The Justgiving charities blog

New and Improved Help on Justgiving

Following last month's news of a new help section in the Charity Account, we've now released an improved help section on the main Justgiving site.

The new area can be accessed by going to www.justgiving.com/statements/help/help.asp

So what's new?

The homepage has been reorganised to be more intuitive for the user: they can use keywords or browse our top 5 questions (based on our website stats).

There is also a Google custom search box that searches only the help section to find the answers to any question; users can also browse the most appropriate section for their needs, whether they are fundraising or donating.

From the results of our user testing, these sections have also been updated to simplify the layout and make it easier for the required question (and answer) to be found.

Still, if the answer cannot be found, anyone can still contact us, and get through to our Helpdesk Heroes, Jules and Mike.

Table Service for Fundraisers

On Friday, our Product Team released another update to Justgiving fundraising pages: page owners now have the ability to select which columns of the donation table appear on their page.

This functionality has already been used by Kim Svatek at www.justgiving.com/kimsmtkilitrek where she has hidden the Amount and Tax Bonus columns:

   

Other early adopters of this new feature are Keri Hilson, Debbie Pierson and Nicola Brady.

To set this up on a page, you need to log-in at www.justgiving.com/account and go to the 'edit this page' option, as per the instructions in our help section here.

This update has been something many users have been requesting in our monthly surveys and the examples above show how it is already proving popular.

For some fundraising pages, like sporting events, there is a strong competitive element where donors see how much others have donated and match or raise it. For others, like Wedding or In Memory pages, showing the amount of individual donations may be less appropriate.

Now, any or all of the columns on a page (Display Name, Date,  Amount, Tax Bonus, Comment) can be hidden by the page owner should they so wish.

First Charity Breakfast Talk

Yesterday James Kliffen and Sam Knight from MSF were the first to star in our brand new Charity Breakfast Talks. We invited a few representatives from the 2500 charities who use Justgiving to listen to our enlightening guest speakers.

Their talk was all about community fundraising: people going a little bit crazy and creating their own fundraising events.

Everything from bus-hopping around the UK and being a James Blunt fan to playing four 18-hole rounds of golf in a day and riding a motorbike around Australia have raised funds for MSF.

And if it’s technological wizardry you’re after check out this Welsh lady, who’s making great use of the Justgiving widget on her own website:

And how about these guys, using Myspace to promote their efforts?

Wateraid were also at hand to talk to us about their recent successes, with a plethora of people building Wedding pages. No need any more for a Gift List or the superfluous toaster.

Raising money in lieu of pressies for your birthday, or anniversary, civil partnership, Valentine’s day or Christmas are all becoming more and more popular too.

A big thank you to MSF and to Wateraid for sharing what they’ve been up to.

A detailed summary of the talk is available to download from your Account Management area in your Charity Account, or here: Download charity_breakfast_talk_24_05_07.doc

Watch this space for a round-up of the next Breakfast Talk!

London's Air Ambulance on the Airwaves

Johnny Vaughan, host of the Capital FM breakfast show, made an appeal this morning for donations to London's Air Ambulance charity.

According to the Capital Radio news section,

Johnny was so moved by his visit to meet the team behind London's Air Ambulance he's launched a campaign to raise money to buy them a second emergency helicopter.

To do this, he spoke to the charity's Chief Executive, Andrew Cameron, who mentioned their website and Justgiving donations page on air. The full interview can be downloaded on the Charity's blog here.

Since the show is listened to by over 800,000 people a day, the charity has received more donations than usual, with many donors using the new leave a message facility to say they heard the appeal on the radio.

