July | 2008 | The Justgiving Blog

Archive for July, 2008

Charity fundraising – it’s not all about ‘events’!

July 23, 2008 at 4:49 pm · Filed under How fundraisers use Justgiving ·Tagged music video, rona trust

Hello, it’s Natalie here! I’m on the charity helpdesk and I recently spoke to Chris from The Rona Trust about a really great fundraising idea.

Darren and his crew took an original approach to fundraising by using a music video to raise money. This is not, however, your average music video. It was filmed on a six day voyage whilst in the waters of England, France and The Channel islands!

Chris says, "We set a video launch target of £500 expecting it to take a few weeks to reach and hit it in 48 hours. We are now targeting £2,000." (Wow!)

You can see their fundraising page here: www.justgiving.com/rockstar

It even features on Nickleback’s own website! [Ed - this is how they remind me...]

This page really highlights the potential of fundraising pages; you can use them for any idea you come up with and so can your supporters. Using YouTube and Flickr is quick and easy and makes the page more interesting with video and more photos.

Chris kindly took some time out to answer a few questions about this marvellous idea…

What is your charity and what do they do?

The Rona Trust is a sail training charity based on the south coast of England. We aim to provide through sea training, opportunities for young people to acquire those attributes of a seaman, namely a sense of responsibility, resourcefulness and teamwork.

Where did the fundraising idea come from?

On the second day of a standard sail training voyage, the one CD of music we had was playing for the fourth time and Dean said we should reshoot the video… (and so the idea of fundraising using a music video was born!)

What did you want the page to achieve?

We want to raise enough money to replace the computer systems the project uses to run everything from, anything left over can then go to help fund the sail training voyages.

What sort of feedback have you had?

People love the video and find it’s really easy to donate via the page.

How has Justgiving helped?

Justgiving has helped shorten the time it takes to get people to give money, as soon as they see the video they can open their wallet and donate straight onto your site.

Did it take up much time or resource?

The video took five days to film, and was edited in the evenings during that time. The Justgiving page was really easy to get going and add the video and photos to.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A big thank you to all the crew that helped make it happen: Darren, Robin, Chris, James, Dean, Dan, Jo, Hazel, Lucinda, Jim, Lewis, Ashley, Rob, Cat, Liam, Rob, Marc, Ed, Katy, Rochelle, Matt and Jon-Joe.

Well done guys and good luck for reaching that £2000 target!

Want some inspiration? We’ve made a slide show bringing together ideas from fundraisers and charities who have done their own creative fundraising. Access it here – the embedding feature on Slideshare doesn’t seem to be working

Do you have an unusual and exciting fundraising story you’d like to share? If so please leave a comment or contact us.

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Nominate a fundraiser of the year

July 17, 2008 at 4:38 pm · Filed under Inspirational fundraising

If you’ve ever watched the Pride of Britain Awards and managed not to get a lump in your throat… well we’re amazed. If you’ve never seen the awards, they celebrate some pretty cool and brilliant people and are well worth watching.

This year’s awards are 76 days away now, which gives you plenty of time to:

a) buy a big box of tissues
b) vote for your fundraiser of the year here

Go on, have your say.

We’ll be in front of our TVs on Wednesday 1st October to watch the results.

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An appreciation (of JustGiving’s Gemma)

July 11, 2008 at 12:01 pm · Filed under In the News ·Tagged gemma, helpdesk

On Tuesday we received a particularly lovely email entitled “An Appreciation” from Brin Dunsire, Funding Adviser at the Diocese of Northampton, about the help he’d received from the lovely Gemma on our charities helpdesk. It was so nice that we felt the need to share it on the blog:

I would like to express my warm appreciation of the help our Diocesan charity has had from Gemma Randall on your helpdesk. We had an unusual set of tasks that we needed her help with, requests deriving from the peculiar structure of a Catholic Diocese as a single charity with different sub-agencies and “branches”.

Many IT organisations would have said “No, we’re simply not set up to be able to do that, you’ll just have to set up a completely new page and pay all over again”. Gemma has been patient, understanding, creative, and keen to help, and I feel we have had genuine personal service, which is an increasingly rare commodity.

And we raised a goodly amount of money !

All blessings to all your staff and on your excellent work.

Brin Dunsire – Funding Adviser, Diocese of Northampton

As someone who has the pleasure of sitting next to Gemma, I couldn’t agree more (she just brought me a lovely cup of tea, which helps). Thanks Brin for the feedback and allowing us to publish it

Here’s Gemma is with Kai (and an interesting spelling of JustGiving) from our Flickr stream:

We’re really proud of the fact that we have real people (who are passionate, knowledgeable and articulate) at the end of a phone or email to help – providing the best customer service we can is one of the most important parts of our service.

As well as Gemma, there’s also Liz and Natalie who woman our charities helpdesk on 0845 021 2133 and charities@justgiving.com

I should also add that Jules, Huu and Mike man (sometimes dressed as fish) our fundraiser/donor helpdesk on 0845 021 2110 and help@justgiving.net – if any of your charity’s supporters need help, these are the people to call.

These helpful guys and gals are here Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm and can help with all things Justgiving related, and sometimes things entirely unrelated to JustGiving – the other day I heard Mike explaining how the BCC email field works to a fundraising page owner…

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Board free, Born Free

July 11, 2008 at 10:25 am · Filed under Inspirational fundraising

Here’s a remarkable fundraiser. Ben Stiff is going for the record as the youngest and fastest person to skate from John O’Groats to Lands End, as we speak, to raise money for CORDA.

He’s already crossed over into England, as you can see from his latest blog post.

Ben decided to take up the challenge after his close friend, Sophie, suffered four strokes and he was determined to do something to help the cause. His trip has already been in the news.

We’ve managed to get a quick interview with Ben, mid-journey, over email. Here’s what he told us.

This is a pretty unusual way to get from John O’Groats to Lands End – what gave you the idea in the first place?

I have been skating a long time, and after realising I wasn’t cut out for the half-pipe I bought myself a longboard and started using skating as a mode of transport, rather than a means on showing off.

How long have you been skating?

About 7-8 years now

What’s the furthest you’ve ever skated before?

In training I have done days of 50 or more miles, but the hills up here certainly take a lot out of you.

How are you going to manage the uphill sections?

I think if I just take things one step – literally – at a time, then I can progress without too much trouble, but the hills present more a problem when I’m going down them as they eat away at the only means of braking I have; my shoe. I just put my foot from the board to the tarmac to slow down and it takes the sole off quite quickly.

You’re raising money for a great cause – have you fundraised before and how’s it going? Have you got any tips to pass on?

I have been involved with local fundraising events, but nothing of this size. The site is a great idea, roadside collection is a little harder as we are of course trying for a world record. But a smile and a wave goes a long way and a few passers by have stopped and handed us money, which is a great boost to a great cause!

You’re aiming to become the youngest person to do this, and the fastest – how do you rate your chances?

Pretty good I hope, there has only been one person to do this before me, and he did it in 34 days. I am hoping to do it in 27, so it’s quite a chunk off his time but if all goes to plan it should be successful.

Thanks for sparing the time to talk to us Ben. Good luck with the rest of the trip – we’re looking forward to reading all about it.

If you’d like to supoprt Ben and help him reach his fundraising target, you can sponsor him here.

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Team Winners

July 10, 2008 at 8:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

There’s wet. And then there’s *wet*.

The epic journey to Battersea Park to take part in the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge involved failed tube rides, failed taxi hailing and a walk of at least 5km just to get there. There was even talk of jacking it all in and heading for the pub since it was ‘bound to be cancelled’. But no, we persevered. For the team. For ourselves. For all that’s right and good and sporting.

So we might have started about 45 minutes after the ‘pack’. The bright side was we had plenty of room.

Mat and I set the pace at a leisurely jog, followed by a sauntering Kai and Jonno. The girls weren’t far behind.

In monsoon-esque conditions, Tim and Mat stretched into the lead until the 5km mark. I had a sudden and unexpected burst of adrenaline (probably due to the two bottles of free Gatorade that were downed on the way to the start line). Mat and I were neck and neck down the final straight, sprinting the last 200m or so, which was extraordinarily out of character for both us since we’re both as competitive as a pair of goldfish usually.

A short while later, we regrouped wheezing underneath a nearby elm tree and collectively agreed that Team Justgiving Winners will join forces once more in the near future for another challenging (but not too challenging) sporting event.

And it was very wet.

Official times:

Simon & Mat – 32mins 6 secs
Tim – A little bit longer
Kai & Jonno – A little bit longerer
Gemma & Sophie – A little bit after that

To the damp and victorious: