The Justgiving charities blog

New fundraising page creation process

26th November 2003

Not a date many keep in the memory, it has to be said, but it was the last time we made a major change to the process of creating a fundraising page on Justgiving.

That's almost 4 years where we've focused on adding new features to pages (amongst many, many other things) like widgets, RSS and tagging. In that period over half a million pages have been built, so we knew that making a page in the first place was easy.

Well, now it's even easier. Extensive user research and testing have helped us re-jig the process  meaning you can create a page in under a minute! (I've just created a page starting from the homepage and it took me 38 seconds. And I wasn't clicking really fast. Honest)

Now, after you've chosen your charity, event and registered (or logged-in), you just need to select your web address and click on "create your page" as below:

And then, hey presto, the fundraising page is live! It really is as easy as that.

You're then prompted to personalise the page and email the link to supporters, but the page is already live, ready and waiting to accept donations.

You may have also noticed in the screenshot that you get the choice to re-use an old web address (URL) - this is one of the most requested features from users so is sure to make them happy!

But don't take my word for it, why not try creating a page for your own charity to see how it works for yourselves!

Free online training with Justgiving

Have you ever wondered what you actually get with Justgiving, how some charities raise more money than others and how you can too?

Well, now's your chance to find out: this September we're offering all charities on the site a chance to take part in a free online training session in the form of a webinar.

What is it?

The training will last 30 minutes and will cover three key areas:

• What you get with Justgiving
• How charities get the most out of the site
• Resources to help you get the most from the site

How does it work?

There is no cost to attend, and all you need is a telephone and a computer. The training is being taken by me (Jonathan Waddingham) and I will be sharing my desktop screen with you to talk you through some great charity websites and presentations.

The examples given are ones used by charities both large and small that have helped them raise more money online.

When is it?

To register for one of the 10 dates, please click on the relevant link below and enter your details.

    Wednesday, September 5th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

    Thursday, September 6th, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Friday, September 7th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

    Monday, September 10th, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Tuesday, September 11th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

    Wednesday, September 12th, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Thursday, September 13th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

    Friday, September 14th, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Monday, September 17th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

    Tuesday, September 18th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Will it be any good?

All new charities have been invited to a weekly "welcome webinar" covering the basics of Justgiving since April, and we've developed this new webinar content following on from their positive feedback:

A couple of their answers to the question of "what did you enjoy about the webinar" include:

More than one person attended the webinar and it was well run and easy to follow. I would definitely recommend this way of training in future. What a brilliant idea! Chris Holt, Rossendale Hospice

Visually appealing, easy, straightforward and looking at other charities and how they use/promote Justgiving

Rest assured that you don't need to be an IT wizard to join - over 85% of our previous attendees had never been on one before, but if you do have any questions, please drop me a line at jonathan@justgiving.com

Making the most of your Justgiving service!

Last Thursday we were lucky to have Lucinda Cooper and Suzanne Fenwick from WaterAid at Justgiving towers, hosting the latest Breakfast Talk. The subject was how the charity has effectively utilised alternative revenue streams to achieve 2x growth online.

The discussion was lively and full of insightful learnings from WaterAid’s exploration of the 'occasions' market including events such as weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. WaterAid have also started promoting fundraising 'in memoriam'.

With people getting married later in life or for a second time and with the increase in civil partnerships, WaterAid has seen a boom in fundraising pages set up in lieu of weddings having 50 this year alone. Have a look at some examples here, here and here.

WaterAid actively promotes this service on its own website, using bold directive buttons to aid easy navigation for fundraisers to start fundraising quickly.

WaterAid keenly supports its page builders and helps them in any way they can whether it’s sending them posters, WaterAid DVDs to play at their wedding reception or sending out wedding gift cards that can be included with the wedding invites.

Christenings and birthdays are a popular means for fundraising too. Each donation to Charles’ 50th birthday page is at least £50!

Supporter care is extremely important to WaterAid and by making regular contact with their supporters, encouraging them and offering any support they might need pays dividends for the charity – supporters often come back raising money for different occasions and events!

A full summary of the talk will be posted on your charity account area later this week, or you can download it here: Download wateraid_talk.doc

We'd also love to thank WaterAid for hosting this talk!

10 Point plan for online fundraising success

This summer we've been looking at the top performing charities on Justgiving to find out exactly how and why they are doing so well, and continue to raise even more money each year.

Different charities raise money in different ways online, but in terms of Justgiving, there are also some common rules that all the top fundraising charities follow, and that any charity can benefit from.

We've distilled this "best practice" approach into a 10 point plan that, if followed, will give you the best chance of using the power of the Internet to raise more, every year:

1. Encourage your supporters, both on your website and in all your offline communications, to create fundraising pages. Tell them:
   • What Justgiving is: a website that enables them to raise money or donate online
   • Why they should use it: it's quick, easy, free and 100% secure for them and tax efficient and reduces admin for you
   • Where they can use it: a link to your fundraising area (like www.justgiving.com/jgdemo/raisemoney)
     


2. Include a “donate” link in a prominent position on every page of your website (download Justgiving buttons in the Account Management section of your charity account)


3. Offer support to your fundraisers as soon as they build their page: email them; phone them – and thank them so they continue to raise money for you every year


4. Ask supporters to email their family and close friends first: they tend to be more generous and encourage future donors to give even more


5. Ensure your supporters personalise their page as much as possible (upload a picture of themselves) and write a compelling personal message as a “call to action”. Tell them to be persistent too!


6. Provide fundraisers with cost examples to use on their page and in their emails (i.e. £10 will pay for…) and examples of why your charity deserves and needs support


7. Promote your best fundraisers on your website and in offline communications to your other fundraisers – it rewards the best and encourages others to follow suit.


8. Prompt fundraisers to write to their local papers, TV & radio stations asking them to promote their fundraising efforts (and your charity)


9. Encourage your supporters to spread the word to even more people online through the use of widgets and social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook


10. Urge fundraisers to update their page and email supporters with news of their success post-event, as some 20% of all donations through Justgiving come in after events have taken place

JG Insider: how much have you raised?

Today's lesson is a simple one - how to find out how much you have raised on Justgiving since you joined.

If you've ever wondered how many pages have been created, the total donated through the site how much Gift Aid has been reclaimed, follow these instructions...

When you log-in to the charity account at www.justgiving.com/charityaccount, you'll see the welcome screen:

If you then click on Total Raised To Date you'll see the details below, accurate to the end of the previous day:

Obviously the example used above is for our "Demo Charity" and is not the financial records of an actual charity on the site, but it does show you how easy it is to do.

Try it yourself and see how much your charity has raised online!

Summer Clean-up

Many of you will have been contacted by us in the last week or so as we're in the process of cleaning up our data. We've brought in the lovely Morgan to give you all a call so we can get the most up-to-date contact info for your charity.

(here's Simon posing with one of our lovely new phones that Morgan's using, just in case you wondered what they looked like...)

The reason for us contacting you all now is that we've realised that a lot of you aren't aware of all the new exciting things we've done, and are doing, with the Justgiving site:

In the last month alone, we've released a Facebook application, a new widget, and reduced our monthly fee for some charities.

And a selection of updates from the last year reveals we've had even more to tell you about: a new email tool for your supporters, tagging on fundraising pages, allowing donors to leave messages for you to name just three.

Why not click on one of the categories on the left to see all the historic posts for that subject, or click on the months to see what happened when - we've been posting more stories than ever to try and help you get the most out of our service.