A Guide to Giving Tools and online fundraising

Choose a project, decide your fundraising event or giving group, and start making a direct difference to well-vetted grassroots projects worldwide

Giving Tools: a guide to creating and promoting your fundraising page

Fundraisers

Why use a fundraiser page?

Fundraiser pages can be set up by anyone who wants to individually fundraise directly for a project featured on GlobalGiving.

Fundraiser pages can be used by someone taking part in an event such as a marathon run, bike ride or other sponsored event. It could also be used by an individual who wants to raise a targeted amount for a project during a different event such as the GlobalGiving Alive and Learning challenge. 

Fundraiser pages are easy to set up, manage and share as well as tracking donations made.

Using a fundraiser page can help to increase supporter awareness and donations to the project as well as help fundraisers to monitor their fundraising progress and success.

6 steps for setting up a fundraiser page

 1. Sign in to your GlobalGiving profile or set one up here: http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/dy/login/uk.html?cmd=login&fromca=true&show=createAccount

2. Go to create a fundraiser: http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/dy/fundraiser/editfund/uk.html?null

3. Add in your fundraiser information including title, goal, image and description. Then click ‘continue’.

4. The next screen gives you options to manage your page. First step: ADD A PROJECT. To do this, either go to the project URL or search for the project in the catalogue.

5. Once you are on the Project Page, scroll down slightly to the section ‘More information about this project’. Here you will find an Actions box. Click ‘Add to fundraiser’ in order to add the project to your fundraiser page.

6. The project will now be added to the page, you can preview the page (note the URL web link to share with others) and also promote the fundraiser by email as well as manage other elements of the fundraiser page.

 

Giving Groups

Why use Giving Groups?

Giving Groups, collective group fundraisers, can be used to collect online donations from a group of people that want to support the same project. This might be a group of colleagues, university alumni, school friends, company partners, family or any other group of people joined in some way with a common project interest.

Instead of fundraising individually, together as a group you can donate via a personalised giving group page so that you can measure your collective impact for your chosen project.

Giving Groups are easy to set up, donate through and share and you will be able to see who has donated (or you can be anonymous) and how much has been collectively raised so you can understand your group impact for the community you are supporting!

6 steps to set up a Giving Group page

1. Sign in to your GlobalGiving profile or set one up here: http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/dy/login/uk.html?cmd=login&fromca=true&show=createAccount

2. Go to create a Giving Group: http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/dy/givinggroup/editgivinggroup/uk.html

3. Add in your Giving Group information including title, goal, image and description. Then click ‘Continue’.

4. The next screen gives you options to manage your Giving Group page. First step: ADD A PROJECT. To do this, either go to the project URL or search for the project in the catalogue.

5. Once you are on the Project Page, scroll down slightly to the section ‘More information about this project’. Here you will find an Actions box. Click ‘Add to Giving Group’ in order to add the project to your Giving Group page.

6. Now the project is added, you can preview the page (note the URL web link to share with others) and also promote the Giving Group by email as well as manage other elements of the Giving Group page. If you set up a Giving Group, you will be the admin for that page and will be the only one who can make changes to the page.

Promoting your Fundraiser or Giving Group

Now you have set up the Fundraiser or Giving Group page you can start to promote it. Tell your friends and family about the fundraiser. Use at use the ‘Tell a Friend’ feature on GlobalGiving to send an email with the fundraiser page link and asking for their support.

Ideas for fundraising activities: use your online pages to promote and raise funds

Sponsored fundraising events Do something challenging that most people would not do. Ask people to sponsor you to take part and let them know that all funds raised will go to your chosen project.

Here are a few sponsored event ideas to get you started:

Run 5k, 10km or a whole marathon

Cycle

Walk

Sky dive

Weight loss

Head/Beard Shaves

No cigarettes/alcohol for xx Months

Abseiling

Parachuting

Rally

Long Distance Walk

Bike Push

Sponsored Swim

Litter pick

Choose your event and choose your project then set up your fundraising page and away you go!

Giving Group ideas

Often, as a group, you will already know what cause or country you would like to support. If this is the case, you can refine your search by browsing for projects on GlobalGiving: http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/ac/browse.html.

If you are not sure which project, cause or country you would like to support, discuss as a group which areas you are most interested individually and then see where there are overlapping interests. You can actually choose multiple projects to support!

Make a celebration a fundraising occasion:

Instead of birthday, wedding or other celebration gifts, set up a gift list and ask people to donate directly to the project you have chosen to support. Set up a Gift/Wedding list and start sharing with your friends so that their gift can help many more people. http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/gifts/registries.html

Giving Tools on GlobalGiving.co.uk

Help your supporters help you!

Giving Tools – make it easy for your supporters to fundraise for your project.

GlobalGiving has developed some fantastic online tools that you can direct your supporters toward to help them fundraise for your project. Even if you only have a small group of supporters, each has the power to generate even more donations through promoting and fundraising for your cause.

