The Justgiving charities blog

More than just events

Here's a question I was asked last week by Sue from the Woodspring Association for Blind People:

I realise that this [Justgiving] is a great resource for people doing sponsored events for us, but could you explain how the site can be used for other forms of fundraising please?

For Sue, and the many others who've asked that before, here's my answer...

Let's start with some charity case studies. Medecins Sans Frontieres gave us a breakfast talk last year entitled Beyond Events: Raising Funds By Unleashing Supporter Creativity.

Download the notes below to read how 'special occasion' and 'in memory' fundraising pages account for 25% of their donations through Justgiving.
Download MSF_talk.doc

WaterAid also gave a breakfast talk in August about achieving 2x growth by tapping into non-traditional revenue streams - which for them were 'celebration' pages and 'in memory' pages.

Through effective and persistent promotion, the charity had more than 50 wedding fundraising pages set up for them last year alone. Read their talk to find out how they did it:
Download wateraid_talk.doc

Another thing to remember is that fundraising pages can be created for literally anything - the only limit is the imagination of the person (or charity) raising money! Have a look at the Inspiration for Fundraisers or JG: A-Z categories on our fundraiser blog for examples of the amazing variety of things people do on the site.

We mentioned the two charity examples above, plus even more about what we term 'Non event Fundraising', in our welcome pack. Read more in the PDF below, or have a look at these past examples.

Download raise_more_money_2.pdf

Also on this theme, one of the great things about our latest charity website of the month, NAPAC, was the way they promote all these different types of fundraising on their own site.

And that is one half of the secret of 'Non event Fundraising' - both MSF and WaterAid promote the fact that Justgiving can be used for more than just events (else we'd be called Justevents...) - they give examples of these pages with strong calls to action and they reap the rewards.

Of course, having more pages depends on being lucky enough to get supporters who are motivated to take up challenges to fundraise in many weird, wonderful ways (like our very own Lee) - and that's where your job comes in :-)

Present for all - event landing pages

Here is another exciting development our techie elves have been working on this Winter: new event landing pages

This is something we've been asked to do by both fundraisers and charities, so we're really excited about how they'll be used.

Event Landing Pages

These are basically new landing pages for every public event on the site, automatically created by the system and linked to from every page created for that event.

Here's the page for the Winter Rickshaw Run:

As you can see, it gives basic information about the event (date, type etc.) but also shows how many pages have been created and how much they have all raised.

Plus, to add a bit of *user generated content*, the most recent fundraising pages created with personalised images are promoted - just click on the picture to see the page!

This event landing page is linked to from every fundraising page created for that event and the idea is that by showing how many people do raise money this way, it will encourage others to do the same.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Presents for Fundraisers - YouTube & flickr on pages

One of the most frequent requests from fundraisers is that they'd like to add more photos and videos to fundraising pages. We know that adding some personalisation can be really important in getting people to make donations, so this release should make lots of people happy!

YouTube & flickr on pages

By logging into their account on Justgiving, fundraisers can now add videos and photos from two of the most popular sites on the web: flickr and YouTube.

What does that look like? Here's an early adopter, a very quick on the draw, Laura Knight:

As Laura herself says on the page:

Thanks to some very cool updates to Justgiving you are also able to look at the photos of my adventures on flickr AND watch the hilarious cow touching video for Challenge Laura. Just click the pictures on the left. That's right...just there.

Another page that's added YouTube at the first opportunity is www.justgiving.com/angelsofthenorthwest

Nice work guys!

Here's our snazzy video guide to YouTube:

Fundraising Page Countdown

Another frequent request has been a page countdown, as many people are unsure of when their pages expire.

Now, once an event has taken place, a countdown will appear on the page to indicate how long people have left to donate:

We hope this will encourage people to donate towards the end of a fundraising page's life, giving one last boost to a fundraising total before the page closes.

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.

****
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:

Silver Surfers raise 38% more online

Today's post is a fantastic case study about how the so-called silver surfers can use the power of the internet to raise money,  put together by the glamorous Becs:

Christian Aid’s ‘silver surfer’ open day

The problem

Christian Aid performed a detailed analysis of their 2006 events and found that the event ‘In the footsteps of Moses’, a trek through the Egyptian Sinai desert, had not generated any income online.

