Justgiving's blog

Nom Nom Nom

This weekend, Kai and Jonno are representing Team JG at Food 2.0 Nom Nom Nom. Think of Masterchef (but without Loyd Grossman or that bossy guy that owns Smith's of Smithfields), crossed with leading food bloggers and a dash of leading UK webby types and you've got a whole day of interactive food-focused fun.

They've got to cook enough food for four (fairly hungry) people, and are being pitched against eleven other teams.

Jonno - MOAR SUNSHINE PLS

Kai - WHAT'S FOR LUNCH NOM LOL

We look forward to hearing them trounce the competition and uphold JG's excellent culinary reputation. Full report next week!

Well I Nevis

Grant Logan has just got back from a training weekend in Loch Lomond, in preparation for a pretty massive challenge. On 31st May, he’s going to climb Ben Nevis in his wheelchair, along with a team, to raise money for Scope and Capability Scotland. Phew.

We were bowled over by the sound of this hugely ambitious and slightly scary task, so we asked Grant to tell us more...

What made your mind up to do the challenge?
I’ve always been a very active person, and since my road accident 5 years ago I still try to keep pushing myself with challenges. I recently went skiing in Colorado and have been sailing and kayaking in the Lake District.

How’s your training going?
Training is difficult as it’s all upper body, but I go out pushing myself on long runs up and down my local hills.

How do you actually climb a mountain with a wheelchair?
The short answer is with a lot of help from my team! I have ropes attached to the chair that my team will help pull as and when required. There are also gates and walls that my team will have to lift me over so it’s very much a team effort in getting us to the top.

We’re rooting for you! £10,000 is a huge fundraising target – what’s your strategy?
So far the money raised has been through friends, family and work colleagues, but we are also holding a fundraising dinner and charity auction to find the additional funds we are after.

How have you found using Justgiving?
Justgiving is an amazing site and really takes the stress out of fundraising.  It makes collecting the money simple and straightforward and I would also say that we are able to raise more money by getting the message out to a much wider audience.

Have you got a Justgiving widget/badge on your blog yet?
No I haven’t, what is that?
Aha! Well our widget is like a mini version of your fundraising page and a badge works like a button – both link to your fundraising page and you can get them here.

So what are you looking forward to/dreading most about the climb?
I am looking forward to reaching the summit with the combined effort of my team - sitting on top of that mountain will feel like a real achievement for all of us - but I am dreading bad weather as that will be the major factor in if we make it to the summit or not.

Can you tell us a bit more about the work that Scope and Capability Scotland do?
Scope is a national disability organisation which focuses on people with cerebral palsy, a physical condition that affects movement. Scope’s mission is to drive the change to make our society the first where disabled people achieve equality. Our ‘Time to Get Equal’ campaign aims to build a mass movement of one million people to help achieve this. To find out more visit www.scope.org.uk

Capability Scotland is one of the leading Scottish disability organisations and has nearly 60 years' experience of providing services to disabled people of all ages in Scotland. Capability will be a major ally in supporting disabled people to achieve full equality, and to have choice and control of their lives, by 2020. Capability's mission is to transform people's expectations of what is possible and to ensure that disabled people achieve equality.

Good luck with the climb! We’re looking forward to hearing how it goes…

You can find out more about the challenge on Grant’s blog and help him and The Wheel Life team reach their target by donating through their Justgiving page.

Burma Cyclone Appeal

The photos we've seen of the devastation after the Burma cyclone are pretty shocking.

The Burmese government is making an appeal for aid and we imagine lots of you will want to help however you can.

We've made a dedicated fundraising page so it's easy for you to make a donation. 

And the winner is...

*drumroll*

Gwan Yip! And his amazing man vs. bus training challenge:

We like it because it’s original, impressive, funny, well-shot and very Londony.

Congratulations Gwan – you win a £500 donation to your page from us. It won’t quite smash your target, but it’ll come pretty close!

Well done to ALL our video competition entries. Our runners up include Harriet’s jelly baby video, for inventiveness, and Neil Dulake's post-marathon soundbite, for sheer elation :)

Of all the Rocky montages we’ve seen (and we’ve seen a lot) a special mention has to go to Jon Eckersley for his particularly entertaining version.

So that’s all for now, but make sure you watch out for more competitions on the JG blog in the not too distant future…

YouTube deadline is today!

It's a good day to load up the video editor.

Those who have already entered our £500 YouTube competition for FLM runners are numerous. And very creative.

Today is the last chance to finish up your video, embed it to your Justgiving page and email us your JG link to youtube@justgiving.com

Sophie and I will duly watch them *all* tomorrow whilst trying to make it look like we're doing real work. Then we'll pick a winner and post the results here soon afterwards.

So, fire up iMovie or MovieMaker and get cracking. You've got until midnight tonight!

Marathon's over. What now?

