Posts Tagged “firstgiving”

This morning, we left you with a cup of coffee and some thoughts about the true cost of your time.  We arrived at the conclusion that it sometimes makes your life easier (and less costly) to pay for a service rather than doing something on your own.

Now, let’s extend the analogy.  You are an NPO with a lot of things to think about, one of the most important of which is probably fundraising.  You have people within your organization who focus a significant amount of their time on fundraising and donor relations.    

You also have a network of donors who give because they believe in and support the work that you do.  Some of them probably believe in your work so strongly that they would ask their friends to support your work, too.  Let’s call these people your fans.

It is unlikely that your fans are sending out regular emails to their friends asking them to donate to your NPO.  But suppose one of your fans is a marathon runner and wants to raise money for your NPO while they race. 

Or, suppose your NPO is hosting an event and recruiting fans to fundraise for you (i.e., ask for sponsors).  Your fans have the potential to reach additonal donors (their friends) whom you might not be able to reach at all, or whom it would be costly for you to reach through advertising, awareness-raising, or networking.  Firstgiving.com provides an easy access point to connect these potential donors to your NPO through your fans, ultimately bringing in more donations to your organization.

Let’s look at some hypothetical numbers:

Suppose your fundraising campaign for an event costs your NPO an average of $30 per hour.  This includes the cost of employee time to coordinate registrations and email alerts to your fans, printed mailings, etc.  It will take about 30 hours of work to prepare for your event and 10 hours of follow-up, with a total cost of $1200.  You plan to raise $10,000, however, so your NPO ends up $8800 in the black. 

Now, suppose your fans instead create their own Firstgiving fundraising pages for the event. 

Their friends hear about the event through an email, go to these pages, and donate with their credit cards.  It’s a quick, easy and secure way to make a donation and personally support their friends (your fans).  Firstgiving subtracts a small transaction fee and sends the donations raised by your fans directly to your NPO.  (If you want Firstgiving to take care of the registration process, we can do that, too and make your life even easier!). 

Since Firstgiving provides an efficient way for your fans to fundraise through their social networks, you end up raising $15,000 for your NPO instead of $10,000.  The Firstgiving transaction fee works out to be $1125, so your NPO receives $13,875 when all is said and done.  Plus you’ve cut down on administrative costs, simplified and automated several aspects of the fundraising process.

Voila!  Your life is easier, and you raised more money for your NPO.  That’s a small price to pay for service.

Conclusion:  Firstgiving.com can help you make your life easier, reach more people, and raise more money.  Use Firstgiving in conjunction with your other fundraising efforts to multiply the impact of your fundraising campaigns.  Empower your fans to fundraise for you!

We’ve recently revamped Firstgiving’s home page.  If you are an NPO, you might notice we have a special box for you with the following checklist: “Make your life easier.  Reach more people.  Raise more money.”  

Bold claims, we know.  And how can this be so, you ask?

Consider the following: 

Imagine you are a coffee connossieur with a very busy schedule (indulge us for just a moment).

Suppose a pound of fresh gourmet coffee from the coffee shop around the corner costs $12.  A cup of freshly brewed coffee at the same coffee shop costs $2.  A pound of coffee beans will brew approximately 32 8 oz. cups of coffee, which means that coffee brewed at your house costs about $0.38 cup, a difference of $1.62.  So brewing coffee at home is cheaper, right?

Maybe, but maybe not.

For the true connossieur, a vacuum brewer. Perks: the coffee never touches anything but the glass.

Let’s factor in the cost of your time.  (If you’re particularly interested in terminology/jargon, this example will illustrate the economic concept of opportunity cost, ).

Suppose it takes about 2 minutes to open the coffee bag, grind the beans (remember, you’re a connoisseur; only freshly ground beans for you), load the coffee pot, and press the button.  

After the coffee is brewed, it takes another 4 minutes to pour the coffee into your to-go mug, wash the pot and filter basket and wipe the grounds from the counter.  Suppose the brew time is approximately the same as the time you would spend walking to and ordering at the coffee shop, so we’ll call that a wash.  Result: you’ve got yourself a 6 minute home coffee brewing regimen.

