Fundraiser Ideas and Events » How Others Raise Funds

Fund Your Social Cause With The Pepsi Refresh Project

FundraisingIP.com — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:38:38 +0000

The Pepsi Refresh Project is an effort to change the world by providing funding to those who wish to make the world a better place. Through this project you could gain funding for your own social cause! Individuals, businesses and non-profits can participate.

What is the Pepsi Refresh Project?

The Pepsi Refresh Project is a year long campaign where money will be given to those individuals and groups that provide ideas for improving the world either on a local or more widespread level. Pepsi has pledged to put more than $20 million toward this project. The initial idea was to take money that could have been spent on Superbowl ads and instead re-channeling those funds to where they could do the most good. Seems like a goo idea to us!

How does it work?

The Pepsi Refresh Project is an online contest. Anyone who wishes to do so may enter their proposal online and a maximum of 1,000 such proposals are accepted every month. Assuming these proposals meet the given guidelines then they will be posted so that the public can vote on their favorites. This means that it is the public and not the folks at Pepsi who will decide which projects get the green light and the necessary funding. You could submit your own proposal and be in the running that easily.

This looks like a great opportunity for those who are looking to make a difference in the world. In one fell swoop you could come up with a concrete proposal for a project and possibly have it approved. You could instantly have the funding that you need to implement whatever changes you propose. Every month up to $1.3 million goes to the ideas that win in the categories of health, arts & culture, food & shelter, the planet, and neighborhoods & education.

Is it easy to win?

Your proposal will be competing with many others so winning is not easy. With a voting pool as large as those with internet access, you will need a large number of votes to win. You can work to get more votes by creating a proposal that people care about as much as you do and by using your social media accounts to spread the word.

We know, that’s easier said than done, but not impossible. Just look at the finalists from the past month at refresheverything.com. Plus, even if you lose you will probably have learned a whole lot about mobilizing social media and what works and what doesn’t.

What about transparency and fraud?

However, these kinds of contests also make their ways into the news when the companies behind them are being accused of fraud, like the Chase Community Project. You can also read about shady voting practices for the Pepsi Refresh Project on Beth’s Blog. If you want to hear it from an organization who actually participated in the Refresh Project click over to Modest Needs for their experience with this contest. (Select the September 2010 newsletter.)

Aside from all the bad press, these kinds of contests remain widely popular. Online charity contests are still relatively new and hopefully still improving! If you decide to give one of them a try, prepare to spend a lot of time getting people to vote and keep in mind what you are promoting: with the Pepsi Refresh Project you’d be promoting soda. You have to ask yourself if this aligns with your overall values.

What types of ideas are accepted?

While project proposals cannot contain profanity or advocate any one political party, they can be for any size project. Whether you want to create something as simple as a community garden or if you have a proposal concerning in-depth medical research, your ideas are welcome in this contest. Grants come in different sizes so all proposals are welcome.

The Pepsi Refresh Project may be a great opportunity to make your dream of a better world a reality. You can begin with the provided toolkit to help you present your idea.

‘To Write Love On Her Arms’ Raises Funds For Suicide Prevention

FundraisingIP.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:42:41 +0000

To keep you up-to-date on creative and innovative fundraising ideas, we will occasionally inform you about how others raise funds for their groups and how you can apply their fundraising strategies to your own fundraiser:

To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) is a charity about suicide prevention, started by Jamie Tworkowski in 2006. Jamie himself is a major draw for the organization, as beneficiaries of TWLOHA feel a personal connection with him.