1. Widgets

Every project has a personalised widget (an online badge) that can be applied to webpages, blogs or social networking pages – add to your pages and ask your supporters to add it to their pages too. Find your widget at the bottom of your project page. When someone clicks on the widget they will go directly to your project and can donate straight away.

2. Fundraiser Pages

Personalised fundraising pages created around an event and produced by supporters are proving to be one of the most powerful online fundraising tools. Your supporters can set up a fundraising page, choose an event and fundraise for your project easily online! If they undertake a fundraising event in the next 4 weeks, all donations will count towards your project total for the Alive and Learning challenge so you will get more donors and more funds for your project and come along way towards the targets for the challenge! If you want any fundraising ideas to suggest to your supporters, please contact us and we’ll send some across.

3. Giving Groups

Another great way to help donors feel they are creating an even bigger impact when donate to your project is by donating through a personalised Giving Group page. This is similar to a fundraiser except that it is based around collective giving as a group and is a way of motivating everyone within a group to give – a personalised giving group page will show the mission of the group, who has given to date and how much the group has collectively raised. For example, a group of company employees might want to raise funds your project together and record who has given to the project and how much was raised overall – they can set up a personalised online Giving Group to donate through and see their impact!

If you would like more information about any of the Giving Tools, you can contact me directly at rsmith@globalgiving.co.uk.

Next steps

Use an email to let your supporters know that they have some great options to help you raise funds and achieve success in the Alive and Learning challenge. If you know who your active fundraisers are, get in touch with them personally by email or telephone and let them know about the tools they can use to help fundraise. By getting current supporters to set up fundraisers and giving groups, you will be growing your donor base. You can stay connected with all your GlobalGiving donors through project updates on the website.

(blog text from email dated 8th July 2009)

Example emails for Alive and Learning Challenge

Prepare your emails in advance of the Alive and Learning challenge start on 15th July and you will be on the way with a smooth fundraising campaign.

You can use the sample emails below to send to your supporters, friends, family and constituents. Just add your details in and make any amendments you like. These examples are here to give you a head start!
 

1. First Week Email

Dear [DONOR NAME/FRIEND]

Thank you for your continued support and interest in [ORGANISATION NAME].

We wanted to let you know that [ORGANISATION NAME] is participating in GlobalGiving.co.uk’s Alive and Learning challenge, a fundraising opportunity for health and education projects helping communities worldwide.

Projects that raise £2000 or more will receive prominent marketing on GlobalGiving.co.uk, the internationally recognised marketplace for philanthropy that connects individual donors to the causes they care most about, and promote our project to GlobalGiving UK’s national partners as well as be in the running for one of the top bonus cash prizes, which would help [ORGANISATION NAME] achieve so much more.

Every donation helps, and no donation is too small. You can show your support for [ORGANISATION NAME] for as little as £5 and make a big impact to our project. If you’re ready to donate now, please visit our project page on GlobalGiving.co.uk: [LINK TO YOUR PROJECT PAGE].

[ORGANISATION NAME] is very excited about this opportunity to highlight our work for [education/health] in [COUNTRY OF PROJECT] and raise fund and awareness for [YOUR PROJECT'S MISSION]. Help us achieve our goal of £2000 by August 14^th 2009 by making a donation to [ORGANIZATION NAME] on GlobalGiving.co.uk [LINK TO YOUR PROJECT PAGE]. Please share this email and our project link with your friends and family and ask them to help us too.

Thank you for your support,

[YOUR NAME]
2. Email introducing fundraising ideas

Dear [SUPPORTER NAME/FRIEND]

Thank you for your continued support and interest in [ORGANISATION NAME].

We would like to thank you for your continued support and interest in [ORGANISATION NAME] and particularly for your support in this month’s Alive and Learning challenge that [ORGANISATION NAME] is participating in.

Your donations are greatly appreciated and even a small donation of £5 can make such a huge difference to our work. If you would like to donate and help us to reach our target of £2000 by August 14^th 2009, please visit our project page on GlobalGiving.co.uk: [PROJECT PAGE LINK]

You can do even more to help support our project with the Giving Tools available on GlobalGiving.co.uk including personalized fundraiser pages and giving group pages. You could hold a fundraising event for [ORGANISATION NAME] and ask for sponsorship from your family and friends. Perhaps hold a dinner for your friends and ask everyone to donate to our project whilst they are there, or you ask people to sponsor you to completing a run, walk, cycle or other fitness challenge. Or if you are part of a group that would like to support [ORGANISATION NAME] you can set up a giving group page that will track your donations to our project.

To set up a page and start fundraising, click here (http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/giftsandfundraising/) and make sure to add our project to your personalised fundraising page [LINK TO YOUR PROJECT].

All donations raised on GlobalGiving.co.uk for our project until August 14^th 2009 will count towards our target of £2000 for the Alive and Learning challenge on GlobalGiving. By supporting [ORGANISATION NAME] now, you could help us raise enough to be in with a chance of winning one of three cash bonus prizes of between £1000 and £250!

Thank you for your support,

[YOUR NAME]

Welcome to the Brand New GlobalGiving UK Blog!!

This the first post of the GlobalGiving UK blog.