Fundraising is a key component for most social good campaigns and projects. Thanks to the the Internet and the social web, raising money for a non-profit, community project or charitable organization or relief effort is easier than ever before.
The web makes it possible to get your message across and collect money from people all over the world and to include your social graph in the process.
If you have an idea or a cause that you want to bring awareness to and raise funds around, there are lots of great online tools to help get you started. Whether you want to raise money for a local community center or help fundraise as part of a broader social good campaign, these tools make it easy to get the word out and collect the funds you need.
1. FirstGiving
The U.S. subsidiary of JustGiving.com, FirstGiving lets users raise money for any non-profit in the GuideStar database.
It’s free to create a basic account, but if you pay $300 you can fully customize your donations page and link them back to your own website. FirstGiving lets you create fundraising around upcoming events, marathons and walk-a-thons too, which is a nice touch. The processing fee for donation is 5% plus another 2% for credit card transactions.
2. Crowdrise
We mentioned Crowdrise in a recent post about alternatives to Facebook Causes and it is a great tool for both charities and general purpose fundraisers.
Once you start a project, you can share your project’s link via Facebook
3. Kickstarter
Kickstarter is most often used by aspiring creatives to fund projects but it can also be used for great effect for local social good community efforts.
Kickstarter is unique in that if your goal amount isn’t reached, none of the money is collected. This “all-or-nothing” approach often leads to Kickstarter campaigns being more active and more involved than a traditional “donate widget.”
A great part of Kickstarter for the social fund creator is the ability to reward donors at certain levels. Much like PBS and NPR offer trinkets if you give a certain amount, Kickstarter lets its project creators do the same thing. You can get really creative with your different donor levels to drive people to give more.
4. WhatGives
WhatGives offers a great widget you can use on Facebook or on your personal webpage to collect donations for your non-profit. WhatGives is nice because aside from integrating well with Facebook, all donations are handled through PayPal.
You need to be a registered non-profit with an approved PayPal account, and all donations are channeled directly into that account. You can customize the platform and embed it as a Facebook app or on your blog or website.
5. Change.org
Change.org lets users create programs to generate actions from others. This can be as simple as signing a petition or writing a letter, or as generous as donating money. For non-profits in the GuideStar database, you can create your own donation pages to collect funds and also draw attention to other action items.
Change.org is very focused on making it easy to virally spread a message, and the site itself also acts as a portal to different organizations and awareness campaigns.
6. Chipin
Chipin is one of the most popular donation widget tools on the web and it’s a great way to collect money for a good cause. We love the Chipin widget because you can see instant progress on donations, and it accepts many forms of payment.
Unlike many of the services on this list, Chipin isn’t just for non-profits or community organizations. You can use it for any project you want.
7. Razoo
Razoo has options for individuals, non-profits, foundations and corporations to raise money for their causes. Individuals can choose to create a fundraising page for any registered non-profit that Razoo recognizes (they have a database of about a million) and non-profits can create custom pages for their organizations and connect with supporters and encourage them to create their own fundraising pages.
What we love about Razoo, in addition to its simple interface and great UI, is that it also offers donation matching for corporations or foundations looking for an easy way to raise money.
8. Convio
Convio offers software for online fundraising and membership, and while its target audience is probably bigger groups or organizations, it’s still worth a look.
For example, Convio’s TeamRaiser lets organizations make it easy for volunteers to create their own websites for tracking and attracting donations.
If you’re organizing a social good fund for a big charity walk or event where volunteers go door-to-door to get donations, check out Convio because it makes managing that process much easier.
9. Facebook Causes
Causes is an increasingly common way for individuals to raise money and start their own funds that are tied to a non-profit. Because Causes is so well-integrated into Facebook, it makes getting the word out and raising awareness and funds for your cause that much simpler.
10. StayClassy
A newer player in the arena of online giving, San Diego’s StayClassy is focused not just on helping non-profits collect donations online, but also manage events and campaigns, track their fundraising results and plug-in.
The world of online fundraising is vast and diverse. What tools have you used when starting your own social good funds? Let us know in the comments.
