The Justgiving charities blog

Introducing the JG Insider: how to see all your fundraisers

Today marks the first in a new series of blog posts that will include hints and tips from a "JG Insider" to help you use the Charity Account and other features of the Justgiving site.

To start, we're going to look at one of the basic, but often overlooked or unknown, actions you can do on the site: see all fundraisers for your charity.

If we take Salah Rahman Sports Foundation (SRSF) as our example and go to their fundraising area, you will see a search box on the right under the sample page image:

As it says, you can search for specific names or see all the fundraisers for that charity: it's a quick and easy way of taking a high level view of your supporters' efforts on Justgiving.

No log-ins are needed, just click on the link and find out what all your fundraisers are doing.

The search results for all SRSF fundraisers can be seen here.

Why not promote this link on your website too - if you want to offer supporters a choice of who to sponsor, this is a great way to do so.

Furthermore, SRSF have done this in their email communications - the last email they sent to all their charity supporters included the link to all their fundraisers. You can read it here: Download support_salah_sports.doc

This is a great way of making a general appeal for donations specific by highlighting the efforts of their supporters and is more compelling than a simple donate link. Why not try it yourselves?

PS - in the unlikely event that you're wondering who the JG Insider is, it's me, Jonathan (Hello Mum).

Justgiving Webinars

As it's been over two months since our first webinar, I think it's a good time to review how they've gone. Since our first session, we've held a "welcome" webinar every week, introducing over 50 charities to the main ares of the Justgiving service as below:

The sessions are getting more and more popular, with an average of 8 people attending the last four. Our survey of attendees also backs this up:

We ask "On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you in promoting the Justgiving service to your supporters?" and "On a scale of 1-10 how likely is it that you would recommend Justgiving webinar to a colleague?"

The average scores of 7.5 for the first question and 7 for the second show that most people are  confident after the training and would recommend it to a colleague

But don't worry if it all sounds complicated - it isn't: 78% of people have never been on a webinar before and their comments back this up when we asked what they enjoyed about the webinar:

"Straight-forward, easy to follow and to actually join, technology wise!"

"It was very useful to have someone explain various sections whilst seeing it on screen. I would definitely recommend this method of 'teaching' and would certainly participate in a webinar again."

"Jonathan is very friendly, approachable and not too technical [good for non IT wizards!]"

"Feeling connected to what I was looking at and having the ability to ask questions if I needed to - the human contact is so important.  I probably would not have taken the time to go to through these pages on my own."

The webinar we hold above is aimed at training people who are new to Justgiving, and is effectively a beginner's tour of our service.

If you work for one of our member charities and would like to attend or find out more, read my previous blog post and/or email me and I will let you know when the next session takes place.

Cutty Sark Trust raises thousands online

Just under a month ago, a fire ravaged the historic Cutty Sark Clipper, prompting widespread publicity and masses of public affection.

To collect donations for the restoration of the ship, the Cutty Sark Trust created a fundraising page on Justgiving. Within a couple of days, the page had collected over £20,000. As an update in a previous blog post revealed, the page collected donations at a remarkably consistent rate of around £485 every hour for the first 48 hours:

And with the page receiving over 20,000 hits in the first week alone, it's no surprise that as of now, the page has collected 1,126 donations totalling £37,443.19 with just under £8,000 reclaimed in Gift Aid.

The average donation to the appeal was £33.25, compared to the overall average on Justgiving of £32 (including Gift Aid), and around 18% of donations were made from overseas where normally it is 5%.

I asked Louise Massara, Stewardship Manager of the Cutty Sark Trust, some questions about the success of their appeal:

Why did you decide to create an online fundraising page?

We had already set up an account with Justgiving for our London Marathon runners to use so it was simple to set up a page on the day of the fire.

How did you promote the page?

We put the link on to our website straightaway, and included it in our press release. We also asked journalists to include the link in their coverage.

Were you surprised by the number and speed of the donations?

Yes, we were all surprised by how many people gave, from all over the world, and by the speed with which the donations came in.

Was it important that overseas donors could donate?

Yes, very important, as we had a lot of support from overseas and it was an easy way for them to give.

Was it a comfort to your team that so many messages of support were left on the page?