The reason for this became clear when it was discovered that the age range of the participants for this event was between fifty and seventy.  Alison Gregory from Christian Aid said:

This core audience wasn’t completely familiar with the internet and we wanted to let them know all that the internet has to offer in terms of online sponsorship.

The solution

Rather than write these fundraisers off as internet fundraising ‘lost causes’, Christian Aid decided that it needed to provide them with more help than usual, and chose to invite all fourteen of their next Sinai Desert trekkers to an interactive open day at the charity’s central office.

Alison explains:

It was really easy to set up. We just included an online sponsorship session in our information morning for participants, which we do anyway as part of our communications strategy. At this session we talk about the work Christian Aid does and we all get to meet each other and then we discuss the logistics of the trip with them.

Ten out of the fourteen people we invited came – at the end we did a thirty minute session with them where we gave them lots of fundraising tips, talked about online sponsorship and demonstrated how easy it is to set up a Justgiving fundraising page.

The result

Alison reports that this particular trek raised £60,000 of which £23,000 (even excluding Gift Aid) came in online, which wouldn’t have been raised otherwise:

It was great for us because it meant that people were emailing their pages to relatives and friends all over the world, and not only getting more sponsorship but raising our profile by writing about Christian Aid in their emails

Thanks very much to Alison and Christian Aid for sharing their story, not to mention all you keen silver surfer fundraisers out there!!!

And for an extra special example, here's our very talented designer Kai showing his Gran how to make a donation online:

Showing gran how to use Justgiving.com from Kai Chan Vong on Vimeo.

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.

Czech-mate!

Whilst I was at the London Marathon Expo yesterday, I met loads of great fundraisers and said 'hi' to a lot of charities, but one of the most interesting people who came over to our stand (316) was Jakub Zeman.

Jakub is running for Tusk Trust and his page is at http://www.justgiving.com/bino

The great thing about his page is that he's translated the usual Justgiving blurb into Czech for all his friends and family.

Apparently, "Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure" translates as "Sponzorství přes tuto stránku je jednoduché, rychlé a úplně bezpečné" in Czech. But then, you all knew that anyway.

And Jakub is not the only polyglot on Justgiving... According to Marcus Pfaff the same phrase is "Das Spenden durch diese Web Seite ist einfach, schnell und absolut sicher" auf Deutsch. En espanol, it is "Donar por esta via es simple, rápido y seguro" thanks to Roberto Messuti

You can also visit Adriana Eggleton's page to learn how to fundraise in Spanish: Solo haz click donde dice "Sponsor us now" (which I understand thanks to the wonderful Teresa Garcia at King's College MLC)

Remember, Justgiving fundraising pages can be used by people all over the world to raise funds for UK charities (as per our help section here).

So, watch out for a Juste Donnent, Apenas Dando or Gerade Gebend ("just giving" in French, Spanish in German thanks to babelfish) coming soon to a fundraising page near you!

 

JG Clinic open to patients

In order to help further the fundraisers on Justgiving, we recently started a new series of posts on our blog called the JG Clinic.

Our User Marketing Manager, Simon Doggett, explains the thinking behind it:

The JG Clinic was born through charity supporters. Lots of them have made brilliant fundraising pages in the past and it's important to share best practice with the community.

The quality of a personal message and photo along with savvy email marketing can greatly increase an individual's donations.

It's our duty to share the knowledge we have with others trying to raise funds, so we created an environment for users to learn and join in.

You can see all the posts made so far by clicking here. We would encourage you to send this link to your supporters and/or promote it on your website.

We share our own hints & tips in the forum, but as Simon says, following others fundraisers’ tried and tested examples can really lead to receiving more donations.

And we all know that we should do what Simon says...

How badges promote pages

Simon announced back in February the release of Justgiving Badges that can be used to promote a fundraising page.

These are small images that a user can post on any website to link to their fundraising page and they've since proved really popular.

This is what they look like...

...and you can see them in action on Noel’s blog or on the MySpace pages for Gaz, Jayne and Chris.

Simon's also posted a video to show how you can add one to your email signature.