Brought to you by theThis post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit. On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week — including a historic summit on global issues known as the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly — Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world’s most intractable problems.
Date: Monday, September 20, 2010
Image courtesy of iStockphoto
For more Social Good coverage:
According to a new Experian Marketing Services report, transactional emails that include relevant and related products and services have 20% higher transaction rates than those without.
Blown away, aren’t you? Okay, probably not. It’s no big marketing secret that suggestive selling and cross-promotions work, so why doesn’t everybody do it?
Let’s go back to basics. A transactional email is one that a customer expects. Could be an order confirmation, a shipping notice or information on returns and exchanges. Experian analyzed more than 1,800 emails of this type that were sent through their CheetahMail system and found that more than 100% of the time (how is that possible?) these emails are opened by the recipient. You won’t find anywhere near that kind of open rate on bulk emails.
Once you’ve got customers opening the email, it’s time to convert them and this is where many companies fail. Experian says that’s a lot of money left on the table. Here are the numbers:
“Compared with standard bulk mailings, the average revenue per email is two to five times greater and can be up to six times greater than the all-industry average of $0.13. Experian CheetahMail’s analysis showed an average revenue per email for order confirmations of $0.75, while shipping confirmations and returns/exchanges pulled $0.53 and $0.80, respectively.”
Making the most of your transactional emails doesn’t have to mean promoting another product. Experian says that transactional emails that included links to social media sites had 55% higher click rates than emails with no click-through opportunities.
The only place that failed in the study was in the area of incentivizing future purchases. Oddly, emails without this kind of incentive did better than those that had them. Looking at my own behavior, I’d say this is because a “future purchase” email would either get filed away in my coupon folder or deleted if I had no intention of buying again.
The takeaway here is that companies must optimize every opportunity they have to engage with a customer. Emails need to branded to match the company website. Social media links should be prominent in all emails, especially transactional ones and ideally, personalized services and add-ons should be included in every order or shipping email.
This may sound like marketing 101, but I can’t tell you how many transactional emails I receive in a week that miss out on all of these points. On the other hand, there is one company I buy from that has a transactional email so memorable, I actually tell people about it and that’s CD Baby. Their order confirmation includes a wild story about how my CD has been taken off the shelf by a person wearing sterilized gloves, it was polished and inspected by 50 employees then everyone gathered around, lit a candle and watched in awe as it was packed, then they had a parade while delivering it to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved and said “Bon Voyage!” Silly, yes. But everyone who gets that confirmation remembers it and it effects their decision to buy from CD Baby again.
Lastly, don’t forget to say thank you to your customers when you confirm their order. It’s a simple thing but it makes a big difference.
Click here to get the full report free from Experian Marketing Services.
Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!
Google <b>News</b> Now Eight Years Old
google-news-screenshot-old Google today announced on the official Google blog the eighth birthday of Google News. It's a huge milestone for the California-based search company, which launched the Google News service on the 22nd of ...
The American Spectator : ABC <b>News</b>' Credibility 'Lost in Translation'
ABC News President David Westin is resigning and plans to leave the company before the end of the year, reportedly because of friction between him and executives at parent Walt Disney Company over the network's poor profits. ...
Real-Time <b>News</b> Curation - The Complete Guide Part 3: Types And <b>...</b>
What's more important? To save editors time and abilities in finding and reporting the most relevant stories so that they can dwell more on content production, or to leverage to-the-max the power of new media technologies such as.
robert shumake
Google <b>News</b> Now Eight Years Old
google-news-screenshot-old Google today announced on the official Google blog the eighth birthday of Google News. It's a huge milestone for the California-based search company, which launched the Google News service on the 22nd of ...
The American Spectator : ABC <b>News</b>' Credibility 'Lost in Translation'
ABC News President David Westin is resigning and plans to leave the company before the end of the year, reportedly because of friction between him and executives at parent Walt Disney Company over the network's poor profits. ...
Real-Time <b>News</b> Curation - The Complete Guide Part 3: Types And <b>...</b>
What's more important? To save editors time and abilities in finding and reporting the most relevant stories so that they can dwell more on content production, or to leverage to-the-max the power of new media technologies such as.
