The Justgiving charities blog

iPledge for Buwan Kothi - June charity site of the month

It’s been a while since the last charity site of the month, but June brings us another gem:

www.iPledge.org.uk

In the words of The Buwan Kothi International Trust, the iPledge site is a "blog that celebrates the efforts and hard work of our many supporters - and reminds everyone that making a donation is not the only way of supporting our activities".

I caught up with Kevin from the Trust who had some very interesting things to say about devolved fundraising, word of mouth marketing and using free web tools.

Read on or download the full story: Download ipledge.doc

What is your charity and what do you do?

In December 2005, friends and relatives of Gilly Mundy and Debbie Quargnolo travelled from the UK to the tiny rural village of Buwan Kothi in Haryana, northern India, to celebrate their wedding. We were all overwhelmed by the warmth and generosity of the welcome from the village and resolved to develop and strengthen links between people in the UK and Haryana.

In March 2006, the Buwan Kothi International Trust was formed to raise funds for projects in Haryana and our major objective was to build a primary school in Buwan Kothi, a task that was given an even greater impetus by Gilly's sudden death in March 2007, aged only 36.

Where did the idea of the iPledge site come from?

We wanted to celebrate the hard work of our many supporters and remind everyone that making a donation is not the only way of supporting our activities. Making a pledge can involve making a difference by taking part in (or organising) a sponsored event, or volunteering some free time, or talking to friends and colleagues about the Trust and what it has achieved so far.

Over the last year, we have managed to raise a considerable sum whilst keeping our costs to a minimum (less than £40 in 2007-08 out of a total of £52K). This has only been possible because of using the internet and e-mail rather than more expensive publicity but also because we have actively encouraged ‘devolved fundraising’, by letting supporters do whatever they can to help, without necessarily organising everything ourselves.

What did you want the iPledge site to achieve?

The iPledge site will hopefully help to encourage supporters to see the charity as belonging not to its trustees but to everyone that gets involved. The charity was the brainchild of a large group of friends with many skills and a variety of different talents and we want to keep that ethos at the forefront of our fundraising activities.

Using a blog enables everyone to see the range of activities that people have pledged to undertake and act as a reminder that each individual supportive action is part of a wider community seeking to help the Trust’s work. And, of course, it has cost us next to nothing to set up!

What sort of feedback have you had?

It’s early days yet but feedback has been very positive. For example, the number of supporters pledging to take part in our fundraising cycle ride in July looks set to top the 26 riders who took part last year (and raised more than £20K between them).

Some of your fundraisers have raised more than others - do you know why some are more successful?

For us, the amount raised is less important than the fact that so many people are willing to make an effort. Some supporters have wider – and wealthier – circles of friends than others, but every penny counts.

As a new and small charity, we also know our profile is nowhere near as high as the big charities, but that donations are nearly always made by families and friends supporting individual efforts, rather than on our name recognition, so the more people pledge to fundraise for us, the better. Building our profile by word of mouth helps to keep our costs to a minimum and make sure that so far, 99.9% of the money we have raise directly supports communities in Haryana.

How has Justgiving helped?

Devolved fundraising involves surrendering a certain amount of overall control, but as a charity we have an obligation to ensure that fundraising undertaken in our name is accountable and transparent. Justgiving provides us with this, because donations come straight to us rather than through each individual fundraiser.

Anyone making a donation can be completely confident that their money goes directly – and promptly – to the Trust. It also helps individual supporters to contact friends and family all over the country and encourage donations without the fuss of asking for cheques or collecting cash.

Was it easy to set up the blog on Blogger?

Setting up a blog on Blogger is very straightforward. Some knowledge of basic HTML is needed for changing from one of Blogger’s basic templates to something like the free template
we used to improve the look of the site, but the basic templates aren’t that bad.

If anyone wants to borrow our idea for their own charity and is struggling, then I’m happy to try and explain to them in more detail how we set up our blog.

Did it take up much time or resource?

Initial set up wasn’t too time-consuming because we had the necessary IT skills amongst our supporters. Maintaining the site is a doddle – it takes a matter of minutes to add new pledges via the Blogger ‘dashboard’ and because the site is accessed via a web browser, requires no special software or programming knowledge. Mainly, it has involved adding a title to a post, some standard wording and pasting in an individual’s Justgiving widget.

