To help you repay some of the massive debt that the country owes to the families of its martyrs and disabled soldiers, six competing crowdfunding platforms in the country will come together during this year's Daan Utsav Week (October 2 to 8). From sending personalised postcard messages acknowledging the soldiers' sacrifice to gifting portraits of martyrs to families of slain army men, these platforms will invite you to sponsor unique, personal gestures to show that the sacrifice of the men in uniform won't be forgotten.As part of this campaign called 'Honour Our Heroes', each of the six participating crowd-funding platforms-based in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore — have chosen a nonprofit. BitGiving, for instance, will be raising funds for the Flags of Honour foundation, which was launched by Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar to serve and support families of the martyrs of the military , paramilitary and the police forces of India. Ac tor Nandita Das and musician Luke Kenny will be championing this BitGiving campaign whose funds will be used to bolster skill development and livelihood opportunities for martyrs' wives."What I really love about Daan Utsav is how it creates inclusive events where even competitors find ways to collaborate," says Das, adding that it is a movement. "This time so many different crowdfunding platforms are coming together for a cause. Many organisations, colleges, companies, individuals are doing their bit," adds Das. Kunal Kapoor, who heads the crowdfunding platform Ketto and who will be driving its initiative to raise funds for the Paraplegic Rehabilitation Centre in Pune, cannot agree more."Daan Utsav is not only a festiv al but a feeling of being responsib le towards each other and we are happy to be a part of it," says Kapoor.Taking a cue from actor Akshay Kumar's recent initiative along with the Ministry Of Home Affairs to help the kin of slain soldiers, Piyush Jain of Impact Guru says his platform too wants to do their bit. "We wanted to do something for the soldiers who are alive," says Jain, whose platform is working with Queen Mary's Technical Institute For Differently Abled Soldiers to raise funds for its 'Hrunn--Ab Hamari Jimmedari ' campaign. "Hrunn means debt," says Jain, who believes the nation owes a lot to its soldiers.For this campaign, Jain's firm will also tie up with Paperless Postcards, an online postcard company . "We will ask people to donate a certain amount and mention a message they want to give to soldiers. Paperless Postcards will then create these postcards and send to soldiers," says Jain, who aims to raise a minimum of Rs 25 lakh for the Hrunn.The debt isn't just financial. DonateKart will launch a crowd-funding campaign inviting people to sponsor personalised paintings of the martyrs to be sent to the soldiers' families through Honour Point, an online memorial for Indian soldiers featuring 15,000 martyrs on its database."While working with them, we realised that while families of martyrs were getting financial support, the emotional connect was missing," says Anil Kumar, co-founder, DonateKart, whose platform has enlisted a Nagpur-based artist to create the portraits for the campaign.

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