As with the Cutty Sark Trust page this week (linked to on the ITV news site, the Metro and yesterday on page 3 of thelondonpaper amongst many others), if you receive a large amount of publicity, make sure you let people know where they can donate online - for London's Air Ambulance, it is www.justgiving.com/londonaa

Update on the Cutty Sark Trust fundraising

On Monday morning, when news broke of a fire on the Cutty Sark, many people wanted to show their support and donate to help the restoration effort. To do this, the Cutty Sark Trust created a fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/cuttysarkfire

They linked to this page from their own website, and the response was immediate; within an hour of the page being created just before 5.00 pm, it had raised £465. This rate of donations remained remarkably steady over the following  45 hours (up to 2.00 pm today) as the below graph shows:

Out of the 691 donations made in the above time period, the average donation amount was £31.78 (without Gift Aid) and the average donated per hour was £487.25.

The steady progress of the donations round the clock shows how the page was able to collect donations from all over the world; from Ann in Canada to Donald Isaacs U.S.A. donors have left many messages of support:

From a proud Londoner now living in Canada and The inspiration for this American's many childhood dreams. Here's to seeing her "fly" again! are just two of the hundreds of messages left.

We'll have more details of the success of the appeal in the coming days.

A new Remember Area

Fundraisers have always been able to build ‘In Mem’ pages on the Justgiving website, but we have now created a specific area for these pages to be built, as at http://www.justgiving.com/jgdemo/remember

This has been specifically designed so that your supporters can create a page in memory of a loved one in a separate place, and with a more appropriate tone, to the rest of your fundraising pages.

So now when a supporter wants to raise money in memory of someone, you can let them know about your Remember Area: if you already have a Tribute Fund programme, why not include the link in your flyers or info packs?

Your supporters can use this area to create pages and collect donations online: as ever, we will process all the money and Gift Aid automatically, and pay it direct to your charity’s bank account.

To see a sample In Mem page, click here, or read how Justgiving ‘In Mem’ pages are used here 

How to let your fundraisers know about Justgiving

We are often asked how to promote the Justgiving service to fundraisers, so we've created a document to give some suggested text for all your communications, be it online or offline, newsletter or website.

If you would like your fundraisers to use Justgiving to raise money or make a donation, you need to let them know three things:

What Justgiving is: a website that enables them to raise money or donate online

Why they should use it: it's quick, easy and 100% secure

Where they need to go to do so: a link to your fundraising area (like http://www.justgiving.com/jgdemo/supportus )

This file contains suggested text you can use and adapt for any purpose. It's not set in stone by any means, so feel free to play around as much as you want: Download justgiving_suggested_text.doc

But don't take our word for it, see how other charities get the message accross:

One World Action provide a fundraising pack to download on their own website that includes information on how to use Justgiving, as does the RNLI in their PDF fundraising packs

Similar advice is given to fundraisers on the Samaritans website, who also give hints and tips on how to make the most of Justgiving here, as do Bridge 2 Aid too.

I sent the above links a while back to Ron Millar, of the The Rotary Club of Salisbury, and he modified them for his own charity communications. See what he did by clicking on Download justgiving_instructions.doc

Tricia Cavell from St Richard’s Hospice also emailed me the other day about how sending our flyers to their supporters led to more fundraising pages:

Just to let you know we sent the flyers out last week to all those participating in our upcoming sponsored events and the response has been really good! I am sure you can see from our site there has been a significant increase in people creating pages as a result ( probably 10-15 in last few days) . We had already given information to them all about setting up a fundraising page on justgiving – yet the flyer has obviously got the message across more.

So remember, whilst linking from your site is important, don't forget the power of the post!

More help on the helpdesk

She’s already been here a month, so it’s a belated introduction to Josie Brennan, the newest member of our Charities Team.

Josie works with Liz on the Charity Helpdesk to answer all your phone and email queries. Our latest Kiwi, she’s already got stuck in with typical antipodean enthusiasm (here seen thinking outside the box in a box...)

I asked her what she’s been up to so far:

I've been adding official events, helping charities with log-in problems, sending out welcome emails to new charities, uploading logos and general housekeeping

We’ve clearly been keeping her busy, so I asked why she wanted to join Justgiving:

I wanted to join so I could work in a positive environment, where my customer service skills could make difference. I've been here just over a month (it's gone so quick) and it's been really fun- everyone is enthusiastic about their work and super friendly! (Ed, that’s what happens when you give us NZ biscuits)

She’s also answered our tough newbie questionnaire on our Fundraiser blog too - a hard initiation indeed!