Fundraising is a key component for most social good campaigns and projects. Thanks to the the Internet and the social web, raising money for a non-profit, community project or charitable organization or relief effort is easier than ever before.
The web makes it possible to get your message across and collect money from people all over the world and to include your social graph in the process.
If you have an idea or a cause that you want to bring awareness to and raise funds around, there are lots of great online tools to help get you started. Whether you want to raise money for a local community center or help fundraise as part of a broader social good campaign, these tools make it easy to get the word out and collect the funds you need.
1. FirstGiving
The U.S. subsidiary of JustGiving.com, FirstGiving lets users raise money for any non-profit in the GuideStar database.
It’s free to create a basic account, but if you pay $300 you can fully customize your donations page and link them back to your own website. FirstGiving lets you create fundraising around upcoming events, marathons and walk-a-thons too, which is a nice touch. The processing fee for donation is 5% plus another 2% for credit card transactions.
2. Crowdrise
We mentioned Crowdrise in a recent post about alternatives to Facebook Causes and it is a great tool for both charities and general purpose fundraisers.
Once you start a project, you can share your project’s link via Facebook
3. Kickstarter
Kickstarter is most often used by aspiring creatives to fund projects but it can also be used for great effect for local social good community efforts.
Kickstarter is unique in that if your goal amount isn’t reached, none of the money is collected. This “all-or-nothing” approach often leads to Kickstarter campaigns being more active and more involved than a traditional “donate widget.”
A great part of Kickstarter for the social fund creator is the ability to reward donors at certain levels. Much like PBS and NPR offer trinkets if you give a certain amount, Kickstarter lets its project creators do the same thing. You can get really creative with your different donor levels to drive people to give more.
4. WhatGives
WhatGives offers a great widget you can use on Facebook or on your personal webpage to collect donations for your non-profit. WhatGives is nice because aside from integrating well with Facebook, all donations are handled through PayPal.
You need to be a registered non-profit with an approved PayPal account, and all donations are channeled directly into that account. You can customize the platform and embed it as a Facebook app or on your blog or website.
5. Change.org
Change.org lets users create programs to generate actions from others. This can be as simple as signing a petition or writing a letter, or as generous as donating money. For non-profits in the GuideStar database, you can create your own donation pages to collect funds and also draw attention to other action items.
Change.org is very focused on making it easy to virally spread a message, and the site itself also acts as a portal to different organizations and awareness campaigns.
6. Chipin
Chipin is one of the most popular donation widget tools on the web and it’s a great way to collect money for a good cause. We love the Chipin widget because you can see instant progress on donations, and it accepts many forms of payment.
Unlike many of the services on this list, Chipin isn’t just for non-profits or community organizations. You can use it for any project you want.
7. Razoo
Razoo has options for individuals, non-profits, foundations and corporations to raise money for their causes. Individuals can choose to create a fundraising page for any registered non-profit that Razoo recognizes (they have a database of about a million) and non-profits can create custom pages for their organizations and connect with supporters and encourage them to create their own fundraising pages.
What we love about Razoo, in addition to its simple interface and great UI, is that it also offers donation matching for corporations or foundations looking for an easy way to raise money.
8. Convio
Convio offers software for online fundraising and membership, and while its target audience is probably bigger groups or organizations, it’s still worth a look.
For example, Convio’s TeamRaiser lets organizations make it easy for volunteers to create their own websites for tracking and attracting donations.
If you’re organizing a social good fund for a big charity walk or event where volunteers go door-to-door to get donations, check out Convio because it makes managing that process much easier.
9. Facebook Causes
Causes is an increasingly common way for individuals to raise money and start their own funds that are tied to a non-profit. Because Causes is so well-integrated into Facebook, it makes getting the word out and raising awareness and funds for your cause that much simpler.
10. StayClassy
A newer player in the arena of online giving, San Diego’s StayClassy is focused not just on helping non-profits collect donations online, but also manage events and campaigns, track their fundraising results and plug-in.
The world of online fundraising is vast and diverse. What tools have you used when starting your own social good funds? Let us know in the comments.