It was heart-warming. We all read the messages in spare moments, and I printed them off to report to our Chairman and Trustees.

What do you hope to do with the funds?

The funds will go towards the recovery of the ship and the continuance of the conservation project to preserve and re-interpret Cutty Sark for future generations.

What proportion of funds raised has come through the fundraising page and where has the other money come from?

About 10% of funds raised so far has come through the fundraising page. The other money consists of three large donations totalling £400,000 and more donations coming in through the post and over the phone.

Do you have any other thoughts/comments about the Justgiving service?

I very much appreciated the personal contact and the practical help we received on the day of the fire, when we were incredibly busy with the police, fire service, and hundreds of press queries. The help we received was prompt and was just what we needed. The follow-up support and interest from Justgiving has also been excellent.

Louise also emailed an update to donors who were happy to hear from the page owner (instructions here) as all good fundraisers should - her email can be downloaded here: Download update_from_the_cutty_sark_trust.doc

For more information on the Cutty Sark Trust, visit their website at www.cuttysark.org.uk or download the latest update emailed to donors:  Download cutty_sark_trust_update_19_06_07.doc

June Charity Website of the month

June's honoured recipient of the much-coveted award is Georgie's Fund

According to their supporter area on Justgiving, "Georgie's Fund was set up primarily to research into new treatments and a cure for Neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer".

The main reason we chose this month is the area of their site at www.georgies-fund.com/justgiving.shtml

They have displayed a selection of their fundraisers' widgets on their own site:

And they also include most of our suggested text to encourage their supporters to fundraise for them:

But not only that, they use one of the buttons available in the Marketing resources section of the Charity Account.

I asked Sally Barrett, a trustee of the charity, some questions to find out a bit more about their site:

Why did you promote widgets on your site?

We thought that the widgets looked really eye catching and we loved the way you can immediately see how your fundraisers are doing. We thought it would encourage others to fundraise for us.

Was it easy to do?

It was so easy to do! We just clicked on the 'Promote this Page'€™ link on the Fundraiser's page and then just copied and pasted the code from the '˜Grab a Fundraising Widget'€™ option onto our web page.

Have you had any feedback?

We have had positive feedback from our fundraisers: they were really chuffed that we were promoting them on our website.

Do you think it has helped?

I think it has really helped us in promoting Justgiving as a valuable free fundraising tool to our supporters. We love Justgiving!

So there we have it, a big thank you to Sally for her feedback and a pat on the back for her website.

She's proved that you don't need to be an IT expert to promote widgets, and it's an easy way to make your fundraisers happy. And happy fundraisers come back to raise more...

See how other charities have used widgets in the past here and remember to look at our suggested text for supporter communications.

Lesson 2: Fundraising ideas for your school

Give children a challenge or fire their imagination and they’ll turn into some of the most motivated fundraisers we’ve seen at Justgiving.

We know kids love using computers and they can be incredibly inventive when it comes to using the Internet to raise funds. Ask them to knock on doors with paper sponsorship forms and you might get short shrift, but give them a set of cool online fundraising tools and just watch them go.

See picture of BRGS pupils undertaking their sponsored walk to raise funds for a new sports hall.

The great news is you don’t have to run marathons to raise money on Justgiving – we’ve got dozens of ideas for ways children can use our service and here are some examples of fun and imaginative challenges people have used to raise funds on Justgiving, take a look at the links below:

Ride rollercoasters
Stage a football match between Heroes and Villains
Put your pet on a diet
Break the DJ Marathon World Record
Writeathon
Danceathon
Taekwondo spar-athon
Eat chilli
Knit
Sit in a bath of baked beans
Be blindfolded for a day
Write poems
Play fancy dress netball
Grow a beard
Dye your hair
Do nothing

And here are some great fundraising pages created by young people:

Cecily’s birthday
Liam’s swimathon
Harry’s tsunami appeal page
Kat dyes her hair (look at how many of Kat’s school friends have sponsored her!)

You can find lots more examples in our Forums here.

If your school has any good ideas for online fundraising campaigns, email us and we'll publicise your campaign to our membership.

