Fundraising / Charity Ideas Blog

Our last post was about back to school fundraising ideas. Lets turn that on its head with schools doing the fundraising.

Charity water is starting a campaign for September called Water for Schools. It challenges schools to come together to fundraise for schools in developing nations. The need for clean water and sanitation is accute in the third world. A lot of kids who are school age are spending the day helping their parents getting food and water so the cycle of uneducated children continues.

Money collected will go towards clean water, clean sanitation and education. You might want to think about getting involved to whatever degree you can on this project. You can improve entire communities with your effort.

Go over to the water for schools page and read up on the project. It’s worth your time.

You might also want to consider fundraising for water with our products. We have water fundraising ideas that can help your school or class raise money for this cause.

The concept is the same as iTunes, Amazon MP3 and PlayDigital but with a built in charity component.

You can download and listen to your favorite music through fairsharemusic and half of the money generated goes to charity. The have over 8.5 million tracks to choose from. The service is British so they’ll charge you 79p for a track, which is roughly $1.25. A few of the charities they donate to are:

World Wildlife Fund
Oxfam
Amnesty International
British Heart Foundation
Centrepoint
Friends of the Earth

Fairsharemusic, which was founded by Jonny Woolf, a former commercial director at Warner Music, and Lee Cannon, a one-time A&R director at Mercury, estimates that if every legal song and album purchase made last year had been carried out through their site, charities would have received more than £9.5 million in donations.

Check out fairsharemusic listen to some tunes and help out.

I think social media for charities and fundraising is still in its early stages.  Online platforms like facebook and twitter etc. are still jockeying for position. The only qualifiying yardstick for this should be effectiveness, which can be HUGELY different from popularity. We still haven’t seen what will turn out to be the fundraising media center on the web yet. Lets see what Jumo can come up with when it’s online.

When people think about an online campaign they think facebook causes and I see the logic. Facebook has TONS of traffic plus a cause page for every charity. That’s great and everything but the effectiveness of facebook for fundraising isn’t great.

According to the 2010 Social Media Bookmarks Study :

Only a small fraction of the 180,000 organizations on Facebook have raised more than $1,000.

Popular..YES
Effective..No
Not slagging facebook. What they do, they do very well. I’m merely stating that there are more effective ways to generate money for your causes.

Ok so where should you go to spread your impact on the web?

Razoo
100% of the money raised gets passed to the charities. Non Profits can start their own page and Razoo has a portable widget that you can port to other websites.

With twitter being ( argueably ) the next most influential social media outlet,Twitpay helps you generate money through retweets. Twitpay has a good system for generating donations, it’s quick, easy and has proven successful. The only issue I have with this service is their paystructure. I quote:

Twitpay only charges a percentage of the donations actually paid including a small per transaction fee.

Are they charging two fees here? Seems a little mysterious on this. I really think they could have been a more upfront with numbers on this.

Crowdrise
Our buddies at crowdrise do a fantastic job of gathering people at the grassroots level. This site is designed with the fun connectivity between people that makes facebook fun. Non Profits will find it easy to set up their presence as well. Crowdrise takes 7.5% for their expenses.

Those are just a few that I’ve taken a look at. What other systems have you tried and where do you fundraising through social media headed?

Ok so I’ve spent post after post recently telling you fundraising tips and new ideas in charties. Well the training wheels come off today boys and girls! It’s your turn to pick what you would like to support and get to it. Fly …. be free!

I’ve read about internet sources that help you raise money for causes that are important to you. I’ve come across one lately that I really like called crowdrise

Created by Edward Norton (yea the incredible hulk guy) and Shauna Robertson crowdrise helps people create fundraising projects and raise money for their causes. Create your profile and update it with stories, videos and pictures of what you are doing in your charity life. You can sign up with specific causes or vounteer opportunities to join other peoples.

It’s free to use and users can wind prizes like hats, t-shirts, along the way for donations. Crowdrise charges a 5% deduction from donations to stay in business so it’s very reasonable. The only small print that I saw is that it’s currently only donating to US charities. I would like to see this changed in the future when this business concept takes off. However I understand the legal complications of such an endeavor would be HUGE!