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Thanks for taking the time to speak to us Kevin, you’ve shared a lot of useful information that other charities can use. The concept of ‘devolved fundraising’ is something we are seeing more and more on Justgiving – as I mentioned recently on the blog with the rise of occasion fundraising.

It’s also a great example of using free tools like Blogger to start some word-of-mouth marketing and generate a *buzz* around a small charity.

Feb Charity site of the month

This month we have the story of www.napac.org.uk, the website for The National Association for People Abused in Childhood

What's great about this site? Well, I've created a short video walk-through of their site to explain exactly why, but the most interesting thing is how this site came to be great (in my opinion)...

And the reason is that Helen from the charity saw our best practice webinar recording and decided to update their site - and they've already reaped the rewards.

Before you take a look at the video, I asked Helen a few questions about the site:

How did you come across the webinar recording?

I was sent an email on the 30th of January with the subject "New year solutions with Justgiving" - One of the articles featured the Best Practice Webinar recording and I decided to have a look...and I am so glad that I did!

Was it useful, would you recommend it?

It was so useful! I kept pausing every couple of minutes to make notes, jotted down all of the examples and tips...I ended up with two A4 sides of notes telling me exactly what I needed to do to give the donations part of our website a much needed face-lift. I would highly recommend it!

It's so clear, so simple and the tips absolutely work...having the Justgiving webinar to guide me meant that I didn't have to reinvent the "fundraising wheel" - all I had to do was use other people's past experience and knowledge and put it into practice on our website.    

Did it prompt you to update the fundraising area on your site?

I was already thinking that I needed to get around to sorting out the donations section of our website and watching this webinar was the catalyst I needed to get me moving. I spent a week completely re-building and re-writing the entire donations part of our website.

Has this update had any effect so far?

The day after it was launched a new Justgiving fundraising page was created! It was such a great feeling...the work I'd put in revamping the site was already showing it's benefits and our new supporter has raised £30 for us so far! I also knew about the importance of supporting our supporters so after being sent a notification of the new Justgiving fundraising page I was able to immediately email David Still and tell him how much we appreciated his support.

I was also able to add the widget for his fundraising page to our website so that everyone can see who our supporters are and what they're doing! The effect of the update so far has been incredible - I am working on a "making the most of your Justgiving webpage" document in eager anticipation of there being many more pages created in the near future!

Have you had any feedback on the site?

There hasn't yet been any feedback on the site updates but I'll soon be sending our a mass email to all of our supporters so that they can take a look - I'm sure this will result in some feedback!

Did you do all this yourself – was it easy to do?

I did all of the re-building and re-writing myself - but I had so many ideas from the webinar and the resources on the Justgiving website that I can't take any credit for it!

What was initially a daunting task was made so easy by the Justgiving team - and Jonathan took the time to look at what I'd done and gave me some constructive feedback so that I could make further improvements. 

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

The only thing I'd like to add is that it's well worth the investment of time to re-vamp the donations part of any charity website because you very quickly reap the benefits...plus it's great fun thinking of creative ways to get people to look at the donations part of the website.

So, check out the video (it's best to open the link in a new window) and see why their re-vamped site has already lead to one more fundraiser, and remember to watch the webinar recording yourself to learn how to do the same!

Justgiving charity site of the month Feb 2008 from Jonathan @ JG on Vimeo.

Charity site of the month

OK, so it's not really a charity website per se. But it is a website that can help charities and people raising money for charities...

www.moo.com/justgiving

And yes, they are our new friends, but let me explain what this means: for years people have been asking for a way to print off their Justgiving web address (url) so they can give it people in the *real world*.

Well, now we've teamed up with Moo, printing stuff is incredibly easy to do, hugely customisable (you can have 100 different images for 100 cards) and cheap to boot - be they MiniCards, Postcards, NoteCards or Greeting cards!

You see, Moo love to print, and we love to help people raise money online. Here's what the two look like together (thanks to Francis):



So, now you can encourage your fundraisers to use Moo cards as well as email to promote their pages. Or why not even create some business cards for your charity? We use Moo for that and it rocks!

Think about it, you use DM, you know how that works. This is über Direct Marketing, where your fundraisers are handing out marketing to people, giving them a call to action face-to-face and asking them to donate.

And do you remember the Help the Hospices PDF about how to get the most of Justgiving?
Download making_the_best_of_justgiving_by_helpthe_hospices.pdf
All that needs now is a line that says "Print out your web address on cards to give to people using Moo at www.moo.com/justgiving" and Robert is your mother's brother.

But you won't really appreciate the sheer cuteness and cool-ness of Moo until you get some yourself...

Dangerous Ground - charity site of the month

December's charity website of the month is brought to us by The No More Landmines Trust, as they're responsible for the quite awesome www.dangerousground.org

As the site says:

Just getting around can be fatal for people living in landmine affected areas. To highlight the issue we tried to go round 50,000 m2 of ground without touching it and photographed every step of the way.

Well, what does that look like? Well, pretty cool, really - see the video below:

That's Lewis, he's a free runner (remember Jump London?) and member of Urban Freeflow, so he can get  50,000 m2 of London's South Bank without touching it.

Unfortunately, that's not the reality for the people who live near the 49,855 m2 Lboek Svay minefield in Cambodia, where the money raised through the site will first be spent.

Because, of course, whilst this highly imaginative campaign raises awareness, the charity also hopes to raise money. So they set up a fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/dangerousground to collect donations online.

I asked Becky Maynard, Head of Fundraising at No More Landmines, some questions about the site:

What did you want you're the dangerous ground site to achieve?

We wanted to raise awareness of the landmine issue which has a daily impact on millions of people around the world. Because the number of deaths from landmines are not newsbreaking or headline-making people don't realise the terrifying impact they have on so many people every day of their lives.

We are also aiming to raise funds to clear a specific minefield in Cambodia where people who have lived through a terrible regime, been made refugees and in almost all cases lost family members are struggling just to survive - they cannot farm their land or access clean water because of the landmine threat.

What sort of feedback have you had?

Amazing feedback and hundreds of comments on YouTube but your support could help turn more of that interest into donations! Everyone who has seen the films thinks they are fantastic (or maybe they just say that to me!!).

How successful has it been in raising awareness and getting people to donate?

So far over 85,000 people have viewed one of the dangerous ground videos and thousands have visited the website. Donations have been slower because the YouTube page does not link through to our Justgiving page! [Ed. that's easy to change :-)]

How did you get uk2.net to help you?

Through a personal contact! All of the people who featured, directed, produced, jumped off high things and the rest gave their time and skills for free - as have UK2

Why did you decide to use videos, pictures and Google maps to illustrate the project and your campaign?

In the flipbook we really wanted to create a link between a 50,000 square metre area in London and the same size are in Cambodia but also the key differences between them and the freedom to walk on the ground that we all take for granted.

The ad film is also a reminder that we can go about our daily lives without worrying what might be just below the surface. I have visited communities who literally have landmines on their doorstep and it is quite terrifying, especially when I see innocent young children running around who could have no concept of the level of the danger they face.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty / Ottawa Convention which banned the use, manufacture, transfer and stockpiling of landmines. Although it has been very successful there is still huge amounts of work to be done!

A big thanks go to Becky for answering my questions - we wish you good luck with a fantastic idea and superb website.

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On a "social web" note of interest, our attention was drawn to this site as it was one of the most popular tagged sites on del.icio.us (which can be used on Justgiving pages too!). If you don't know what that means, watch the video below:

Shackleton Foundation - site of the month

Last week I was pointed* in the direction of the Shackleton Foundations' page on Justgiving because they had a great description of what they do at www.justgiving.com/shackletonfoundation

Here it is:

Thank you for visiting the Shackleton Foundation's Justgiving website. Donating online is safe, secure, and very much appreciated. The money you donate goes straight into our bank account and helps us get towards that vital £10 million goal for the Shackleton Foundation.