Justgiving is now PCI Compliant

Dom Lacey, our CTO, has today confirmed that Justgiving and Firstgiving are now certified fully compliant with the Data Security Standards set by the Payment Card Industry, three weeks ahead of the June 30th deadline.

According to the BBC News website, these new standards have been set up in "an attempt to raise the baseline security practices of online merchants" and "all web shops that process more than 20,000 transactions per year will have to comply with the PCI standards".

Another explanation of the new standards can be found on Wikipedia.

Whilst the security of our site has always been extremely important to us (see previous improvements here), we can now provide VISA-certified assurances to any enquiries about the security of our users' credit card and personal data.

Our new certificate is online here, and appears on all Justgiving pages in the bottom right corner. You can also download a PDF version: Download pci_dss_compliance_certificate_giving_2007.pdf

This has been a massive project undertaken by our tech team and we're really proud that they have managed to prove our compliance before 85% of the online payments and e-commerce industry.

More information about security on Justgiving can be found in our privacy policy and security policy, or by checking our Verisign certificate.

Welcome British Heart Foundation

Yesterday we welcomed the British Heart Foundation as one of the latest charities to join the Justgiving site.

BHF is one of the biggest charities in the UK and we are delighted to have them on board. You can see them on the site now at www.justgiving.com/bhf/supportus and read their own description:

The British Heart Foundation is the nation's heart charity. Every day they save lives, through pioneering research, providing vital information to help people reduce their own heart health risks, campaigning for change and supporting and caring for heart patients.

Their popularity is shown by the fact there are already 12 fundraisers on the site. If you would like to find out more, please visit their own website at www.bhf.org.uk

But BHF were not the only charity to join the Justgiving community yesterday: Bedelsford School Association, International Rescue Corps and the Kesgrave Church Of England Charity were only three of thirteen more charities now fundraising on Justgiving!

KISS - Keep it Simple, Signature

What's the thing you use everyday to communicate with donors or fundraisers? You probably call a lot of them, but do you email them too? And if you do, what's in your email signature?

This thought struck me when I received an email from Lisa Flint of the the AADC Research Trust and saw her email signature (click to enlarge):

It includes a Justgiving logo (available here) and some text that says:

My name is Jake, I am 9 years old and I suffer with Aromatic Amino Acid Decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency (a rare brain disease). Very soon I will be walking to raise money for AADC Research, please visit my page and sponsor me by clicking on www.justgiving.com/JakeF

I don't know about you, but I was grabbed by that short paragraph and clicked on the link. This is a brilliant example of promoting a real life story of who the charity helps in every single piece of email communication sent out.

To find out a bit more, I asked Lisa why she included a link to this fundraising page in her email signature:

I included a Justgiving link to my son's fundraising page in my e-mail signature because it was the easiest way of informing people of our fundraising activities. This way you could make a personal plea without actually asking the person directly.

I sent quite a few e-mails to people around the world and I do know that Jake has received generous donations via Justgiving from the UK, USA and Australia. It can reach anyone, anywhere and it is simple to do, you just need a credit card!

Do you know whether it has helped?

Going by the number of visitors to our web site since including this e-mail signature I'm sure many more people now know about Aromatic Amino Acid Decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency: it is  a very good way of raising awareness as this is a very rare disease suffered by only a few children (that we know about!) around the world.

As a small Charity we need to be pro-active for a number of reasons. Including an e-mail signatory such as this one on 'all outgoing e-mails' allowed me to introduce my son, his Charity and a way to donate without talking about it.

It is the choice of the receiver of my e-mails to decide if he/she will support our cause in some way, I like to think they would! Including a Justgiving link just makes it easy to make a financial contribution!

From here on, all my future e-mails will include an e-mail signature with a Justgiving Link and a Website Link to our Charity... I just need to design the next e-mail signature after 'Jake's Sponsored Walk' has taken place!

Lisa Flint (mum to Jake - sufferer of AADC deficiency)
The AADC Research Trust
www.aadcresearch.org

But you don't have to link to a specific fundraising page to ask for donations: why not include a general donate link or encourage people to create a fundraising page?

If you do want to promote a page, you can include a Justgiving Badge in your signature by following the instructions here.

Remember, sometimes the simple things are the most effective!