The Justgiving charities blog

Online training in October

Since September's online training was so popular, we've arranged four more sessions for October for all those who missed out.

As before, all you need to attend is a telephone and internet access to attend and there's no cost.

The training lasts 30 minutes and covers 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?

The training is taken by me (Jonathan Waddingham) and I share 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.

Just click on the best time for you below and enter in your details to register - it's as simple as that!

• Thursday, October 4, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

• Tuesday, October 9, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

• Thursday, October 18, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

• Tuesday, October 23, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Remember, you can read feedback from the first sessions on my previous post if you still need convincing...

Webinaaarrr round-up

Shiver me timbers! Yesterday I took the last of our initial round of free online training sessions, so I thought I'd report back on how they all went.

Over the 10 sessions held since September 4th, the response has been great: we've had  138 people from 117 different charities attend - thanks to all of you for coming! Especially as most of you haven't been on a webinar before:

The feedback we've got from the sessions has been great too - we surveyed everyone who took part and asked them "How likely is it that you would recommend a Justgiving webinar to a colleague?"

The average answer to this (out of 5) is 4.5 - so it's safe to say that they're highly recommended.

But if you're still unsure about the benefits, this is a selection of quotes of what people enjoyed:

I found the webinar excellent - we are a very small charity but we are building up a support base and this is invaluable.

Very innovative format - first "webinar" I have come across and was very interesting.

Easy to follow, good explanations, lively delivery, relevant content and snappy pace. Excellent.

The webinar enabled me to locate additional functionality on the Justgiving website that we were unaware of and can now promote to people who wish to fundraise for us.

So, watch this space for an announcement of the next scheduled times and dates, as we'll be holding some more webinars throughout October for all those who couldn't attend the first time.

Plus, we're looking to record a session and make it available in the Charity Account.

Isn't technology great? :-)

(happy 25th birthday to the smiley by the way too. Is it really the same age as me?)
 

Facebook application update

It's now almost two months since we released our Justgiving Facebook application, and high tide to give an update on how it's doing. Which, in a word, is great!

As of this moment, 6,529 people* have added the application to their Facebook profile! From the graph below, you can see a steady increase in users since it was released:

(the drop was due to the Facebook application platform being down one day)

The other interesting stat is that Facebook is now our second biggest referrer (after Google). This means that 4% of people who come to the Justgiving site have come from Facebook - so it's becoming increasingly important for charities to have a presence there.

One charity who does already is the Cardiomyopathy Association - they created a group on Facebook to raise awareness of the charity, promote their fundraising events  and provide help and information about the condition.

As Chris Hirst,  Senior Fundraiser at the CMA said,

Facebook is a free medium, which provides access to a large volume of people with little difficulty. The Justgiving add on for an individual’s profile means that the friends across the world can support their fundraising activities.

Another charity with a group is the Meningitis Research Foundation, in their words: "A place to find out more information about how you can fundraise for Meninigitis Research Foundation - yay!"

Ian Beningfield, their Community Fundraising Officer, told me that the group had started off as "a a way of contacting the many students we work with but has since expanded to cover other fundraising events as well."

Does your charity have any plans to use Facebook? If so, please let me know what you're up to and how it's going.

*Update - 27/09/07 - it's now at 7,278! See here for the latest numbers...

Last available webinar sessions

We've now had six of our free online training sessions, training 84 people so far and there are only four sessions left in the current schedule for you to attend:

• 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

If you still need convincing about whether it's worth it, here's what people have enjoyed about the webinars so far:

Slick, informative, covered all the information I wanted

The use of clear and simple examples of what other charities are doing and what's working for them. Lots of new ideas to take away and try.

I thought it was great overview of what Justgiving has to offer and a reminder to us all to promote it more effectively to our supporters.

Justgiving Status blog

Those of you with eagle eyes may have noticed a new addition to the Charities blog links on the right of this blog: the Justgiving status blog.

We've just launched this new blog to provide an area to keep all users of the site (donors, fundraisers or charities) informed about the current performance of the Justgiving website and any services we provide.

As it says, "This blog brings you real-time news on our performance, maintenance and any technical problems we are busy fixing."

In an ideal world, we wouldn't need this blog, but there are (thankfully rare) occasions when things don't work as they should and we need to let people know when that happens.

So now, as soon as any issue arises, you'll hear about it first and be kept updated on the Justgiving status blog.

Hello Webinar Attendees!

Today's post is not in keeping with our normal content of help, advice and announcements for all the great charities who use our site.

It's just an 'amusing' picture of me to wake up all the people on one of our "best practice webinars" if they've fallen asleep by the time I've got around to talking about our charity blog!

Plus, you can download the info pack for the webinar here:
Download best_practice_webinar_info_pack.doc

And see the webinar presentation below: