The Justgiving Blog

Today is Blog Action Day and the theme is poverty. Puts the worries about the credit crunch and the banking crisis in perspective doesn’t it?

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, there’s something you can do to help. Here are just a few of the charities on Justgiving that you can support today:

Child Poverty Action Group: http://www.justgiving.com/cpag

Christians Against Poverty: http://www.justgiving.com/cap

Engineers Against Poverty: http://www.justgiving.com/engineersagainstpoverty

Opportunity International UK: http://www.justgiving.com/opportunity

and there are plenty more here.

So how is the credit crunch affecting fundraising and donating? A quick look at the total donations that have come through Justgiving so far this year shows that you’re still giving as much money to charity as you were last year. That’s pretty encouraging, considering the current financial upheaval.

But if the task of fundraising is looking a bit daunting at the moment, let us help.

Over the years, we’ve gathered together a list of the best hints and tips from fundraisers. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world or what site you’re using, these fundraising tips should work across the board. We thought we’d share them with you for Blog Action Day.

1. Tell your story
The best fundraising pages tell a really good story. Whether it’s about why you started fundraising, the challenge you’ve set yourself or the work your charity has done for someone you know, your personal experience is so valuable in encouraging someone to donate. Your story doesn’t have to be long – it might be just a few lines. The important thing is to grab people’s attention and move them to donate. So pick out the things that you feel are most important and interesting about what you’re doing and express them in your own words, in whatever way you want to.

2. Use photos and video
A good photo makes your page so much more engaging. Seeing you, your team or the people you’re raising money for, or in memory of, brings the cause much closer to people looking at the page. You can add your own Flickr photos and YouTube video to your page too, so there’s lots of scope to be funny, imaginative and compelling and to get your supporters to send your page on to their friends.

3.  Adopt a clever email strategy

- Ask your most generous supporters to donate first. It sounds obvious – and it works. So make your first email to your closest friends and family, or even your boss – whoever you think is most likely to get the ball rolling and set a good standard, because people tend to match the amounts already listed on the page.

- Email your other contacts in groups — colleagues, running club, friends you haven’t seen for a while – so you can write a special message to each group. It’s easy to ignore an email, but if you’ve taken the time to write to people in a more personal style, it’ll encourage them to respond.

- Use your own email system to help you to set up groups, email large numbers of people at once and keep your communications more personal. People are more likely to open your email if it’s from the email address they recognise. Include our helpdesk email address (help@justgiving.net) in your emails, so anyone who has difficulty donating can contact us directly.

4. Get the word out in all kinds of ways
Design some Moo cards with your page URL on the back and give them out to everyone you meet. Tell people about your page on Facebook and put a widget or a ’sponsor me’ badge on any blogs and websites that you or your friends use. Ask your company if they’ll link to your page from their website or intranet, and put up posters in your gym, college, church or school.

5. Put a link in your email signature
Add your page’s web address, or a ’sponsor me’ badge, to your email signature. That way, every email you send raises awareness of your fundraising and encourages donations.

6. Update your page
Let people know how your training or preparation is going and upload new photos, to give people a reason to come back and check your page. Involving your supporters will increase the chances that they’ll donate again or send your page on to their friends.

7. Send a follow-up email
Be persistent. It takes more than one round of emails to reach your target. You know what it’s like – people mean to donate, but sometimes they don’t quite get round to it on the first email. Remember to thank the people who’ve already supported you, and to ask them to send your page to their contacts.

8. Personalise your thank-you
Edit your thank-you email to your donors to make it personal and show how much each donation means to you and your charity. Encourage people to send your page on to friends and contacts who might be interested in donating.

9. Contact your local media
A few lines in the local paper or an appeal on your local radio station can really help. By going straight to your fundraising page, readers and listeners can sponsor you really easily. We’ve got a sample press release here for you to customise.

10. Keep fundraising after your event
Around 20% of donations through Justgiving come in after people finish their event or challenge. So keep fundraising once the main event is over – it’s a good chance to email an update and a final appeal.

If you’ve got more tips of your own that you’d like to share, you can comment on this blog post or email us at suggestions@justgiving.com

While we’re on the subject of the credit crunch and banking crisis, we had a call last week from someone who wanted to know how safe it is to use Justgiving at the moment.

Well first of all, we’d like to reassure you that, as always, your donations are completely safe and secure.

As soon as you, or one of your supporters, make a donation, we earmark it for the charity. It passes through Justgiving and gets to the charity’s bank account within the week. Our role is to process donations and send them straight to the charity, reclaiming Gift Aid wherever possible so we can send that extra money on to charities too. So we don’t hang on to donations any longer than we have to.

While the amounts of money involved in the banking crisis are far bigger than the amounts that we deal with, we take every single one of your donations extremely seriously, whether it’s £2 or £200, and we can assure you that it’s business as usual here.