Badges are very easy to use, and the steps are the same as for getting a “widget”. If you go to any fundraising page and click on “promote this page” under the thermometer, you should then click on “Grab a fundraising widget” and you can either use a widget, or copy and paste the html for the badges.

We have offered badges to fundraisers as the code our widgets use (iframes) is not supported on some social networking sites like bebo and Facebook. We are currently developing a new version of widgets that will work on these sites.

There's a Forum for 'em

We try to provide as much help and support to your fundraisers as we can at Justgiving, ranging from the good old helpdesk manned by real people (on 0845 021 2110 or help@justgiving.net) to the JG Clinic on our blog.

Try as we might though, there are some questions we just can't answer (although not always as bizarre as “What time is Sandra climbing the mountain?”)  that only a fellow fundraiser can: what are the best shoes to  wear for my run, how did you find the last thousand metres of Everest, what's the quickest route from Land's End to John o'Groats?...

This is where the marvellous Justgiving Community comes in:

The Community is a place filled with forums where fundraisers chat about their efforts, share hints and tips and ask questions of the people who really know what they're going through.

If your supporters don't know about it, have a look at these three great threads to see why they should:

"Jb5" asked about a Cycle India event, and the thread has had a massive 186 replies.

Jen is doing a trek to Machu Piccu and wanted to meet other people doing the same thing.

Alasdair is climbing Kilimanjaro in June and wanted some advice from the forum - he found other people taking the challenge for different charities at different times willing to help out.

The above threads show how the forum can not only be a useful resource but can also foster a sense of community amongst the amazing fundraisers on the Justgiving website.

So whilst we all chase the web 2.0 dream on the so-called "social-web", let's not forget the power of the humble forum.

Creating donor evangelists?

I've just read one of the recent posts from the excellent Donor Power Blog entitled, Want your donors to do your marketing for you? that started:

Wouldn't you just love to have an army of donor-evangelists who are so dedicated to your organization that they not only give to you, but also find and motivate others to give?

This made me think of Simon's recent post on our fundraiser blog about the spread of widgets. It features the story of the current top fundraiser for the Clatterbridge Cancer Campaign on the Justgiving website.

The page creators, Natalya Jagger and Andrew McGill, have their own website at http://www.rosemcgill.co.uk/ that gives more information about their fundraising, and the key thing is how they have motivated many other bloggers to feature the "widget" for their fundraising page.

As Simon showed, they have a page that holds all the code required to promote their page:

Anyone who visits their site is presented with an easy way of "spreading the word" for their cause when they click on the "help us" link. And as Natalya told Simon, "At the moment we have around 30-40 blogs and websites that show the widget for us."

The average Justgiving fundraiser emails their link to around 30 people, but the net tends to end there. With the example above, however, you can see how the reach of one page can be expanded from the contacts of one person to the contacts of all their contacts and so on.

Is this donor evangelism in action?

Your fundraiser could be a star on the Justgiving homepage

We urgently need fundraising and training photos to refresh our revolving gallery of fundraisers on the Justgiving.com homepage. Up to 40,000 users visit the homepage every day – and having photos up there is a great way to publicise your fundraisers. And of course, by publicising your fundraisers, you’re publicising your charity too!

All you need to do is ask your supporter (or do it yourself if you have the photo) to email us the photo plus the web address of their fundraising page
(ie, www.justgiving.com/paula-robertson)
to photos@justgiving.com.

We’re looking for great photos of your supporters fundraising, whether that means running, cycling, or even having their head shaved! Photos of them fundraising on their own or as part of a team are equally welcome.

Now for the small print:

Please make sure that your fundraiser has received a few donations on their fundraising page before sending us their photo-- remember, we're using your pages as examples of how online fundraising works!

Not every photo we receive will be posted on the homepage but if your image is chosen we will let you know promptly. The photo will stay up on the Justgiving.com homepage for approximately 1-2 months, in rotation with other photos (just keep on refreshing the homepage!).

If you do not hear from us within five working days of sending us your photo please assume that your submission was not successful on that occasion. We are sorry not to be able to respond individually to every request. Justgiving selects photos at its absolute discretion.