Justgiving's blog

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 :)

Jan is running the marathon!

Our very own Finance Manager, Jan, has impressed us all by deciding to run the London marathon. You can see how seriously he's taking his training, read our encouraging messages and sponsor him here: www.justgiving.com/janbraglewicz

He’ll be the second person from Justgiving to undertake the challenge - the first was our ex-Content Editor Caro back in 2004: www.justgiving.com/caroline

We’re very proud to have another member of the Justgiving office joining the ranks of so many of our impressive Justgiving FLM runners and fundraisers.

So good luck Jan (and everyone else) and keep up the good work!