The organization’s strategies for spreading the word include live events and effective use of the internet and have helped to create almost two million dollars in gross receipts. Not every group will be able to produce such stellar results in such a short time, but there are several things you can do to…

Improve your group’s fundraising efforts:

* If your group is a non-profit, sign up with SocialVibe: TWLOHA is a member on SocialVibe, which currently runs a ‘Givapalooza’, a charities competition that will yield an extra $20,000 for the winner. When you go to TWLOHA’s SocialVibe page, you’re asked to do a number of ‘activities’: Basically this means that you watch some commercials and when you’re done TWLOHA will get a donation for their cause. We’ve written about SocialVibe before and it’s a great way to give to a charity without actually spending cash, because the funds come from the advertisers. Signing up with SocialVibe is a great way to spread your message throughout the web and earn some extra cash for your organization! If your group is a registered 501(3) organization, e-mail partners@socialvibe.com for more info about how to sign up.

* Invite your supporters/beneficiaries to interviews and photo shoots! Jamie Tworkowski of TWLOHA invited his ‘friends’ from all over the country when he did an interview and had photos taken for Rolling Stone Magazine. It’s great PR and a chance to meet your supporters and the people who benefit from your cause.

* Tweak your website: TWLOHA’s website is well organized, kept up-to-date and features a blog. Your group’s website is representative of who you are and how you run your organization. It has the ability to create trust, but it can also portray a lack of vision, or lack of leadership. It also acts as a purely functional arm of your group that provides information to supporters and collects donations. Maybe your website needs some tweaking? To give your website a makeover, click over to Fundraising Website Checkup. If you don’t have a website yet, our article on Creating A Website may be of help.

* Go for transparency: TWLOHA has their finances displayed on their website in a way that’s easy to find. The page also shows their 501(c)3 IRS Approval Letter. Offering up your info in this way creates trust and insight in how funds are spent.

* Offer plenty of options to donate and otherwise support your group: TWLOHA prominently displays Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, ‘DONATE’ and other buttons to sites and services that let you support them in some way.

* Consider selling merchandise: a large chunk of gross receipts at TWLOHA comes from t-shirt and other apparel sales. Use your website to sell well designed products that supporters would like to use or wear and give away as gifts. One or just a few products is all it takes to earn some funds for your group, while also spreading the word about your cause.

If you don’t want to go through the hassle of ordering and shipping products, consider signing up with sites like CafePress or Zambooie which let you create your own online store; they also manufacture and ship products directly to the buyers. This means there is no product for you to order, store or ship – the service takes care of everything.

* Sign up with the major social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook. Use the accounts for quick updates, for answering questions, info on events etc.; also link your blog through Twitterfeed to automatically update your social networking sites with your latest posts. (More about social media marketing.)

Creating a marketing and fundraising strategy that includes both, online and live events will give your group maximum exposure to different demographic groups while offering plenty of options to support your cause!

PS: Does your group use different channels online and ‘offline’ for marketing and fundraising, or some creative ways to attract new supporters? We’d love to hear about it! Why not drop us a note – be sure to include your website’s URL – and we may feature your group on FundraisingIP.com: We will all learn something and get new ideas for our own fundraisers and you will get free marketing and links back to your site!

Ideas For Holiday Fundraisers

FundraisingIP.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:57:47 +0000

Many religious holidays are celebrated during the winter months, which makes this time of year a great time for fundraising. Whether your potential sponsors and supporters celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa or Hanukkah doesn’t matter; decorative items for the home, wrapping paper for presents and items representative of winter make appropriate fundraising items just about anyone will find useful. To keep your holiday fundraiser from being too generic, you could add a few items related to the different holidays, making sure you offer something for every one of your potential supporters.

For more creative holiday fundraising ideas that can maximize your fundraising efforts, take a look at what Riverton and Bingham high schools in Utah came up with for their holiday fundraising campaign, which benefited various groups. These industrious students fanned out and did whatever it took to raise funds and ended up raising a whopping $145,534.04 in three weeks!

Raise funds with odd jobs
No job is too little and every dollar raised counts! Take a tip from the kids at Riverton and Bingham and get volunteers out there raking leaves, shoveling snow and doing any other odd jobs they can find for the fundraiser. Kids should travel in groups when knocking on doors or have a parent accompany them.

