The Justgiving Blog

This is a sad Friday at JG towers. Tonight, at some point, we’re all going to have to say goodbye to our friend and colleague James, who has been a JG stalwart for over four years. Over the past years James has had a huge impact on the company— he’s written copy and articles for the site, taken our show on the road to numerous exhibitions and tradeshows, made endless presentations about online fundraising, taken care of all of our PR, brokered a deal to bring low-cost SMS donation facilities to charities, spearheaded all of our marketing activities, designed leaflets and posters, and taken care of countless other things. He’s been our official marketing manager for over two years now, and during that time we’ve seen JG’s profile grow enormously.

James started in the autumn of 2001 supposedly as maternity cover for our editor, Caroline. Caroline’s daughter is now four years old and James never quite managed to leave Justgiving!  Until now. You see, James always had a ‘secret life’ as a theatre director during the evenings and weekends. He’d also disappear for long stretches during the summertime while he took the theatre company he founded, Nabokov, up to the Edinburgh Fringe theatre festival. And after all that hard work James’ profile in the theatre has blossomed….and he’s making the jump to become a full time director. His first full-time directing job is as assistant director on The Long & The Short & The Tall at the Lyceum in Sheffield and on tour.

So well-done James. But you know we’ll miss you. You’ll be remembered for your devotion to the Stone Roses and Folkstone FC, your morning bacon sarnies and endless cups of strong black coffee, your unique “scruffy-chic” look, your penchant for political arguments, your comprehensive knowledge of the theatre scene, and, most importantly, for being a good friend to all of us.

Good luck mate…

- Elizabeth

P.S. got any good stories about James? Add them to the comments…!!!

Jules, Molly and Jonathan are our heroes. They man
our hectic helpdesk, answering your calls, helping you build fundraising pages,
calming you down when your computer crashes and providing various miscellaneous
services like directory enquiries and impromptu counselling.

In the past 12 months, they’ve replied to more than
13,000 emails and picked up a ringing phone over 8,000 times. Phew!

Of course, every now and again they get an email
that makes us all laugh, or leaves us scratching our heads, or requires a call
to the men in white coats.

So as an amusing diversion on a Friday lunchtime,
here we present a small selection of customer queries that made us chuckle in
2005:

“I don’t understand
the internetty webby thingy.”   

“Can you send me the
full list of housing opportunities ASAP?” 
[eh?]

“You’re homophobic;
you changed my message about gay chat.”   

“I was going to call
you earlier but lighting hit my phone.”

“I don’t donate
online due to deep emotional scarring issues so please can I donate over the
phone?”

“My mother and I
knit at lot of clothes. Can we give them to you?”
[um...]

“What time is Sandra
climbing the mountain?”
[er...]

“Can you send me a
massive comedy cheque?”

“Paul we really have
to be careful not to allow our secret relationship to become public knowledge.
Thanks for sponsoring me on my run, but when paying I would have liked you to
use your agreed name of ‘Wilf’, as you do when you wine and dine me on our wild
weekends away.” [oops, not sure that was that meant
for us]

“After making my
donation of £10 to XXXX I later returned to the site to see how the fund raising
was going and was upset to find that my comment ‘I’ll give you another £100 if
you get your knob out!’ was changed to ‘Good Luck!’.”  [yes, um, sorry about that. but we're a family
site and all.]

“Will you tell Bob
to fuck off and stop sending me emails. Any further emails will
result in complaints to the Police and Charity Commission.”   [righty ho]

“I was thinking about
buying a cat, then found myself on your Battersea Dogs and Cats website and
thought it better to donate instead and perhaps take in rescued cat. So, is it
better to take in a unwanted cat – or to sponsor? I don’t really have time (or
like) dogs, so they’re not really an option.”

- James G