This will help us all leave a lasting legacy to the great man. We think that assisting those who embody the spirit of Shackleton, by giving charitable grants to pioneering individuals or groups in any field, is the way to do this. People whose projects and aims are bold, innovative and useful no matter the age, class, colour or gender: we'll be in touch.

In the meantime, thanks again for your donation, please continue to visit our website http://www.shackletoncentenary.org and join our facebook group to keep up to date with what we're doing, and tell all your colleagues, friends and family to do the same!

This is a little longer than I'd normally suggest, but the charity are only using the Justgiving donation facility from their own website at www.shackletoncentenary.org and don't need to worry about how it would appear on fundraising pages.

It's a great precis of what they do and why they use Justgiving - definitely the best use of a description to communicate with supporters I've seen in a long time.  And it's also a good idea to promote the ways of keeping in touch, like Facebook and their website (unfortunately you can't hyperlink from the description at the moment).

What I also noticed on their website (and helped with the awarding of site of the month) were the links below to three of the most popular "social media" type websites:

Here they are on the three sites:

Flickr

Facebook

YouTube

As I said, the three sites above are incredibly popular, but more importantly free! Why don't you use them?

Just looking through them now I feel I have a great idea about what the charity is doing. Especially after reading some of the great posts from their various blog categories.

You can subscribe to their blog feed here and read about subjects ranging from The birth of an iceberg, to The Top Ten Things to take to the Pole! I've added them to my RSS reader and will be keeping up to date with their progress.

It's really interesting, and full of info about the Shackleton Centenary, which is:

In 2008-09 we intend to follow in our ancestors' footsteps, and recreate the 1909 Nimrod Expedition, originally intended to be the first mission to the South Pole.

Here's the video from their YouTube site of someone else getting to the Geographical and Ceremonial South Pole as a taster of what they'll be training for. Looks kinda cold...

Keep up the good work, and keep posting guys!

Update 14th Nov - here's what they had to say about this.

*By the now sadly departed for New Zealand Josie 

Free Rice! My charity site of the month

A big thanks to the effervescent Mike on our helpdesk for the link to this great site:
www.freerice.com

In its own words, the goal of the site is twofold:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. It's the sister site of www.poverty.com and is basically a word game: you're given a word and have to choose the right meaning, and for every word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Programme to help fight hunger.

How? Well, companies pay to advertise on the site and that money goes to help fight hunger. Clever, huh!

And from a measly 830 grains donated on the first day (the 7th October) it has *raised* a total of 195,074,730 grains as of yesterday.

I must admit to being mildly addicted: it gives me the chance to be, er, simultaneously voraciously verbose and phenomenally philanthropic...

But what makes it so addictive is that the difficulty of the words is automatically adjusted based on your answers, so you're continually playing at your own level: I got up to vocab level 42, what's yours? (Mike got to level 48, so that's put me in my place!)

Have a look at their FAQ for more info.

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.

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!

Charity Website of the Month!

During my time at Justgiving, I’ve visited a lot of charity websites (over a thousand in my first two weeks alone!) so I think I have a decent idea of what’s good and, er, less good.

I thought it would be only proper to share my experiences and to present some of the better examples, hence starting a charity website of the month feature:

And without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that the inaugural winner is…(drum roll please) the Dotty Rhino website!

When you visit www.dottyrhino.co.uk you are presented with an animated scene from Mkomazi, an area in Northern Tanzania.

It features many of the residents of the area (both human and non-human) who talk when you hover the mouse over them – I dare anyone to listen to them and not smile - it even made Zarine laugh! My personal favourite is Dave the Dung Beetle: will he ever get to where he’s going, the busy chap?

The “Dotty Dogma” states that “Our website has been created for an imaginative and considerate audience, and aims to be both educational and fun”.

I think it’s safe to say it ticks both those boxes, and you can keep up to date with them on their blog.

If the quality of their site makes you want to support them, the style is also mirrored in a rather fancy donation page created by our designer Kai (good work son):

And if you’re really curious about who Dotty is, have a look at one of their previous blog posts that lists “Five things you don’t know about me”. One of these is, “We rhino are actually the only mammals who have horns on our noses not on our heads... how special are we?!”

Could be a contender for the Famous Friday Fact…