GiveForward

Fundraising doesn’t have to be tough.  GiveForward’s team is here to help you get started with a few easy steps to get your fundraiser up and going.

Here are the best of the best from our Fundraising Coaches:

1. Personalize your fundraising page. People want to know the person behind the cause.  Explain who or what you’re fundraising for and why it is so close to your heart.  If your friends and family see that you are passionate about your cause they are more likely to give generously.  Need inspiration?  Check out these ideas on how to personalize your page.

2. Get the word out. The more people you tell about your page the better it will do.  Talk about it with everyone you meet, you never know when someone might be interested.

• Email everyone you know!  Even if you haven’t spoken to them in years you’ll be surprised how many people will decide to donate.
• When you reach out to your friends and family, ask them to share your cause with their friends and family.  We have an easy to use “Tell-a-friend” button on your page, encourage them to click away!
• Set up a Facebook group that includes a link to your GiveForward fundraising page.  This is another easy way that friends and family can spread the word to their networks as well.  Tell people to invite others and get the word out there.

3. Send updates. This ties into personalizing your cause.  By keeping friends and family updated on the progress of the fundraiser and the cause, people will be much more invested in the outcome and will be inclined to encourage others to get involved.  Plus, while some people may donate the first time around, for most people it takes 2-3 friendly reminders to get them to make a donation.  It is OK to be respectfully persistent.  Read more here about how and when to send out email/Facebook updates.

4. Be strategic. While it is important to let everyone know about your efforts, we suggest emailing your closest friends and family first.  This is a great way to build momentum.  Your inner circle of friends and family will tend to be the most generous donors and if they donate first they can set the tone.  If colleagues and other acquaintances head to your fundraising page and see donations from others, they will be more likely to follow suit and make similar sized donations. Read more about strategic fundraising.

5. It is OK to adjust your goal. Again, building momentum can really impact how successful your fundraiser ends up.  People love watching how their donations bump that little needle up on your fundraising meter.  But if your goal is too big, donors may feel like their contribution didn’t have much of an impact.  By setting a modest goal for yourself and quickly reaching fundraising milestones like 10% and 25% of your goal you can build a lot of momentum and get your donors excited about helping you reach your goal.  If you end up flying through your fundraiser and think you need to increase your goal – go for it! Read more about why people who set modest goals end up raising more money.

6. People like to win stuff. A great way to get people to donate is by offering them a raffle prize.  For instance when you email your contacts you might include a note that you will be raffling off a $25 Starbucks gift card to the first 25 people who donate.  This creates extra incentive and encourages people to donate sooner rather than later.  Check out more tips here.

7. Tell your story. Local media is usually more than happy to write about your efforts, particularly if you are holding an event such as a fundraising dinner or bake sale.  Check out our simple tips to learn how to get your story in the paper.

8. Make your campaign go viral. The most successful fundraising campaigns are the ones that go “viral” on the internet.  The results can be incredible with hundreds of people donating across the country and raising thousands of dollars for a cause.  Although not every campaign will go viral, here are some tips to help get you there:

• Make sure to get off to a good start with a big donation off the bat.  This will give you great momentum and get people talking about your campaign.
• Ask friends and family to spread the word.  When you send out your email appeal, make sure to ask everyone to forward the email to others or share the GiveForward page by using the “Tell-a-friend” button.
• Start a Facebook group with a link to your fundraising page.  Invite all your “Facebook friends” and ask five “real friends” to invite everyone they know to your group as well.
• Create a 24 hour Facebook Awareness Campaign where everyone donates their status message for one day.  Learn how here.
• Get bloggers involved.  If you know anyone who blogs, reach out to them.  Bloggers are always looking for new content but make sure it fits in with the theme of their blog (ex. if they’re a mom who blogs about parenting, make sure to highlight how your fundraiser is helping kids).

9. Thank your donors. Make your mom proud by displaying your good manners and thanking people who have supported your fundraiser.  When you create your fundraising page you can draft a thank you message that automatically goes out whenever someone makes a donation.  Additionally, you can send a thank you email to each donor individually by logging into your account and clicking on the “My Donors” tab.  From there you can send a personalized thank you email.  For those who go the extra distance by spreading the word to others or making a big donation, make sure you go the extra distance for them as well and send a hand-written note.

