Meet the people behind Lantern Relief Collective
Kavita RaoFounder
Daniel D’SouzaVolunteer coordinator
Nasreen AkhtarPart-time accountant
Lantern began as six friends with a borrowed truck after a bad monsoon. Now it is a registered NGO with three paid staff and a list of several hundred volunteers across the river towns.
Most of the year the work is steady: school kits in June, blankets in December. Then the river rises, and for three weeks everything happens at once.
Kavita does the talking. Daniel does the lists. Nasreen comes in twice a week and keeps the accounts clean enough for the auditors and the donors.
What was going wrong
When a flood warning came, Daniel phoned volunteers one by one from a spreadsheet that was already out of date. Donations arrived by bank transfer with no name, so receipts for tax relief went out weeks late or not at all.
Supplies were counted on paper at the warehouse and again at the camp, and the two counts rarely agreed. Donors asked where their money had gone, and Kavita wanted to be able to show them.
“People give because they trust us. A receipt that comes a month late chips away at that.”
The workarounds that got them this far
- A donation link from a payment app
Took the money, but without donor details or the receipts donors needed.
- A volunteer spreadsheet
Perfect on the day it was made, wrong a week later.
- Paper stock sheets
Fine in a dry warehouse. Less fine in a relief camp.
Lantern Relief Collective on Intersink
Kavita creates her User ID and adds Lantern as the business. The first channel is the public one, with the Donations app, which is free. Volunteers, stores and the office follow as separate channels, with Daniel on volunteers and Nasreen on the office channel.
The apps in this story
Donation pages, campaigns and 80G receipts for trusts and NGOs.
Build your website and mobile app with pages, content, menus and widgets.
Email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns with audiences, templates and journeys.
Forms, surveys and quizzes with logic, payments and file uploads.
Events and ticketing with seating, passes, QR check in and sponsors.
Website chat and WhatsApp Business with bots, quick replies and team routing.
Multi-warehouse inventory with batches, reorder points and stock transfers.
Invoice your clients, track what they owe, record expenses and see profit.
A day in their life, some months in
A flood warning is issued overnight. Kavita opens a campaign on the donation page with a goal and a short update.
Daniel sends the volunteer sign-up form to the whole list by WhatsApp and SMS. Replies land as responses, not as missed calls.
Donations start to arrive by UPI and card. Each donor gets an 80G receipt without anyone typing it.
Blankets, rice and tarpaulin move from the warehouse to the first camp as a stock transfer, counted once.
Kavita posts a campaign update: what has been bought and where it went.
Nasreen records the day’s purchases against the campaign so the accounts match the updates.
What is different now
In plain words, because this is an illustrative story and there are no real measurements behind it.
Donors hear back straight away
Receipts go out automatically, and donors see campaign updates as the work happens.
Volunteers answer a form, not a phone
The rota builds itself from sign-ups, so Daniel spends his time on people rather than calls.
Stock is counted once
Transfers between warehouse and camp keep both counts in step.
The auditors get clean books
Money in and money out sit in one set of accounts.
What it would cost each month

| Channel and apps | Per month |
|---|---|
| Lantern ReliefDonations Free + Website & App Free + Campaigns Free | £0 |
| Lantern VolunteersForms Free + Events Free + Live Chat Free | £0 |
| Lantern StoresInventory Free | £0 |
| Lantern officeAccounting Free | £0 |
| Subtotal, before VAT | £0 |
| UK VAT at 20% | £0 |
| Total per month | £0 |
What others could take from this
- Start with the free app
The Donations app costs nothing, so the first channel cost nothing either.
- Build the rota before the river rises
Forms and events set up in a quiet month are ready when the phones start ringing.
- Apply for nonprofit credits
Registered charities, trusts and NGOs can apply. Credits are used before the card is charged.
Running a charity, trust or NGO?
The Donations app is free. Add volunteers, events and accounts when you need them.
Illustrative story: a composite of how an organisation like this can run on Intersink. Names and places are fictional.
