Now, suppose your time is worth an average of $10 per hour, or about $0.17 per minute.  6 minutes of coffee-making costs about $1, making the total cost $1.38, so it’s probably worth it to brew your own.  

But suppose your time is worth an average of $60 per hour, or $1 per minute, and in the time you’ve spent brewing your coffee, you could have attended to some very important emails or done one last run-through of your presentation slides.  That cup of home-brewed coffee actually costs about $6.38. Yikes!  (In case you’re wondering, the point of indifference occurs when your time is worth approximately $16 per hour, or $0.27 per minute, and the java costs you $2 whether you brew or buy).

Are you with us so far?  Let’s let this settle in and we’ll post the rest of the story this afternoon.  Questions?  Want to argue about the calculations?  Post comments below.

When it comes to donating, it’s easy to find reasons to donate but what are more compelling and convincing are those reasons not to. There’s a plethora of bills to pay—not to mention the economic recession. Everybody has been extra cautious with their spending these days and quite rightly; money’s tight and not just for college students.

But has it honestly affected our ability to buy groceries or our ability fill up our gas tanks? Our basic needs are essentially met. But for some, they are not. So the Medical Students for Burn Center Viedma has set forth the Give the Life of Luxury Fundraiser to help those who cannot enjoy what we consider basic needs. Their challenge is to identify one or more items in your life that you can live without for a period of three weeks; like brewing your own coffee instead of buying a cup. Keep track of how much you would have spent on these items and at a convenient time, donate to their firstgiving page. Your donation can also get you a raffle ticket.

All the proceeds will directly go to purchase blankets, toys, educational tools, and games for the children treated in the Viedma Hospital Children’s Burn Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia. They have set their goal to $10,000 and have raised $9,106.95 thus far—less than a thousand dollars from reaching their goal!

Check out their website for ideas on what you could temporarily sacrifice, raffle prizes and other information.

Take a quick drive across town or a stroll down the street—chances are you’ll encounter someone raising awareness for a cause he or she cares about. From a bumper sticker promoting animal rights to a pink ribbon for breast cancer to the “Livestrong” or “ONE” bracelet you’re wearing as you read this post, we are constantly getting the word out to raise awareness for a variety of causes.

Awareness-raising is a worthy activity unto itself, but the reality is that awareness without action results in little change. After all, awareness is supposed to inspire people to act!

I recently created a Firstgiving page to fundraise for Blood:Water Mission, an organization that partners with communities in Africa to provide clean water solutions for thousands of people who don’t have access to this vital resource. I sent my page out to everyone on my email list, and within 5 minutes, a friend of mine had donated and sent me an email which read: “I took an econ seminar about water in college and was amazed at how big of a problem this is/will be.” My Firstgiving page provided an easy way for my friend to contribute to a cause he was already aware of and interested in supporting. Clearly awareness and action are a powerful combination.

The exciting thing about Firstgiving fundraising pages is that they allow you to raise awareness for a cause you care about and provide an immediate course of action so that your friends can respond. That’s efficient and effective!

Celebrity endorsements seem to be a sure way to get media attention and instantly raise awareness. Just like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy raised Autism awareness, Nick Jonas from Jonas Brothers is raising awareness and funds for diabetes. When he was unexpectedly diagnosed with Type One Diabetes he respectfully took his adversity and celebrity status to a positive place. He started raising awareness to his strong tween fan base by sharing his story and writing songs about his experience. Then he and his brothers started the Change the Children foundation—and their loyal fans are helping them raise awareness.

The Change the Children foundation was created to support programs that motivate and inspire children who face adversity. And who better to help children then their peers? So the slogan, “You decide, You donate” was created so people can choose, one of five, organizations that will help children.

Waiting on a Cure is one of them. It was created by two college students, both who are fans of the Jonas Brothers, who wanted to promote diabetes awareness and funds for research. They have set up a firstgiving page in order to raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundational International—the leading charitable funder of Type 1 Diabetes. A donation of $4 to their firstgiving page will entitle you to a guitar pick necklace; a donation of $8 will get you a dog chain.