10.  Have fun! Last but not least, always remember to have fun.  Fundraising shouldn’t be a chore but a way to spread the word about something you care about.  If you’re excited and positive about the fundraiser’s progress your friends and family will be too.

GiveForward co-founder Ethan Austin sat down with Robbie Abed of The Startup Foundry to talk a little about GiveForward’s mission and how far we’ve come in a short amount of time.

From 1 visitor a day to raising $4m for charity, Give Forward’s feel good story
by Robbie Abed on Feb 17, 2011 • 3:45 pm View Comments

I had the great opportunity to speak with Ethan Austin, co-founder of GiveForward (http://www.giveforward.org). Give Forward is a Chicago based startup that helps people raise money for their medical expenses. Ethan speaks about how they once had only 1 visitor on new years day, to being able to get funding a year later. The excerpt of the interview is below:

In one or two sentences, explain what GiveForward does.
GiveForward is a crowdfunding platform for medical expenses. In a nutshell, we make it incredibly easy for friends and family raise money for things like chemotherepy treatments or organ transplants when their loved one gets sick.

How long has Give Forward been around?
We launched in 2008.

Was Give Forward bootstrapped or funded?
We bootstrapped for the first two-and-a-half years but recently got funding.

Explain what the first 0-6 months were like for Give Forward. How did you get it off the ground?
Wow! To say the first six months were rough would be a massive understatment. We launched the site in August of 2008 and on January 1st, 2009 we had one visitor on GiveForward that day — literally ONE visitor! For the most part, our attempts at gaining traction involved coercing our friends and family to start fundraising pages. I enlisted about 25 of my college buddies and their girlfriends to run 5 miles through Central Park for the cause of their choice in in an event we dubbed “run for a reason” . I think we helped raise about $13,000 from the event, which probably accounted for like half of the donations on the site the first six months. It was kind of ridiculous back then.

We really didn’t start to see any traction on the site until about nine months in when two Chicago sisters from Depaul used GiveForward to raise $30,000 for a kidney transplant. After that, we received some media coverage and things started to pick up a bit.

[Editors note:] Give Forward has already raised $3,527,462 for medical expenses and other important causes. Talk about a startup making an impact on the world![/Editors note:]

How did you acquire funding. Was a prototype built before funding?
Last summer, we got accepted into a Chicago startup accelerator called Excelerate Labs, which turned out to be a game changer for us. Through Excelerate, we were able to demo at the House of Blues in front of 500 investors from around the county. My partner, Desiree, gave a pretty awesome presentation which really opened the doors for us. From there, Tim Krauskopf, one of the mentors at Excelerate helped us round up some investors. We also used Angel List, which I highly recommend, to secure the final part of our round.

How big is the team?
We have a team of seven right now plus a few really awesome interns.

Being a Chicago startup, do you find it harder to succeed then if you were in silicon valley as an example
Not at all. I know it’s a cliche, but the Chicago startup community is really coming into its own right now. Groupon has obviously helped to bring a ton of attention to Chicago, but things like Excelerate Labs, MidVentures Tech Week, and Social Dev Camp are changing the landscape in Chicago and helping to build a strong community here. Granted, funding is always going to be an issue and there is no Sand Hill Road in Chicago, but with tools like Angel List democratizing the VC industry, the need to be in Silicon Valley isn’t nearly as great as it used to be.

What is your biggest challenge now?
Educating people and getting the word out. That’s always been the hardest part. When a loved one is going through a serious health issue like cancer, their friends and family usually feel pretty helpless and don’t know what they can do to help. Our goal is make sure they are aware of our service. Once people find out about GiveForward, they always love it. We just need to let more people know about it.

Thanks to Ethan for the interview. All the best to GiveForward. For more startup news, follow us on twitter @startupfoundry.

You can also follow the author on twitter @robbieab.

BuzzRaid.com is a website that reviews startups and websites.  Recently, they posted a review about GiveForward that provides an objective look at our company and the services we provide.

Feel free to check out the site here or read the review below for more information on what they consider our strengths and details on how they believe we can continue to work to expand on the services we provide.

A big thanks to BuzzRaid for taking the time to evaluate GiveForward.