Brought to you by theThis post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit. On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week — including a historic summit on global issues known as the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly — Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world’s most intractable problems.
Date: Monday, September 20, 2010
Image courtesy of iStockphoto
For more Social Good coverage:
According to a new Experian Marketing Services report, transactional emails that include relevant and related products and services have 20% higher transaction rates than those without.
Blown away, aren’t you? Okay, probably not. It’s no big marketing secret that suggestive selling and cross-promotions work, so why doesn’t everybody do it?
Let’s go back to basics. A transactional email is one that a customer expects. Could be an order confirmation, a shipping notice or information on returns and exchanges. Experian analyzed more than 1,800 emails of this type that were sent through their CheetahMail system and found that more than 100% of the time (how is that possible?) these emails are opened by the recipient. You won’t find anywhere near that kind of open rate on bulk emails.
Once you’ve got customers opening the email, it’s time to convert them and this is where many companies fail. Experian says that’s a lot of money left on the table. Here are the numbers:
“Compared with standard bulk mailings, the average revenue per email is two to five times greater and can be up to six times greater than the all-industry average of $0.13. Experian CheetahMail’s analysis showed an average revenue per email for order confirmations of $0.75, while shipping confirmations and returns/exchanges pulled $0.53 and $0.80, respectively.”
Making the most of your transactional emails doesn’t have to mean promoting another product. Experian says that transactional emails that included links to social media sites had 55% higher click rates than emails with no click-through opportunities.
The only place that failed in the study was in the area of incentivizing future purchases. Oddly, emails without this kind of incentive did better than those that had them. Looking at my own behavior, I’d say this is because a “future purchase” email would either get filed away in my coupon folder or deleted if I had no intention of buying again.
The takeaway here is that companies must optimize every opportunity they have to engage with a customer. Emails need to branded to match the company website. Social media links should be prominent in all emails, especially transactional ones and ideally, personalized services and add-ons should be included in every order or shipping email.
This may sound like marketing 101, but I can’t tell you how many transactional emails I receive in a week that miss out on all of these points. On the other hand, there is one company I buy from that has a transactional email so memorable, I actually tell people about it and that’s CD Baby. Their order confirmation includes a wild story about how my CD has been taken off the shelf by a person wearing sterilized gloves, it was polished and inspected by 50 employees then everyone gathered around, lit a candle and watched in awe as it was packed, then they had a parade while delivering it to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved and said “Bon Voyage!” Silly, yes. But everyone who gets that confirmation remembers it and it effects their decision to buy from CD Baby again.
Lastly, don’t forget to say thank you to your customers when you confirm their order. It’s a simple thing but it makes a big difference.
Click here to get the full report free from Experian Marketing Services.
Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!
robert shumake
Google <b>News</b> Now Eight Years Old
google-news-screenshot-old Google today announced on the official Google blog the eighth birthday of Google News. It's a huge milestone for the California-based search company, which launched the Google News service on the 22nd of ...
The American Spectator : ABC <b>News</b>' Credibility 'Lost in Translation'
ABC News President David Westin is resigning and plans to leave the company before the end of the year, reportedly because of friction between him and executives at parent Walt Disney Company over the network's poor profits. ...
Real-Time <b>News</b> Curation - The Complete Guide Part 3: Types And <b>...</b>
What's more important? To save editors time and abilities in finding and reporting the most relevant stories so that they can dwell more on content production, or to leverage to-the-max the power of new media technologies such as.
robert shumake
Google <b>News</b> Now Eight Years Old
google-news-screenshot-old Google today announced on the official Google blog the eighth birthday of Google News. It's a huge milestone for the California-based search company, which launched the Google News service on the 22nd of ...
The American Spectator : ABC <b>News</b>' Credibility 'Lost in Translation'
ABC News President David Westin is resigning and plans to leave the company before the end of the year, reportedly because of friction between him and executives at parent Walt Disney Company over the network's poor profits. ...
Real-Time <b>News</b> Curation - The Complete Guide Part 3: Types And <b>...</b>
What's more important? To save editors time and abilities in finding and reporting the most relevant stories so that they can dwell more on content production, or to leverage to-the-max the power of new media technologies such as.
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