A Guide to Help Paying Medical Bills
Many families need help paying medical bills and GiveForward can be the quickest and easiest way to help. Before getting started, however, it’s important to come up with an organized fundraising plan.
This guide is meant for those who need help paying medical bills and is packed with surefire ways to help your next fundraiser reach its potential. If you are about to start fundraising for a friend or loved one, please take a few minutes to read through the plan below:
Step 1. Build a Fundraising Team
Before you start raising money, ask a few friends to be part of the fundraising team. With a few friends all reaching out to their different networks, your team will reach 4-5 times as many potential donors as you would by yourself.
As team leader, you will be responsible for coordinating most efforts, but your team members will be able to help you in spreading the word to a broader audience.
Step 2. Be the First Donor
Getting off to a good start is the single greatest thing you can do to make sure you reach your goal. Making the first donation is an excellent momentum builder. Donate as much as you can – this will show people the importance of the cause and help set the tone for your fundraising effort.
Step 3. Reach Out to Your Closest Network First
After you donate, notify your closest friends and family, asking them to make generous donations (e.g. $100-$500 each) to continue building momentum. Explain who the beneficiary of the fundraiser is and how this person could really use their support.
When people visit fundraising pages, one of the first things they do is check out the donor list to see who has given and the average donation size. If they see that their friends or colleagues are donating between $100 and $500, then they will be more likely to donate a similar amount.
Here is an example from a past fundraising page that illustrates why this strategy works: Team Nicole Fundraiser
On the donor list, you can see that they got big donations from their inner circle before notifying others about the effort. When the fundraiser eventually hit Facebook, the family had already raised nearly $3,000. In total, the family raised over $25,000 in just one week.
Step 4. Reach Out on Facebook
Almost all fundraisers that have raised $10,000+ on GiveForward have done so with the help of Facebook. Facebook is an amazing tool to help spread the word more quickly. Once you have reached out to your closest friends, family, work colleagues etc., go ahead and begin leveraging Facebook.
To spread the word on Facebook, set up a group for the fundraiser’s beneficiary. Invite all of your friends to join the group and be sure to ask them to ask their friends to join the group as well. Ask some of your close friends to become administrators of the group, and ask them to invite everyone they know to join the group and donate.
Once you have set up the group, you can send people updates about your friend or loved one’s health status, medical bills or just little things going on in their life. Use these updates as an opportunity to ask for donations and include a link to your GiveForward fundraising page in all of your messages.
Here is an example of a Facebook group that worked really well for a previous user who was raising money for her friend’s daughter with Leukemia. The Miss Madison Facebook Fan Club
Step 5: Be Persistent
Once you have built a large enough Facebook group (and/or email list), continue to ask people to donate. The key is to be persistent! Not everyone will donate at first, but if you keep asking (politely) for donations, you might be surprised at how many people are willing to help.