Sell tickets to events
The Riverton and Bingham students also hosted a benefit concert, a “Battle of the Bands” and an all-night camp out. These kinds of events require more planning, but are obviously well worth it!

Carnival
Bingham also held a carnival to raise money. These students really made sure that their fundraising campaign was going to be a lot of fun! (More about a carnival fundraiser.)

If you don’t have the volunteer base to pull off a large campaign, you can always resort to catalog sales, a time-tested way to successfully raise funds. One of the most popular fundraising items has traditionally been frozen cookie dough. This year you can take it a step further and offer home delivery cookie dough. This means your donors do not have to go anywhere to pick up orders and you don’t have to deliver them. More and more fundraising services are offering this option. Chocolate is another big seller. You can put a twist on this favorite by selling free-trade chocolates.

E-mail campaign

Of course, don’t forget to use your e-mail list for your fundraising efforts. (If you don’t have an e-mail list yet, get one started! Use sign-up sheets at events, or provide an e-mail address or website URL where people can leave their e-mail address. In any case, assure your potential supporters that you will keep their info private and that you won’t share it with anyone.) You can write about current fundraising campaigns, how the proceeds from the last fundraiser were used, and finally, don’t forget to thank everyone. Make sure you add information about how and where more donations can be made. Year end cash donations are often plentiful, because of potential tax write-offs.

Tip: start your holiday fundraiser with a kickoff event to raise local awareness and excitement. It allows you to educate participants about all the details, including the fundraising goal and what prizes will be awarded – if any – for those who raise the most funds.

Online Cancer Fundraising Campaigns

FundraisingIP.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:27:27 +0000

Following are two more examples of how social media is being used very creatively to raise money for a cause:

Blame Drew’s Cancer Fundraising Campaign

Fall 2009: Twitterer Drew Olanoff, who is currently being treated for Hodgkin Lymphoma, has started a social media fundraising effort for Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong campaign. How it all started: When Olanoff realized that he was blaming everything that went wrong in his life on his cancer, he encouraged his friends to also blame their problems on his cancer and make it known via Twitter by attaching #BlameDrewsCancer to their tweets. From there #BlameDrewsCancer grew into a huge movement.

Drew’s Twitter name is simply @drew. With short Twitter names being highly sought after, Olanoff saw an opportunity to raise money and decided to auction off his Twitter name for a minimum of $10,000. The auction is running until November 9th, 2009 and will take place on Twitter using the merit system: anyone can place their bid on the @drew Twitter name using the #drewbid hashtag. All money will go to the LiveStrong foundation.

Shortly after the auction started, The Price is Right host Drew Carey placed a bid for $25,000. He then promised that he would pay $100,000 if his current account, @drewfromTV, exceeds 100,000 followers by November 9th, 2009. Since then, Carey has raised his offer even more to donate up to $1 million to the LiveStrong campaign if he can reach 1 million followers by year end!

Beat Cancer Everywhere Fundraising Campaign

Fall 2009: The Beat Cancer social media fundraising campaign experiment was launched (and completed) within a 24 hour period. From Friday, October 16th at 9 am (PDT) and lasting until Saturday, October 17th at 9am (PDT) people all over the internet were asked to send tweets, Facebook status updates and blog posts including the #BeatCancer hashtag. Besides raising money for charity, the goal was also to set a Guinness World Record.

Sponsors to this campaign are eBay and Miller Coors. According to Radian6, the official online monitoring company, the phrase #BeatCancer did set a Guinness World record with a total of 209,771 mentions on Twitter, Facebook and blog posts within a 24 hour period. This translates into an estimated number of impressions (during this 24-hour period) at over 100 Million! Total proceeds for this campaign so far are about $70,000, which will be donated to non-profit cancer organizations SU2C (Stand Up to Cancer), Alex’s Lemonade, Bright Pink, and Spirit Jump. (All are 501 (c)(3) organizations and accredited by The American Cancer Society.) The official site for this campaign is at BeatCancerEverywhere.