Nick J Online is the biggest fan base online and they are currently running a “campaign donation†fundraising event for the Jonas Brother’s “Burnin’ Up†tour. This is to help them raise money for the Change the Children Foundation and ultimately the American Diabetes Association in honor of Nick Jonas.

Even if you don’t like tween pop bands, it’s undeniable the good they are doing. They are not only raising awareness but encouraging fans to get involved too. Ultimately, all this effort will amount to finding a cure for diseases.

You probably have one in your pocket right now. Here in Boston, we reminisce about the days when it only took one to ride the T. It is one of the humblest among our mediums of exchange. It is the $1 bill.

Sometimes we don’t think to give in small amounts because we don’t think it will be enough to make a difference. Giving a donation of $1 to a cause seems almost a joke. Consider, however, an often-cited statistic in the discourse of international development and aid: “Half of the world’s population lives on less than $1 a day.” This fact turns that kind of thinking on its head. $1 can mean life, education, food, water and health to millions of people around the world. And $1 mobilized from each person in a community or network has the power to effect a great deal of change (the pun, of course, is intended).

That is exactly the kind of intuition that some Firstgiving fundraisers are using to raise money for very worthy causes. Often cited is the fact that “every dollar helps,” but these fundraisers are specifically asking for donations in the amount of $1:

Dane Low is raising money for Room to Read to build a school in Vietnam by asking 17,000 people to each donate $1.

Bayne Upton is asking everyone he knows to donate $1 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation as he competes in the Ironman Coeur d’Alene.

Timothy Senechalle raised money for Special Olympics by participating in a polar bear swim and reserved messaging space on his body for a donation of $1 per letter.

Joseph Frambach is hiking the Appalachian trail this summer for Gildas Club Western Pennsylvania and asking for donations such as $1 per day and $1 per mile.

Fortunately for these forward-thinking fundraisers, Firstgiving’s minimum accepted donation is $1!

Inspired by the power of $1, I recently created my own fundraising page to raise money for Blood:Water Mission, an organization which itself proclaims the $1 message: “$1 provides clean water for 1 African for 1 year.” I asked my friends to donate $1 for every glass of water they drank the following Friday, and the response was overwhelmingly positive!

That $1 in your pocket may be worth more than you think, and Firstgiving fundraising pages can make it easy for you and people you know to give $1 away. That kind of giving could become a habit!

I’ve come across many selfless people while working here at Firstgiving.com. Not just in my experience with donors but with co-workers as well. The most surprising thing I’ve seen thus far has been people honoring their favorite cause by accepting donations in lieu of birthday (or wedding) gifts. 

You can easily setup a firstgiving.com page in honor of a family member, friend or celebrity. A while back Bon Jovi had a site set up for his birthday. A fan set up a firstgiving.com birthday page for him and donated to his favorite charity. Bon Jovi fans raised a total of $874 that was donated to Habitat for Humanity. More recently, a fan of Laurel Holloman also created a firstgiving.com page to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. She has raised over $18,000! That is actually what inspired our fellow Firstgiving birthday boy to celebrate his birthday this way; and I hope it has inspired you.

Both the young and old have taken part in this new way to give. Little Cassidy took it upon herself to create a page so that people can donate to help scientists searching for a cure for food allergies. She has been allergic to peanuts her whole life and that is all she wanted for her 7th birthday, simply a cure. There is also Aaron and Allie, brother and sister, who have the neurodegenerative disease Friedreich’s ataxia. With high hopes for a cure, they are wishing to raise $10,000 for their birthday. They passed the halfway point in just two months! Even one of our very own Firstgiving employees, who shall remain nameless, is turning 29 for the 10th time this month and he is buying dinner for his friends so long as they donate to the American Heart Association through his fundraising page. All for the sake of giving, in celebration of their birthday.

The great thing about these birthday fundraising pages is not just that it’s selfless act that people are exuding to support charities they care about or people they love but the fact that the giving extends far past their actual birth date. Months after these pages are created and birthdays have passed, people are still donating. This trend is slowly, but surely, catching on.