GiveForward – Fundraising for Out-Of-Pocket Medical Expenses

GiveForward located at giveforward.com is a startup that is focused on making it easy for people to have fundraisers to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses as well as pets medical expenses and other causes. The company has claimed to help raise over $3.5 million so far (since 08?) for families with out-of-pocket medical expenses.

The company has investments from Tim Krauskopf, Ed Chandler, New World Ventures, David Cohen, Social Leverage and Excelerate Labs. GiveForward is located in Chicago, Illinois.

Why It Could Be Big:
There are plenty of people out there who are having trouble with outrageous medical expenses for life-saving surgeries that may not be covered by their insurance. If GiveForward can help people with these expenses during tough times it can help a large number of families and become a stable business at the same time. At this point they charge a 7% fee which may seem a little high but does include the credit card fees of 2.5%+ as well as SSL encryption and more. The amount they take is less than most traditional charities and having stable revenue will let the company expand with more options instead of having to scrape by and end up closing like many in this space have.

GiveForward looks to have a good plan in place to verify campaigns which would be one of my main concerns when donating money. They verify personal information as well as talk to references and do their own research. There is typically no fool-proof model to completely stop fraud but the process they have in place should weed out almost all. Overall GiveForward could be big if they can continue to make it a simple process to start and manage fundraisers while adding in social aspects to help it spread through Twitter and Facebook.

We are very excited to announce GiveForward has raised $500,000 in its first round of funding.

After meeting some fantastic people during our participation in Excelerate, we were able to do some creative fundraising and are now ready to expand on the services we currently provide.  With this backing we will now be able to grow our team and bring on additional fundraising coaches so we can continue to provide the best service possible to our fundraisers.

Feel free to check out the story featured in the Chicago Tribune, TechCrunch and FastCompany:

Chicago startup GiveForward raises $500K

By Wailin Wong
Posted today at 8:45 a.m.

GiveForward, a Chicago-based startup that helps people raise money for out-of-pocket medical expenses, has raised $500,000 in its first round of funding.

Desiree Vargas Wrigley and Ethan Austin started GiveForward in 2008 and had looked for some funding at that time, but “what we kept hearing from investors is: ‘You should be a non-profit,’” Vargas Wrigley said. She and Austin funded the company themselves, with Vargas Wrigley waiting tables at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba in Lincoln Park in the meantime.

The GiveForward platform allows people to create personalized fundraising pages and share their cause through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. GiveForward collects the donations, which can be done through credit or debit cards, and passes them along to the beneficiary after deducting 7 percent for processing fees. The company said its users have raised $3.5 million since the company’s inception and about 10,000 users have joined the site, with almost half of them signing up in the last six months.

In 2010, GiveForward was one of 10 companies chosen for the inaugural class of Excelerate, a Chicago-based program that awards funding to startups and provides mentorship from experienced investors and entrepreneurs. Through the Excelerate program, Vargas Wrigley and Austin connected with Tim Krauskopf, a serial entrepreneur and former Motorola Inc. executive who had co-founded Spyglass Inc., the software firm that developed the basis for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.

Krauskopf gave the GiveForward team advice and cultivated a group of investors behind the scenes. He became the lead investor for the company’s fundraising round, which also includes several angel investors and New World Ventures, the Chicago venture capital firm that invests on behalf of the Pritzker family.

“There are a lot of fantastic new tech ventures coming out of Chicago right now and GiveForward is one of the best,” Krauskopf said in a statement. “It is a truly viral service that leverages social networking for a real, productive purpose.”

The $500,000 will allow GiveForward to expand its staff. Austin and Vargas Wrigley drew their first paychecks in January and recently hired a marketing employee and an in-house developer. Vargas Wrigley said the startup plans to hire another five to seven people this year, with most of them serving as fundraising coaches that work one-on-one with the site’s users.

GiveForward also plans to work more closely with hospitals and private clinics so doctors and nurses can recommend GiveForward to the families of patients that might be struggling financially or could benefit from the support of an online community, Vargas Wrigley said.

Vargas Wrigley said her startup’s success in getting funding speaks to how “the funding climate is changing in Chicago.”

“Companies really can be mission-driven or social ventures and still produce return,” she said.