Josie’s number is 0207 067 0925 and her email is josie@justgiving.com

Liz can still be reached at 0845 021 2133 or a new DDI of 0207 067 0924 and charities@justgiving.com

Everyone's a Winner with Justgiving

As we say in the Our Values area of the website, "We believe the work that we do makes a difference, every single day" and that "we're motivated by ensuring our charities receive more money, more efficiently."

Some don't think we add any value. And that's fine, as it's our job to prove we do. But we do think we do, and it's not just us who think so.

The email below was sent from John Fisher to our Business Development Manager Molly Loyd yesterday (thanks John for allowing us to re-produce this):

Hello Molly

As Chairman of "To Transplant & Beyond" it's my duty to eat a large portion of humble pie and say

You Were Right!!!

Joining/using Just Giving is one of the best decisions we as a Very Small Charity have done.

You believed in your company to the point were you said  "if I was not happy you would donate the costs of us using your service"

Well I am more than happy, I have had donations from America, China and Australia as well as the UK. Joining would have been worth while just to get the Gift Aid, which I would never have got round to ever setting up if it had not been for Just Giving's help and advice.

Once again - You Win and Actually So Do We

Thank You

John

To Transplant and Beyond

UK Registered Charity

www.heart-transplants.co.uk

We're Moving

This Friday, Justgiving will be moving office from our current home in Old Street, to St Cross Street, in between Farringdon and Chancery Lane. The full address is:

1st Floor
6-7 St Cross Street
London
EC1N 8UA

We'll be closing our current office at 1pm this Friday 11th May, but we'll be back, raring to go, come Monday morning at 9 am sharp.

The reason behind the move is simple - there is just not enough space for us all now (it is a good 6 months since we had to convert our two meeting rooms into office space). The team has recently swelled to a grand 34, and yet we still need more people!

All our telephone numbers and post will be re-directed for the first few weeks until we know what our new numbers will be, so don't worry, you can still get in touch!

Justgiving interviews school members

In March we interviewed some of our school members to find out how they are using their Justgiving service. We gathered some excellent feedback from a mixed bag of schools –grammar schools, special needs schools, independent boarding schools and youth projects.

We discovered that they appreciate the value for money we offer, citing automatic Gift Aid reclaim as a real bonus. Direct payments into school bank accounts are also a hit as they cut down on the administration involved in fundraising events.

There’s a wide variety of fundraising capability and experience out there – we have schools where a teacher leads fundraising as an add-on activity and others that have a dedicated development department. But both have seen how successful online fundraising can be!

We discovered several areas where Justgiving can work harder to help schools maximise the effect of online fundraising and with that in mind we’re introducing some new resources specifically aimed at helping schools.

Uncovering potential
▪ Schools unaware of the potential  – e.g. how to use online donations as well as fundraising pages.
▪ Non event fundraising - there are dozens of creative ways to use fundraising page to raise money.
▪ Integrate online fundraising into lesson plans; e.g. ITC, Physical Education – particularly in developing
early relationships between pupils and charities.
▪ Schools can learn from each other and would welcome resources to help engage supporters and raise more

Promotion
▪ Schools aren't promoting their Justgiving service effectively. Promotion needs to take place across all media – website, school newsletters, and local press.
▪ Schools use Justgiving only around key events – Justgiving can be used all year round!
▪ Schools are struggling to engage supporters – staff, pupils, parents, PTA and local community.
▪ Schools assume traditional offline (e.g. alumni) donors cannot be converted to giving online. By converting them, schools will benefit from automatic Gift Aid reclaim and weekly donation payments
▪ Schools do not celebrate success. Promoting successful fundraising events among the school community encourages people to take part next time around

We hope that our Justgiving for schools newsletter will start to address some of the concerns above and would welcome your feedback.

If you have any questions or would like to share your experience of our service, please email me at james.casey@justgiving.com or call 020 7549 2224.