What can we take away from this?The possibilities for raising funds on the internet are endless! But we’re still in the beginning stages of figuring out what will actually work well. Adding a creative aspect to your campaign seems to be key for getting noticed and partnering up with another person or group will also help greatly.

Obviously having the support from celebrities or large companies doesn’t hurt, but even without a celebrity or large corporate support a worthy cause can raise substantial money through social media channels on the web. Case in point EpicChange’s Twitter fundraiser. (Read about more online fundraising campaigns here.)

Do you have an idea for a social media fundraising campaign? Or have you already tried one? Let us know in the comment section below.

Germany To Jordan Fundraising Car Rally

FundraisingIP.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:27:15 +0000

We’ve come across this fundraising event idea through friends of ours in Southern Germany. It looks like this kind of event requires quite a bit of planning, but when you look at the website for this car rally fundraiser (some pages are available in English) you can see that they’re having so much fun – participation grew from just a handful of teams four years ago to about 70 teams this year – that it’s well worth it!

What is this fundraiser all about?

All donations and profits arising from this rally go towards building a cheese factory to help poor families in Al Rabiat in Jordan (near Amman) become self sufficient and support themselves. The income from previous rallies was used to buy the land to build the factory on. Other sponsors will donate training to run the cheese factory and a solar power plant to provide electricity. All funds go through the World Food Program which administers the project in Jordan and handles all the bureaucracy. Last year’s rally brought in 80,000 Euros (about $100,000)!

This fundraiser began as a crazy low budget answer to the Paris-Dakar Rally, while at the same time promoting international understanding and communication and also supporting a good cause. It leads from Oberstaufen in Southern Germany to Amman in Jordan. The winner is the team that reaches Amman with all its cars safe and sound and has solved all the tasks requested in the road book. The first prize is a camel! Unfortunately the camel must stay in Jordan, but it can be visited at any time by the winners…

What are the rules?

The rules are that each car used in the rally has to be at least 20(!) years old and cost less than 2,000 Euros. Teams have to sleep in tents, or in hotels that cost no more than 10 Euros a night (about $13). Why the low budget cars and facilities? This ensures that the rally truly remains open for everyone to participate, which was part of the ground rules when this fundraiser started in 2006.

What about sponsors?

This event is supported by big names, like the UN’s World Food Program, the Jordan Tourism Board, and many large and small organizations and companies in Jordan and Germany.

The organizers of this rally had been approached by a production company to do a reality show. They gracefully declined though, after they found out that they would have been required to stage personal drama and several car wrecks. An accompanying reality show would’ve probably brought in thousands more in revenue and more sponsors, but because it would have seriously hampered the spirit of the rally, the organizers of the fundraiser decided not to take the offer.

Is this fundraiser right for your group?

It seems that the hardest part about this fundraiser are the legal issues that arise out of a non-profit project that straddles more than one country. Unless your fundraising project also involves more than one country, this fundraiser requires planning much like many other larger fundraising events: you need to form a planning and oversight committee, define rules for participants, define meeting places, prizes, sponsors, get permits and definitely put up a website for information and updates.

So if you’re tired of conventional fundraising events and you think you can create interest among your members and potential supporters, why not go for it! Would you have only a few teams/drivers, or dozens? Would your rally go between neighborhoods, cities, states or countries? Would you have local media coverage, national, or even international media coverage?

If you’re deciding to do a fundraising event like this one, please let us know and we’ll help promote it through our website! This fundraising event starts on May 2nd and we’ll be sure to keep you updated on the outcome.

“Tweet To Beat” Social Media Fundraising Experiment

FundraisingIP.com — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:40:36 +0000

“Tweet to Beat” is a social media fundraiser that uses Twitter to spread the word and also to publicly track the amount that will be donated.

This fundraiser will benefit U.S. public school students by donating proceeds to DonorsChoose.org.