GiveForward Raises $500K To Be The Kickstarter For Medical Expenses

By Leena Rao
Posted today at 2:40 p.m.

GiveForward, an online fundraising tool for medical expenses, has raised $500,000 in funding from Tim Krauskopf, New World Ventures, David Cohen, Ed Chandler, Social Leverage and Excelerate Labs.

GiveForward, which was incubated in Chicago’s Excelerate Labs, wants to become the Kickstarter for medical expenses. The platform allows anyone to create customizable fundraising pages where friends and family from across the world can donate online.

To make money, GiveForward deducts 7 percent of all donations. Since 2008, 10,000 users have joined GiveForward with the startup helping families raise nearly $3.5 million for their loved ones’ out-of-pocket medical expenses. GiveForward also gives users tips on fundraising, allows them to socialize their pages on Facebook and Twitter and more.

Normally on GiveForward we offer our readers tips on how to raise money online, however, one of our users gave us a good offline fundraising tip so we thought we’d pass it along.  GiveForward user Laura Wilson has let us know about another way to fundraise for medical expenses.  Laura Wilson and Chick-fil-A have partnered in order to raise money for Team Nicole.  How it works is, fliers are given to Team Nicole to distribute.  Then you take your flier to the local Chick-fil-A restaurant during a certain time period and 20% of the sales are donated to Team Nicole.   

There are many restaurants out there that are doing similar things for individuals and other non-profit organizations.  Panera Bread offers gift cards to be purchased at a discounted rate and then re-sold.  But if selling gift cards isn’t your thing, there are other options as well.
 
Chipotle, (a favorite spot of a certain second banana here at GiveForward) offers in-restaurant fundraisers similar to that of Chick-fil-A.  If you’re more into pizza than chicken and burritos, Cici’s Pizza will host your fundraiser at one of their restaurants and donate a portion of the proceeds to your cause.  My favorite option however is the FUN-Raiser offered by Sweet Tomatoes, one of the greatest places on earth.  They will donate 20% of the proceeds to your organization and provide you with fliers to pass out to friends and family.
 
Supplementing your online fundraising with hosting one of these events is a great way to get friends and family together for your cause.  It’s also a great way to kick start your online fundraiser and build confidence going forward with your fundraiser.

GiveForward is thankful to have the ability to help those in need.  However, one sweet lady took it upon herself to turn the tables and fundraise for us!  A few months ago, Kim Sutton-Rainey used GiveForward to fundraise for a friend of hers who is battling cancer.  She was so happy with the results and services we offered that she contacted co-founder Ethan Austin to see if we had any needs.

Through her discussion with Ethan, she learned that one of the most requested features from our users  is a fundraising widget that they could stick on their blogs or websites.  The widget would greatly increase our scope of outreach and make it even easier for our users to raise money for their loved one’s medical expenses.

What Kim did next blew us away and was completely humbling! After finding out our needs, Kim set up her own fundraising page here on GiveForward to raise money for us!  Kim, excited about the idea of the widget says “this will truly be the gift that keeps on giving!”  Through her fundraiser, she hopes to reach out to those that support our organization and want to further our mission of giving forward.  We are incredibly flattered and humbled by the initiative she took to help us out and would like to thank her by giving her a special shout-out for her efforts.

We think that Kim exhibits a selflessness that is vital for creating a better tomorrow, and for that we are knighting her with the honorary title of Fantastic Fundraising Friend of GiveForward!

If you’re curious about this amazing friend of ours, you can check out her full story and fundraising page here.

In previous posts on the GiveForward Fundraising blog, I’ve mentioned the importance of getting off to a good start with your personal fundrasing page.  The reason you want to get off to a good start is because people usually play follow the leader.  In other words, most people will come to your fundraising page, check out how much previous donors gave and then give a similar amount.  So if you start with a bunch of $100 or $200 donations you’ll do a lot better than if your first few donations are for $5 or $10.  As I’ve mentioned before, one way to get off to a good start is ask your 5 closest friends and family to donate a specific amount (say $100) to get the ball rolling.

However, another great way is to simply lead by example.  If you put some skin the game by making the first donation for a significant amount, others are going to follow your lead.  Think about it.  What better way is there to show people how sincere you are about your cause than by leading with your actions!