Justgiving for Schools - Lesson 1

It’s easy for your supporters to donate and raise money for you via Justgiving – but you have to make it easy for them to find Justgiving in the first place!

One of the best ways to do this is to make the most of your school's website.

DONATE
Make sure you place a prominent ‘DONATE’ link on every page of your website - particularly your homepage. The web address you need to link to is: www.justgiving.com/YOURSCHOOL/donate*

Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School has designed and placed a big donate button on its homepage. We’d advise you to put your donate button as near the top of the page as you can so no-one misses it.

We’ve already created some donate buttons for you to use on your website. You can find them in your online charity account. Or feel free to create your own to match your school colours.

RAISE MONEY
Pupils, parents, friends, governors, even school staff can raise money for you through a variety of means. From sponsored walks to a school quiz. Whatever the event, ensure you link to your 'Raise Money' page on Justgiving so your supporters can create fundraising pages. The web address for this:
www.justgiving.com/YOURSCHOOL/raisemoney*

PROMOTION
Justgiving really is the easiest & most cost effective way to raise funds online. Furthermore, it's a fun and engaging way to get people involved with your cause. Promote your Justgiving service to your supporters whenever and wherever you can. Take a look at how these charities are promoting their Justgiving service to their supporters:

Yorkshire Cancer Research
Bridge2Aid (scroll down the page to see us)

You can also grab a Justgiving logo to display on your website here.

If you’d like any help engaging your supporters and promoting your Justgiving service feel free to call us and we’ll be happy to talk to you. Just call James on 0207 549 2224 or email james.casey@justgiving.com.

* You will receive a charity code in your welcome email when you join Justgiving e.g. Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School is assigned the code ‘BRGS’. In the web address above, you need to replace the words ‘YOURSCHOOL’ with your charity code e.g. www. www.justgiving.com/brgs/donate

April Charity Website of the Month

OK, it’s just gone May, so I’m a bit late for an April Charity Website of the Month post, but I do have a good one to promote. And April’s winner is…

Women and Children in Africa (WACIA): www.wacia.org

I first found the website after Joanna at the Charity emailed me, asking how they should follow some great examples of how to link to Justgiving that we’d promoted in our monthly newsletter.

Visiting their website, I really liked the clean, clear design and the way everything was presented with vibrant colours and sharp photos.

And, after I spoke to Jo, she then followed our advice (from examples of other charities) to the letter and provided great links and explanations in all the right places as below:

So I thought I’d ask her some questions to find out how things have been going:

What did you want your website to achieve? 

The main aim of the site was to enable supporters, donors and volunteers to feel personally ‘connected’ with the charity.  In other words, the site is the main tool for communicating to anyone involved with our work, what has been achieved by their help or their donation.  We also wanted the site to be easy to navigate around and not to be too ‘busy’.

Have you had any feedback yet from your supporters?

Lots of really positive comments have come back since the new site went live in January – from UK and abroad.

How did you decide to promote the fundraising and donations area of your website?

When the site went live, I wrote to all on our mailing list to let them know about the site and the new features – which included the How to Help page with donations and fundraising options via Justgiving.

How successful has it been in getting people to donate or raise money for you?

It’s been very successful.  One example is a fundraiser who ran his first marathon for WACIA (the London Marathon) and raised over £1,000.  I have no idea who he is but his name is Pantelis Maris and we are VERY grateful to him and his supporters.  I have emailed him to ask if he would let us have a picture of him to show his achievement and the amount he raised but haven’t heard back from him as yet.  A modest chap I suspect!

Has having Justgiving links on your website helped?

Definitely.  It is so easy for people to give online and I think having two links with the distinction between those who want to fundraise themselves and those who just want to make a donation is really helpful. 

Who created your website? (I thought they warranted a plug)

A fantastic company called Integral Vision in Ashburton, Devon: www.integralvision.co.uk I’d thoroughly recommend them to anyone.

So there we have it, well done Jo and WACIA, first for having a great website and also for proving that our advice does actually help!