, with two successful events (an open mic night and an evening of dramatic readings) held at The Second Floor (T2F) in Karachi.


At the end of 2013, DWL ran a successful fundraising campaign for the inaugural print edition of its magazine, Papercuts. Our promise to contributors was that if they could get us through the first year of printing, we would be responsible for ensuring the financial sustainability of the magazine thereafter. They responded by helping us to cross our target by a thousand dollars.


Click here to view the list of contributors.


Papercuts in Print from Desi Writers’ Lounge on Vimeo.


With a voluntary team and web-based operations, DWL’s low programme costs have played a huge role in the organisation’s longevity, and we intend to keep it so for the foreseeable future. There are times, however, when a project we really want to see through is beyond our collective financing capabilities (as was the case with the magazine print project). It’s at those times that your support can make the crucial difference between doing something exciting or letting it go because there wasn’t enough money. For our team, DWL is entirely about doing something exciting. So when you contribute, you can be sure that it will go towards something awesome.


Here’s how you can be awesome:


  • 1. Keep your eyes peeled for specific fundraising goals on this website. Decide yourself whether it’s an activity you would be interested in pitching in for.


  • 2. Sponsor something cool for us that we can offer to our community of fans. Give a small prize for poetry, or a ticket to a literature festival. Are you an author or a publisher? Help us with contest giveaways (signed books are always welcome).


  • 3. Donate your time or services to an activity that could earn some money for DWL. Do you think you could conduct an excellent workshop for us? Write to us. Have a fantastic performance idea that would appeal to a crowd inclined towards literature? Write to us! Do you have something to offer that we could auction off to our fans? Write. To. Us. Great things can be achieved by writing to someone.


  • 4. Send us a general donation so we don’t have to think twice next time we have brochures or flyers to print, or have to hire a web developer for troubleshooting our website.


  • 5. Not ready just yet to part with money for the heck of it? Check out our shop for super DWL merchandise designed specifically for readers and writers.


For donations and contributions, please contact info@desiwriterslounge.net with “DWL donation” as the email subject line. Thanks!


Contributors to the Papercuts Indiegogo Campaign


These people made it possible for our magazine to go into print. They turned a straightforward crowdfunding campaign into something larger than life. Our sincerest thanks extends to the many supporters who contributed to the campaign but wished to remain anonymous. To all our contributors we say, “Thank you for dreaming our dream with us.”


The following are the names of the people who publicly donated to the campaign:


Kamil Mehmood | Mahvash and Yousaf Ghous | Bushra Bukhari | Syed. F. Jaffar | Tehmina Shaukat Khan | Sadaf Aijaz | Naeem Mirza | Bilal Siddiqi | Holly Jones | Misbah Ghani | Chris Mooney-Singh | Fatima Hafsa Malik | Mariam Wasim | Fatima Wasim | Shomyl Brohi | Riffat Ahmad | Mr. and Mrs. M. Saeed
Aslam | Shazaf Fatima Haider | Ali Imran | Ali Yasir | Akhtar Riazuddin Trust | Rukhsana Noor | Syed Asif Husain | Mark Milson | Jalal Curmally | Khizar Shaikh | Zubair Ali Badshah | Akbar Wahaj | Robina Akbar | Aliya Mirza | Jerry Pinto | Daniel Tomax | Talchoom | R. Khan | Maham Saeed | Suneetha Balakrishnan | Munazza Tahir | Sara Miller | Sherazade Shafiq | Mahwash Rehman | Krupa Ge | Usman Saeed | Bilal Tanweer | Mahey Noor | Ilona
Yusuf | Shehnaz Ahmed | Shehwar Rahim | Mariam Tahir-Waqar | Nigham Shahid | Fadi Samara | Daisy Rockwell | Tony D’Souza | Aabid A. K.
Dhamani | Shivraj Ghatkar | Kyle and Val | Saira Joseph | Amani Batarseh | Jessica Arco | Mehvesh Mumtaz Ahmed | Sidra Omer | Aban Haq | Aroosa
Saeed | Quratulain Noor | Syed Atif Hussain | Nadir Ahmad | Zainab K. Agha | Usman Malik | Safwat Saleem | Nadir Feroz Khan | Ali Nawab | Maryam
Piracha | Asad Halai | Saurabh Prabhakar | Kaniz Rubab Zaidi | Aneela Zeb Babar | Adnan Fasih