Now that you’ve run the marathon (sooo last week) and smashed our FLM fundraising record in the process (woohoo!) we’re wondering what you’ll be getting up to on Justgiving next…

Well first of all, we hope you’re making an awesome FLM video and sending your page URL to youtube@justgiving.com to be in with a chance of winning a £500 donation.

Then it’s time to thank your donors with some lovely Moo NoteCards, Greeting Cards or Postcards, using our special 10% discount code: MOOJGThankyou (until end of May).

Once you’ve done all that, have a look at these pages that we’ve spotted recently:

This is Steve and Caroline Simms’ massively impressive way of fundraising in memory of their mother Dorothy – with a dog sledding trek across the Artic Circle. Brrrrr.

And this is how Sarah and Alistair Metcalfe have decided to choose a name for their baby! We're glad to see someone’s already managed to crack a joke in the process J

Record-Breaking Marathon

So it's all over for another year.

We'd like to say well done to everyone who took part in the Flora London Marathon on Sunday. It was brilliant to meet so many of you at the Expo last week and we hope you all had some fun with our MOO stickerbooks.

Firstly, we'd like to say an extra special well done to Jan in our Finance team who completed the course in a highly respectable 4 hours and 26 minutes! And he's back at his desk doing spreadsheety stuff already. Top stuff.

Secondly, we made a little video from the Expo. Did you run into our *Stickermen*? Here's a snippet of their adventures:

And finally, we passed a huge milestone on Friday the 11th of April. Thanks to the 16,000+ runners using Justgiving and all the brilliant people sponsoring them, we smashed through the £1m-of-donations-in-one-day-not-including-Gift-Aid barrier.

Amazing.

2008 is proving to be another record-breaking year for online fundraising and it's all down to the hard work you guys do to get the word out and get those donations in. We're totally humbled by it.

Well done everyone! Roll on 2009 :)

PS. Our YouTube competition is still running and things are really hotting up. Read more to find out how to enter and you could win a £500 donation to your Justgiving page. Pretty useful for getting up and over that target!

Chugging? Seriously?

The internet is really good for all the stuff we find embarrassing to do in real life - and for lots of people (especially us Brits) asking for money is one of the hardest.

Today we came across two articles bemoaning the ease of giving online to support your friends from opposite ends of the publishing spectrum. One was in the Telegraph and the other said exactly the same thing in the Independent. It happened last year too.

Obviously, this week, it's highly likely that you know someone who is taking part this weekend. You might have sponsored them already, or plan to do so in the next few weeks. Odds-on you might get asked by more than one person. Decisions, decisions.

We all have our own personal rules about who or what we donate to, and it can become a contest in lots of cases. There's not much that can be done about that - communication is easier in the digital age. That's a good thing.

So here's our advice on how to prevent JG fatigue:

1. Remain anonymous.

You don't have to use your real name. Nobody will hold it against you - the internet was built on avatars after all.

2. Delete emails.

Ignoring email is much easier than ignoring someone standing infront of you with a form.

3. Give when you're ready.

There's plenty of time. Loads. Pre-JG it used to take charities months and months to get all their sponsorship money sent in. If a request comes in today, it can be dealt with when you're comfortable with it. The point is, when you do make the donation you can be safe in the knowledge you've made someone's day, regardless of the amount.

If you've got any ideas on how to make the warm and fuzzies better then please tell us, it's your website too.

*Update* The Guardian did speak some sense last month.

FLM - What to do if you're *not* taking part anymore :(

Crikey it's all happening this Sunday!

If for any reason you can't take part in the marathon this year, here's what you need to do:

1. Email your donors to find out if anyone would like a refund and collate a list of their names.

2. Contact your charity explaining why you can't take part and send them your list of refund requests. The charity then needs to send a written refund request to help@justgiving.net

3. Get in touch with our helpdesk at help@justgiving.net and ask us to set your Justgiving page to 'completed', so that people can still see your page but can't make any more donations.

If you're offered a place in next year's Marathon, it's a good idea to check whether your charity would prefer you to create a new Justgiving page or if they're happy for you to use the one you have already. We can't change the event details, but we can extend the life of the page if you get in touch with our helpdesk at help@justgiving.net

Here's what Layla did when she had to roll her marathon place over from last year to this year - we think it's a pretty nifty solution.

£500 donation up for grabs!

Marathon fundraisers listen up. We’re having a competition to find the best YouTube video on a fundraising page, and we’re giving away a £500 donation to the winner!

Up for it?

1)       Put an outstanding YouTube video on your fundraising page (instructions here)

2)       Email your fundraising page URL to youtube@justgiving.com

3)       Check this blog on 28^th April, to see the winning entry...

We’re very excited to see what you come up with. So excited, in fact, that we made our own video.

Remember, the judge’s decision is final – so no squabbling :)