Archive for the “Technology for Fundraising” Category

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of speaking with Gartner analyst Anthony Bradley.  His area of expertise is corporate web applications and web services, but he also covers social computing and social applications, and that’s what we talked about.  He was kind enough to blog about it on the Gartner blog, saying in part that big businesses can take a lesson from Firstgiving on the topic of leverage:

At Firstgiving, we really believe that being a for-profit social enterprise gives us the discipline and independence to pursue growth for ourselves and growth for the nonprofits and fundraisers who are our customers.  This means that we’re really focused on the quality and efficiency of everything we do.

Businesses and nonprofits both need to do more with less whenever possible, and if person to person fundraising can reduce the total cost of fundraising or increase the total raised - and we think it does both - that’s a pretty powerful kind of leverage.  Every day I see individual examples of fundraisers getting dozens of donations from their communities, and nonprofits activating dozens of fundraisers to do the same, but chatting with somebody from the enterprise IT world helped put that all into a wider perspective.

Anthony also notes that he’s looking for more examples of “mass collaboration leverage” so if you know about any, pop over to his blog and leave a comment.

The fall fundraising season is here and team Firstgiving is thrilled to present a free online presentation with Maureen Farr, Fund Development Manager of The Bell Center, all about effective ways to raise more money online.

You will learn…

Register now

The details:

Topic: Online fundraising beyond the donate button
Featured Presenter: Jeannie Colquett, Executive Director of The Bell Center
Moderator: James Campbell, Business Development at Firstgiving
Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008
Time: 2:30-3:30pm East coast time
Cost: Free

Please join us for the valuable web seminar and reserve your place today.

…and don’t forget that you can view recordings of past Firstgiving webinars right here on the blog.  If you’re already signed up with Firstgiving, you might want to attend one of our online training sessions.

In fundraising and nonprofit marketing, you have get your message across quickly and simply.  Lots of marketers use video to deliver this “elevator pitch” idea.  We’ve blogged about effective fundraising videos before, and now we have our own “Firstgiving in 70 seconds” video.  Can you explain your organization in a minute?  It’s surprisingly easy to create videos like this today.  Drop us a line if you’ve created one, we’ll add it to our YouTube favorites.

What is Firstgiving? from Firstgiving on Vimeo.

See more Firstgiving videos on Vimeo and on our YouTube Channel.

Wrigley Building in Chicago

Morning fog over the carnival at Santa Monica Pier

In August, we met and listened intently to energetic and enthusiastic people just like you - in Boston, Chicago, Santa Monica, and various locations in the United Kingdom.

Listening to your stories, why you do what you do, and what works and doesn’t work for you, is one of the many reasons I LOVE my job - I am continuously inspired and humbled by you.

In the coming months, we will be taking what we have learned from you and making changes – changes that will help you raise more money than you thought possible for causes you care about… Stay tuned!

If you didn’t get a chance to meet us - no worries. We care about what you have to say, please drop us a line.

That means “For The Win” BTW (which means By The Way). Our latest social media fundraising promotion has drawn to a close. We asked people to join our Facebook group and promote their fundraising pages using our Facebook application. Thousands of people are using the application, but only a couple hundred have joined the Facebook group so far, so the odds were good. Our winners are Allison and Rachel, each of whom has a shiny new $250 donation on her fundraising page.

Rachel is walking the Nashville Kidney Walk on September 6 with her family for the National Kidney Foundation of Middle Tennessee. Her team is the #2 team contributing to NKF’s total of over $20,000. Allison is raising money for The Animal Rescue League of Boston by running on World Run Day (which also has a Facebook group!) in honor of her super-cute kitty Zing.

Congratulations to both of our Facebook Fundraising winners. We wish them even more fundraising success as they complete their walks and runs this fall. It’s not too late to get started raising money for your cause on Facebook. Just set up your own fundraising page then add the Firstgiving Fundraising Facebook application to your Facebook page.  Remember, you can also get your Facebook friends to use the application to feature your fundraising page - some of our fundraisers have dozens of Facebook pages raising money for them.

Bake sales, cake walks, bingo nights… traditional PTA (Parent Teacher Association) fundraisers are becoming a bit dated as more and more teachers, parents, students, and schools jump on the internet.  In fact, an entire community of parent bloggers has emerged in the blogosphere, posting about the chaotic yet rewarding involvement in their kids’ lives. Besides the obvious love and affection for their children, what do these parents all have in common? They are busy. Very very busy.

This is why PTA online fundraising is gaining popularity. As Linda Hodge, President of the National PTA stated, “Your fundraising activities should support your parent involvement initiatives- not vice versa. Your involvement in your child’s school is much more valuable than the profits of any fundraiser.†While organiziing a large Sock Hop fundraiser can be fun, there is no doubt that finding a DJ, reserving the hall, hiring the catering company, and so on is subtracting from the time you could be volunteering as a reading advisor in your child’s classroom or chaperoning a field trip.

It is not surprising that one of Firstgiving’s most sucessful PTA fundraising pages is a non-event. For those of you who are unfamilier with this term, a non-event doesn’t require your time or presence, just your generosity.  The Forest HIlls PTO and Boosters Council organized what they called “The Ada Vista No Show Ball” and received incredible results! The “Ball” raised $30, 623.00, surpassing their goal by $623!

To gain some perspective, I did a little research into a recent PTA fundraiser at my beloved elementary school. For their event, a “Casino Night” was organized and raised around $30,000, about the same as the No Show Ball. While there is no doubt that the Casino night must have been a blast, the costs of organizing and putting on such an event detracted from the overall amount raised, not to mention all the hours that parent volunteers must have spent.

So, if you are a parent or teacher, help your school raise more money and save time by helping your PTA jump on the online bandwagon!

Also, stay tuned for more new-fangled PTA fundraising ideas and tips!

The summer of social media fundraising continues. We recently made two nice $250 donations to pages that were featured on Twitter - Pam’s Down Syndrome page and Miss Sarah’s Climate Cycle page - and now we’re taking the game to Facebook.

Join the Firstgiving Facebook group (so we know who you are) and add the Firstgiving Facebook app to your Facebook profile by Wednesday August 27, and we’ll pick two winners to receive $250 donations to their chosen Firstgiving fundraising pages.

This is a great opportunity to try Facebook fundraising for your personal cause, or if you work at a US nonprofit organization, it’s a great opportunity to mobilize your supporters on Facebook. Here’s how:

1. Join the Firstgiving Facebook group.

2. Add the Firstgiving Facebook application.

3. Add a Firstgiving page to the application. Add as many as you want. If you don’t have a Firstgiving page, create one or add somebody else’s.

4. Tell everybody you know and ask them to support you.

It’s that easy. Remember, you must be a member of the Firstgiving Facebook group and have added a fundraising page to your Facebook profile. We’ll pick two winners on August 27. Good luck!