GiveForward

Fundraiser organizers will see new functionality starting this week.  We are excited to share that we are now assigning a personal fundraising coach to each fundraiser started on GiveForward.

What does this mean for users?  It means you get the exact level of personal attention that you want.  Is this your first time fundraising?  Our coaches are

happy to help you figure out the next steps and share their tried and true fundraising tips, just email them at info@giveforward.com or give them a call at 312-957-6113.

Are you an old pro at fundraising and just want someone to call on if you get stuck?  They’re there for that too.

Plus having a personal fundraising coach also means you get a nice glossy photo of your coach with your introductory email.  Always a nice perk.

We hope that you guys enjoy working one-on-one with our coaches as much as they enjoy working with you.

Thanks to all of our amazing Giveasauruses (Giveasauri?) we have officially hit our $4million mark.  That means that over 49,000 donations have been made by people just like you.

These donations have changed lives and helped people cope with everything from an unexpected cancer diagnosis to rebuilding after a fire.  So we want to take a moment to say a big GiveForward THANK YOU to everyone who takes a little time every day to give.  It is donors like the Quinn Family, who made the $4millon donation to the fundraiser “Help Support Margie Bersterman” that are changing the world one dollar at a time.

Way to go, Giveasauruses; you are all rockstars!!

As you all can tell from the probably-too-large archive of them, Fundraising Tips are our specialty.  But let’s give credit where credit is due- we learn a lot of strategies from our users.  Successful fundraisers typically follow a similar pattern that we outline in our Fundraising Bootcamp. We also understand that every fundraiser is unique, so what works for one person may not work for the next.

Sunshine BenBelkacem is a great example of just that. Her fundraiser, Oliver’s Elbow, found it’s success from two main strategies that don’t usually work for our users: an off-line fundraising event and Twitter.  We hope that some of our users can learn from her success! read more…

We used to tell our members at GiveForward that there are three Ps to successful online fundraising: personalization, promotion, and persistence.  Recently, however, we came to the conclusion that it was time to update this basic strategy for the 21st century.  We now tell our members that if they want to be successful they need to follow the three Ps and an F.

The F, of course, stands for Facebook.  Over the last few years, we’ve seen that almost every medical fundraiser that has raised more than $10,000 on GiveForward has does so because of Facebook – it is simply the most effective tool for getting the word out about a fundraiser and getting it to spread quickly.  Here are four of the best strategies on how to use Facebook to help you reach your goal.

1. Create a Facebook Group.

Creating a Facebook group will allow you to get the word out about your fundraiser and keep your friends and family informed with news and updates.  As the group organizer you can send messages to all group members and use it as your platform to ask for donations.  Make sure to invite a few of your friends to become group admins and encourage their friends to invite their friends as well.  The larger the group, the greater the potential for donations.

read more…

One of our users on GiveForward.org recently had a great idea on how to raise a TON of money in a single day.  Erica Flament had a GiveForward fundraising page for her friend’s daughter Maddie who was battling Leukemia. In total, Erica raised over $10,000 to help with Maddie’s cancer treatments.  One of the more creative strategies Erica had was to hold a birthday fundraiser for Maddie that raised over $1500 in a single day.  Here’s how she did it.

To celebrate Maddie’s 6th birthday, Erica sent out a request to friends and family on Facebook asking that they each give $6 to Maddie’s GiveForward fundraising page to help Maddie beat cancer.  Through the amazing power of Facebook, word spread and over 85 people ended up donating on Maddie’s birthday.   Many of the donations were for $6 but many more were for $16, $26, $56 and even $106.

One thing that was helpful for Erica was that she was persistent.  She didn’t just send one Facebook message and hope that everyone would remember to donate.  She sent a couple reminder emails as the date approached and asked that people share it with their friends.

Holding a fundraiser on Maddie’s birthday was a really creative way to get people to give, buy you don’t necessarily need a birthday for this strategy to work.  You can pick any date on the calendar and then ask for donations for the amount of money that corresponds with that date.

For example, you could send a message to your friends and your Facebook group that says: “Let’s help raise $1000 for Joe on the 10th of the month.  If you can afford it, please donate $10 to Joe’s GiveForward fundraising page here [insert your URL here] and tell your friends as well.  If we get 100 people to donate, we will reach our goal!”

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.
read more…

A 24-hour Facebook awareness campaign is when you ask all your friends to “donate” their Facebook status message for 24 hours to help spread awareness about your fundraiser. One of our users did this a little while back and raised over $1000 in a 24-hour period.

Here’s how you do it.

• Step one: Set up a Facebook group or event  (either one will work). You’ll want to set this group or event up 7-10 days before you plan on having the 24-hour campaign so as to give your friends enough time to know about it and invite others to join.

• Step two: Invite all your friends to the group or event, asking them to donate their Facebook status message for 24 hours.  For example, let’s say you are raising money for your friend Jim who is battling cancer.  You might want to write something like:

“As many of you know, our good friend Jim Smith was recently diagnosed with cancer, and we need YOUR help!  We have set up a fundraiser page on GiveForward.org to raise money to cover his medical bills.  On May 17 we are holding “HELP JIM DAY” on Facebook to raise money and awareness for Jim.  Starting at 1:00 PM on May 17 and lasting until 1:00 PM on May 18 we’re asking everyone to update their status message to ‘HELP JIM @ www.giveforward.org/JimSmith’.  IMPORTANT!! We need as many people updating their status message  as possible to make this work, so PLEASE invite your friends to join this group.  Even if your friends might not know Jim personally, please encourage them to ‘donate’ their status message for 24 hours.  Thanks in advance.  This will make a HUGE difference for Jim.” read more…

When you are fundraising, the great majority of your donations come from family, friends and friends of friends so it’s up to you to promote the heck out of your project.  Mostly you’re going to promote your fundraising page through emails, a Facebook group if you’ve created one and perhaps even the good old fashion way of face to face interaction.

But what do you do in those rare moments when you are not emailing/calling/facebooking the world to let them know about your awesome fundraising efforts?  Well, you should keep the fact that you are fundraising for a good cause at the forefront of your friends’ minds by adding your fundraising page’s link to your Facebook, Gchat, or AIM status message.

read more…