GiveForward

Promoting your fundraiser with a widget can really help increase traffic to your page.  What is a widget and how is this magical creature supposed to help your fundraiser?  Good question.  A widget is a little box that you can paste in your blog or website that gives people a sneak peek at your fundraiser.

If you don’t have a blog, ask your friends to post the widget on their blogs or websites.  This is an easy way for them to show you support and help spread the word about your fundraiser.

Actually getting the widget into a blog or website may seem a little scary to those who aren’t very familiar with ‘code’ or the language that tells your computer what the widget should look like, but I promise it isn’t as bad as it seems.  Don’t worry, until I started working with GiveForward widgets and their code kinda scared me too.

So how does it work exactly?  Well first go to a fundraiser page and click on the link that says “Grab this fundraiser’s widget!”.  That link will lead to a window that looks like this:

Once this window opens, copy the code on the right.  Next, go to your blog or website and paste it into your main text entry box.  Once you’ve pasted this code, preview it to ensure it looks correct.

Not sure where your main text entry box is?  Check with your blogging service.  Here are a few links to some of the main blogging services and what they say about adding widgets:

• WordPress
• Blogger
• Tyepad
• Live Journal

One of the cool things about being a medical fundraising tool is that at GiveForward we get to see all of the creative and inspiring ways that friends and family fundraise on behalf of their loved ones.

We wanted to share one such story about Jason Noble, who was diagnosed with cancer.   Friends came together to help raise money for Jason and his wife, Kristin, to cover the cost of everyday expenses that exist outside of insurance coverage.

The unique thing about their fundraiser was the way the organizers encouraged donors to get involved.  In exchange for a standardized donation amount, donors received a collection of 12 art prints that were donated by artists from all around the United States.

The organizers assumed it would take at least six weeks to reach their goal of $15,000.  Instead, during the first day donors from the U.S., Australia, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and Canada had donated.  Within 12 hours of its launch, their fundraiser met and surpassed its goal, raising over $16,000!

Now, over a year later, Jason is on the road to recovery thanks to the support of his amazing group of friends.  We were inspired by not only the work Jason’s loved ones put into this fundraiser but the creativity they showed in their efforts.  A big GiveForward high-five to everyone involved in this exceptional fundraiser.

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.

February 4th is a day meant to bring hope and raise awareness of cancer and the millions of people who are fighting it.  In honor of World Cancer Day, we’d like to encourage our community to take action and support those friends and family members who are currently battling cancer.  Here’s a few ways to do this:

• If you are actively fundraising for a loved one who has been diagnosed with cancer, send an email to all your friends and family telling them about World Cancer Day.  Tell them that making a donation to your GiveForward fundraiser is the best way to participate in World Cancer Day because they personally know the person who will benefit from their contribution.
• If you are already a Giveasaurus Superstar and have made a donation to a fundraiser supporting a cancer patient on GiveForward, give yourself a big pat on the back! Now you can spread that good karma by helping promote that fundraiser to everyone you know and encouraging them to celebrate World Cancer Day the same way you did- by making a donation!
• If you haven’t helped a random stranger shovel their driveway or completed your random act of kindness lately, give to any of the wonderful projects on GiveForward that are supporting one of the millions who is battling cancer. Find a fundraiser that speaks to you.

No matter how you participate in World Cancer Day, make sure that you take a moment to celebrate those who have won the fight with cancer, to inspire those who are still fighting, and to honor the beautiful souls of those who have bravely lost the fight.

Over the past year at GiveForward, we’ve seen that there are often a flurry of donations in the two or three days before a fundraiser ends.  This happens because donors feel a greater sense of urgency towards the end of a fundraiser.  In other words, all those people you have asked to donate and who have procrastinated for weeks (or months) often seem to get their act together right before the proverbial  buzzer.

To help maximize the amount of money you raise for your cause, you’ll want to make sure you reach out to all your procrastinating amigos and family members in the final days before your fundraiser ends.   Here’s what we suggest you do to finish your fundraiser with a surge of donations: read more…

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!

When it comes to online fundraising there are two types of donors — those who donate because they care about you and those who donate because they care about your cause.  The great majority of people with GiveForward personal fundraising pages will reach out to friends and family and then stop there, which is fine in most cases.  But if you’re looking to kick some real fundraising butt, this post will show you how to get donations from people who don’t know you personally but care about your cause.

read more…

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.

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…