1.  Personalize your fundraising page as much as possible with a heartfelt description and lots of photos.  The fundraisers who do the best are the ones who really make an effort to tell their stories.  Explain to your donors what you are raising money for and why it is so important to you.  If your friends and family see that you are passionate about your fundraising efforts, they are more likely to give and give generously.  More tips on how to personalize.

2.  Promote Promote Promote! The more you promote your fundraising page the better it will do. Here are the best ways to promote

• Email everyone you know! Even if you haven’t spoken to them in years, you’ll be surprised at how many people will decide to donate when you ask.
• When you email your friends and family ask them to share your page with their friends and co-workers using the “Tell-a-friend” button on your page.
• Set up a Facebook group that includes a link to your GiveForward fundraising page.  If you have a Facebook account definitely set up a group.  This has been far and away one of the most successful strategies for our users.
• Add the URL from your fundraising page to your email signature
• Add the URL to your AIM, Gchat or Facebook status message

3.  Send email or facebook updates to your friends and family. One of the single most important tips to online fundraising is to be persistent.  While some people will donate the first time you ask them, the reality is that it will take at least 2-3 friendly reminders before the majority of your friends and family open up their wallets for you. Fundraisers who keep their donor base engaged with frequent updates tend to be the most successful. Read more here about how and when to send out email/Facebook updates.
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This week’s fundraising tips come from Connie Stofko of Fundraising Assets. Fundraising Assets provides fundraising clients with services such as newsletters, websites, e-mail campaigns, print campaigns, etc.—whatever they need. Connie writes appeal letters, press releases, and a variety of other materials for nonprofit organizations. She’s an award-winning writer with over 25 years experience, and she graciously took the time to give us some great ideas!

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When you’re asking for donations, you need to do two things:

1. Tell an emotional story.

2. Tell people how the money they donate will be used.

This is no different from what nonprofit organizations must do in their fundraising appeal letters. However, for personal fundraisers, the storytelling may  be easier. You’re raising money because someone you know needs help, or because you’re personally excited about the work of a charity. Make sure you tell people that emotional, personal story.

Here is an example of how a nonprofit organization, Friends of Night People did a good job telling a personal story:

Lynn came to us on a Sunday evening. She had no food or money, just one bag of clothing. She had no place to stay. Lynn was depressed after having spent the previous night in what she described as ‘terrible conditions.’ She felt alone.

The first thing we did was feed her and let her know we care. Then we found Lynn a safe place to stay until Monday morning. On Monday other human service agencies would be open and we could put her in touch with people who could also help her. We did not leave that evening until we were assured she would be able to begin her tomorrow with strength and hope.

And another good example from the Ronald McDonald House of Buffalo:

“If Alyssa didn’t get the surgery, she could die,”  said her mother, Crystal Arnold. “If the Ronald McDonald House wasn’t here, we couldn’t afford to come to Buffalo.”

The letter continues to tell in detail how the Ronald McDonald House of Buffalo helped the out-of-town family during their visits to Buffalo to get treatment for their little girl’s medical condition.

There are a couple of things to notice here:

1. We tell a personal story.

We didn’t say, “Many people come to Friends of Night People because they are poor and hungry.” We told the story of Lynn and put a face on the problem.

2. We explain the solution.

For the family with the little girl who needed medical treatment, the solution was staying at the Ronald McDonald House. While we do address the girl’s health problems, that’s not the focus of the story. The focus of the story is how the Ronald McDonald House helped the family.

Make sure you tell your audience how  the money they donate will help the problem you have outlined. Sometimes it’s easy to explain. For example, the money may be used to buy a motorized wheelchair for Alysha Jones. In other cases it might not be as clear.  For example, you may be raising money in the name of someone who has died. You might have to explain that the money is going for research into a cure for people who, like your late friend Jimmi Adams, have been diagnosed with cancer.

To tell a good story, make sure you “put a face on the problem.” And don’t forget to tell your audience how their donation will help the person in your story (or people like that person).

Here’s a quick and easy way to create a little extra awareness for your fundraising campaign.

Add a link to your personal fundraiser page to your email signature.  You never know who is going to see it and decide to donate.

To add a signature in Gmail, click on the “Settings” link.

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