· the Trailwalker Challenge ·
This week Oxfam Australia launched a Flash game to promote its major fundraising event, Oxfam Trailwalker. The game is really well made and the design is fantastic, good on you guys :)
I'm assuming the aim behind the game is to encourage people to donate to Trailwalker participants. I'm not sure that it does that, but what it does really well is introduce the concept of what Trailwalker is about to potential donors. It could actually work really well as a widget ... and it probably wouldn't take much effort to set it up ...
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Friday April 4, 2008
Categories: Fundraising
· ANTaR finally accepts donations online ·
I haven't posted recently because I've been really busy, and one thing I've been busy doing is adding a facility so that ANTaR can now accept donations via the website.
We had been holding off for quite a while for various reasons, including:
- a lack of office support to process another method of donations (in addition to bank cheques, credit card payments, and regular EFTPOS donations),
- not having the time or expertise to do adequate research to allow us to make an informed decision about payment gateways and all that other technical payment stuff,
- too many other "urgent" tasks (read: fire-fighting) that ensured online donations was always the second priority
With all those excuses behind us, we are eagerly awaiting an increase in donations ;)
I was feeling brave today so I changed the top story banner on the home page of ANTaR's website announcing the arrival of online donations. Within an hour we'd received a healthy donation through the website!
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Tuesday March 18, 2008
Categories: Fundraising
· personal fundraising ·
A HUGE THANKYOU to everybody who has donated to help fund my Sydney Leadership program course fees so far (the backstory is here).
For those of you who are interested in the stats, some donations have been made via the ChipIn widget on this website, others have been made via direct bank deposit. The majority were made by people I know either in real life or online, but there were some that were made by people who I'd never come across before. About half of the donations were in response to a direct ask, and the other half were made without me contacting them directly. I asked most donors if they'd like to be publicly thanked and most said no or they didn't mind either way, so I've decided to keep all my donors anonymous in the interests of privacy (I'd feel terrible if they were hassled by other people for donations!). The amounts that were donated varied greatly.
So did I reach my fundraising target? I'm very happy (and relieved) to announce that I surpassed my end-of-February fundraising target of $1,000. It's only the 26th today, and I've managed to raise a total of $1,295 so far. How generous are my friends, colleagues and blog readers? I'm a lucky gal :)
But I'm not there yet ... I still have $14,105 in total to raise by the end of the year ... so if you'd like to donate but haven't done so yet, please click on the ChipIn widget on the right :)
Before embarking on this personal fundraising adventure, I was really curious about how successful personal fundraising would be ... after all, my donors wouldn't get a tax deduction. I'm not comfortable asking for money and I don't have any direct fundraising experience (I'm all theory in this area!), so I'm really surprised that my efforts have been successful so far (wow, the theory works!). I based my fundraising on two sources of inspiration:
- Beth Kanter's use of social media to raise money for non-profits. She has demonstrated a couple of times that using your network can greatly increase donations. See her latest post on winning America's giving challenge
- Laurel Papworth's prediction that personal fundraising would increase now that widgets are available and really easy to set up and use. I can't find a post on her blog about this so it must have been a general conversation I had with her that has stuck in my mind.
I hadn't come across any personal fundraising online before I started my own attempt. However, once I'd started, Tiara contacted me about her fundraising effort for her training to become a KaosPilot (a 3-year social entrepreneurship program that combines business, creativity, design, and social awareness). She's putting in a stellar effort with a Facebook group and blog. Actually her efforts make mine very amateur in comparison :)
Anyway, back to the Sydney Leadership program ... you'll read more about my thoughts on leadership soon. The first contact days of the program were about 10 days ago but I'm still digesting what I've learned :) Stay tuned.
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Tuesday February 26, 2008
Categories: Fundraising
· Thanking Laurel - ChipIn fundraising ·
Laurel Papworth kindly blogged about my fundraising efforts today (thanks sis!). I need, well, at least $600 by the end of February to help fund my Sydney Leadership program course fees. Please donate to help me out please please pretty please :)
The first course days will be this Thursday to Sunday, so I expect it will be pretty full-on (argghh - 4 full days with people I don't know - not fun for introverts like me!). It's unlikely there will be much I can tell you directly (privacy and all that), however there will probably be more Deep & Meaningful posts on here. Look forward to it :)
Yeah, now stop procrastinating, press the big orange button on the ChipIn widget and DONATE!
What do you reckon? Leave a comment » [1]
Monday February 11, 2008
Categories: Fundraising
· Internet (fundraising) trends 2008 ·
My mate Paolo (of the Fundraising Now blog) created a presentation on internet fundraising trends for 2008.
I'm one of the featured gurus (yay!). However my predictions for 2008 aren't strictly about online fundraising. And nor are some of the other gurus. But they're predictions none the less :)
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Thursday January 31, 2008
Categories: Fundraising
· PayPal Developer Donation Kit ·
PayPal has released a donation kit for non-profits. I've taken a quick look at it, and the information seems pretty basic. However if you're new to this stuff and you've decided to use PayPal to collect donations for your organisation, this kit might come in handy. Ignore the "special holiday offer" they're advertising - only US non-profits are eligible.
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Sunday January 6, 2008
Categories: Fundraising
· Karma Currency ·
Karma Currency recently launched. It is "Australia's first tax deductible charity gift voucher".
... simply give a voucher to family or friends, staff or customers. Then, they get to save the world by redeeming the voucher and passing on your donation to the charities of their choice!
There are lots of organisations signed up to the program already. Only organisations with DGR (tax-deductible) status need apply :(
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Wednesday December 19, 2007
Categories: Fundraising
· The Footprints Network ·
Today I came across The Footprints Network, an Australian non-profit that is encouraging online businesses to fund development work.
Businesses can do this by asking customers who are purchasing products online to make an additional, optional payment as a donation to a specific non-profit project. Donations can be as little as $1.
The criteria for projects that can be added to The Footprints Network is of a high standard and will ensure maximum accountability and transparency. For this reason, I think The Footprints Network is likely to be popular among business owners.
Current projects that businesses can choose to support are run by Oxfam, Round Square, Australian-Himalayan Foundation, People's Environmental Awareness and the Fred Hollows Foundation.
I also told Maxine Sherrin about this today, who managed to blog about it faster than I did, and she raises an interesting point ... web developers could run this idea by each of their new clients. After all, what do they have to lose? Great idea, Maxine :)
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Tuesday October 23, 2007
Categories: Fundraising
· MSF: blogging from the field ·
This is something I always wanted to do in my previous job but we only managed to pull it off a couple of times: blogging from the field. It's a great way to keep the public informed about what's happening on the ground without any marketing staff getting their hands on the copy (i.e. the posts are sincere and are about somebody's experiences rather than an appeal for a donation).
In fact, according to Whitewater this could be a form of fundraising in itself (keeping it real, that is). Whitewater talks about MSF UK's blogs from the field and the comments that MSF's supporters make after blog posts. Some supporters are so touched by the posts that they increase their donation.
People are sick of slick marketing campaigns from nfps and want to hear the real thing ... I'm speaking from personal experience :) Gimme that gritty blog from Sudan any day.
Hat tip to nfp 2.0.
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Sunday June 3, 2007
Categories: Fundraising
· Christain Aid week 2007 ·
Christian Aid has recently launched a new website for Christian Aid week in the UK.
The site is built in flash, and is an animated demonstration of the benefits of donating to Christian Aid. The subtitle is "It's amazing what you can get out of an envelope", and once you click on the envelope, it opens multiple times to show that the benefits of donations are far-reaching.
What do you reckon? Leave a comment »
Sunday May 20, 2007
Categories: Fundraising Design