The Crowdrise brand is all about answering the call to service and having the most fun in the world while you do it.

While your working away at your fundraising don’t forget us at justfundraising.com maybe we can help you out along the way.

Now off you go and tell us what you’ve signed up for in the comments.

Here’s an idea for getting involved for fundraising with whatever skills you have.

Jade Sims has a great idea with crafthope. People enjoy making crafts and it brings them peace, why not channel that into contributions for worthy causes. Quilting and craft volunteers fromthe United States, Germany, Australia, UK and Canada have sent in items for projects. Interested people go about creating scarves, pillow case dresses, quilts, bean bags etc for the project. Their efforts benefit a wide range of people and places around the world. A small sample of the causes they have donated to so far are: Little Heroes PreSchool Burn Camp, Liberia Orphan Education and the Miracle Foundation. They also have been active in helping Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. Their crafts are sometimes created for the recipient or sold to raise money.

Craft hope has a flicker group that shows their amazing work and the quantity the volunteers produce.

The next project that Jade is adding to is helping the animal victims of the BP oilspill. The crafthope group will work with The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, The Audubon Nature Institute and The Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge to help clean the animals covered in oil.

So here is what we are going to do… They need hand towels and wash rags to clean all of the nooks and crannies of the dolphins and sea turtles. They only need small hand towels and wash rags, no large towels please.

If you can sew, knit, or crochet this project is for you. We are asking that you create sets of hand towels and/or wash rags to send. Preferably in sets of 10 or 20. These do need to be handmade since we are ‘Craft Hope.’ If you are crocheting or knitting, please send whatever you can. You don’t have to send a set unless it is something you are up for.

For more information check outh the crafthope website. Ladies and Gentleman grab your knitting needles and get to work!

If you want to go about fundraising for the oil spill or any other activity in a different way check out our products that you might want to use for a campaign.

The Make a Wish Foundation are real life heroes who help out people with life threatening illnesses. For thirty years they have been granting wishes, pulling from a network of 25,000 volunteers and people from every trade. Elton John, Beyonce, Michael Jordan, Jeff Gordon, John Cena are a few of the celebrities who take part in this foundation.

One of Make A Wishs’ latest adventures involved Electron Boy! After some dastardly shennigans in Seattle involving Dr.Dark and Blackout Boy, Eric Martin received a call from Spiderman himself and was called into action as ELECTRON BOY!

If your excited about Electron Boy check out his facebook group. It would be nice to see a comic for the continuing adventures of Electon Boy. Just putting that out there.

The Make A Wish Foundation International has chapters in 36 countries. All told the number of wishes granted maybe just short of 500,000! They are always looking for people who would like to volunteer so if you can spare a few minutes, you too could ease suffering, change a life and become a super hero.

I like travel. Nothing strange there, so do most people. It would be cool if I could find an occupation where I get to blog /fundraise / drum/ be Indiana Jones. It seems like someone has made a job doing this.

It’s a rubber duck though.

I came across One lucky rubber ducky on twitter and was both fascinated and jealous. You see this rubber duck has raised money for charity with all his travels. Here’s how it works:

STEP 1: Get your duck from the bathroom and put him in your handbag , back pack or luggage and take him any where you go…..but when ever you take the duck you MUST put money towards a charity of your choice….the rubber duck is reminding you to choose a charity, so effectively you are sponsoring your duck for that journey. You may just go to the super market but you must donate something to a charity on the way( blind dogs assoc, breast cancer …) you may go on a holiday this is when you must take the duck and spead the good word, be contagious and encourage other ducks to travel and put money towards a charity of your choice.

Step 2: Register your Duck on Face book and upload a photo and become a friend of www.facebook.com/oneluckyrubberducky and state your ducks mission and journey, state the journey, e.g (Sydney-Melbourne) means of transport (motorbike) reason for accepting the mission (a family member effected by dis-ease or I want to assist children in war stricken community’s of…. ) etc. tell us what is happening be passionate and share your knowedge. Get others involved.

Step 3. www.facebook.com/oneluckyrubberducky and share your journey and how much you raised for charity, every cent counts be it 20 cents or $5.

I did a little looking around his site and found a list of countries he’s visited:

Travel stats
Number of countries: 29 (12% of total)
Number of visits: 34
Number of world regions: 12
Number of continents: 5

If we look at my list he blogs, fundraises and has adventures like Indiana Jones. If he starts to drum I’m in real trouble.

The rubber duck is a very simple concept, doesn’t cost anything from a organizational point of view plus builds a fun community. If your thinking of travelling exotically or even to your parents house take a rubber duck along, make a donation to your favourite charity and send pictures of the event.

Maybe justfundraising.com could do the same thing. Maybe we’ll do it with the kid and the apple.

Boy is he gonna be surprised!

If we don’t get permission from the kid’s mom, what do you think we should use? Have fun with that ( points awarded for the most creative response. )

An auction closed last week on a great piece of movie memorabilia

In an auction to benefit The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights George Lucas has donated a rare iconic piece of movie history to help raise money to advance the human rights movement throughout the world. Here’s part of the auction description:

“Now, you have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own one of the famous fedoras actually worn by Harrison Ford during production of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Of the custom fedoras used during the filming of Indy’s fourth big screen adventure, this is one of the ‘slightly aged’ versions of the iconic headgear, showcased when the rugged and rumpled adventurer has gotten himself into a tight spot.
“Indiana Jones’ hat is arguably one of the most famous hats in cinema history. This hat is particularly special as it is from the personal collection of the director — the one and only George Lucas!”

Somebody please say they bought this for me! Every reader of this blog know’s I’m a long time fan of this guy so I hope you all pitched in on this.

Ooooohh well, it went to a good cause ….

PS

Your inner geek may also enjoy a scale replica of the Mellennium Falcon signed by HF.

I’ve got another great charity idea for you.
How about drinking coffee? Yup, it’s that simple, Maxwell House is brewingsomegood with it’s marketing campaign geared toward charity.

The Maxwell House Brew Gooder ( gotta love that! ) team gives out coffee samples and donate to good causes. They  accept submissions from charities ( not sure if these are international organizations or just Canadian ) to be sponsored.

Here are some of the latest commercials from their Brew Some Good Campaign:

Hats off to Maxwell House. It’s nice to see such a big organization stepping up to the plate and helping out in such a big way. I’d also like to include us in that category www.justfundraising.com helps supports charitable organizations.

Next time your looking for a cup of coffee pick up Maxwell House. It’s a simple way to feel like a superhero for saving the world by drinking coffee.

Brew some good..and watch the goodness grow.

Chris Hughes one of the co-founders of facebook is coming out with a new site that focuses on linking people to the non profit world. 

“What I want to do is reach a point where people can’t say, ‘I want to help. I don’t know any good, meaningful opportunities to do so. What can I do?’” he says. “I want to create a world where that statement is no longer possible.”

The site is currently under construction so I’m unsure how this is going to be accomplished or if this is just another site where Charities and Non Profits are going to have to come to  explain what they are doing. Will this just add to their work load or finally connect them to their audience? 

“People have a genuine desire to engage with the world around them in a meaningful way, but the Internet just hasn’t yet caught up with that desire yet,” Chris said in an interview. 

I just wanted to let you know about my new startup called Jumo. We’re announcing today that we’re building an online platform to connect individuals and organizations working to change the world. We believe we can leverage the participatory web to foster long-term engagement with the issues and organizations that are relevant to each individual. Jumo has the potential to unlock a great deal of time, skills, and financial resources previously unavailable to organizations around the world.

When you get a second, take a look.

We’ll be launching the site with full capabilities this fall, but I wanted to let you know that we’re officially getting underway. If you know anyone who may be interested in working with us, please send them our jobs page to get in contact with us.

Talk to you soon,

Chris

P.S. I’d love for you to forward this email to friends, become our fan on Facebook , and let your friends on Twitter know. The more people that know about what we’re doing, the stronger the team we’ll be able to build.

http://www.jumo.com is in the development stage but plan to open their doors in the fall. Watch for it, I’m sure it’ll make a huge impact. We at http://www.justfundraising.com wish Chris the best of  luck, but with his track record I’m sure he’ll be ok.