Here is how it works:

Tim Ferris of The 4-hour Workweek will donate $1 for each new Twitter follower he gets within the following two weeks, ending March 23rd. 2009. In addition to that an anonymous person will donate another $2 per new Twitter follower on Tim’s Twitter account.

On his blog post about this fundraiser Tim mentions that he might add some twists and details to this fundraiser in order to increase donations.

How much do you think this fundraiser will yield?

Will Tim reach his initial goal of $150,000 by March 23rd? Our guess is yes!!

If you’d like to help, simply follow him on his Twitter account and $3 will be donated.

Not on Twitter yet? :0 Sign up here, it’s free.

* * * * *

What can you learn about this fundraiser and potentially apply it to your own?

- This fundraiser makes use of a (real or imaginary?) fundraising partner who will provide matching donations. This motivates potential supporters and is a popular way to create more interest and therefore attract more donations.
- This fundraiser makes use of social media and the internet to spread the word.
- Of course what helps a lot here is the fact that Tim Ferris is famous for his book The 4-hour Workweek. He’s basically ‘donating’ his time and persona to DonorsChoose.org in order to raise money for them. Nice! He’ll also get lots more Twitter followers in return. It’s a win-win situation!

More about this fundraiser when it’s completed. Or maybe the momentum will be great enough to make this an ongoing fundraiser? We’ll see…

Update: Well, Tim didn’t even come close to his goal by the March 23rd deadline, but nevertheless, DonorsChoose.org still benefited from this experiment; read more at DonorsChoose.org.

Rooftop Fundraising, Cows And Spelling Bees

FundraisingIP.com — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:08:13 +0000

With all the buzz about raising money online these days, you’d think that the only money to be found is on the internet. But the reality is that less than 10 percent of the $2+ billion dollars that were raised last year was online. The rest? Regular old, run-of-the-mill fundraisers like…

Camping Out On The Roof

OK, so this one’s not so typical. Four members of the United Way of Wabash Valley (UWWV) camped out on the roof of a local grocery for 12 hours to create awareness for their organization and the 43 agencies it serves. They had lots of fun talking to the community and media and in the meantime raised a respectable $18,000. Read more…

Dressing Up Like A Cow

Seniors in the women’s history class at Roseburg High School thought their teacher was joking when she suggested they purchase a cow. But the class rallied around Mrs. Gwen Bartlett’s plan to raise money to donate to Heifer International, when they discovered the group’s mission is to help underprivileged families around the world by providing them with livestock and teaching them how to take care of it. They ended up with enough money to buy a cow, a water buffalo, and two goats – and a teacher who had to dress up like a cow per her promise. “If we reach our goal of $500,” she said, “I’ll wear a cow suit to class.” Read more…

Spelling Words In Public

Marion County Literacy Council members decided to stick to their mission when it came time to raise funds and hold what’s better known as a Spelling Bee. Teams and sponsors from all over the area paid $500 each to compete in the Bee and help raise a total of $27,000 toward the council’s operating budget. It will be used to buy things like books and materials for tutor/student pairs. Read more…

What lesson can be learned from these fundraisers? Come up with a fun concept that people are excited to be a part of – not always an easy task, but definitely doable! The number of ways to raise money is countless and the above stories show that even in a tough economy, people are willing to donate to help someone in else.

Online Cancer Fundraising Campaigns

TweetsGiving.org Uses Twitter To Reach Fundraising Goal In Just 48 Hours

FundraisingIP.com — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:27:43 +0000

EpicChange.org created the website TweetsGiving.org specifically for their fundraising campaign to fund building a classroom for a school in Tanzania. During Thanksgiving week (2008), they’ve been using their Twitter account to help get out their message and have managed to reach their fundraising goal of $10,000 within just 48 hours! (Twitter is a site where you can log on and exchange short messages or ‘tweets’ with others. Sounds easy? It is!)

How can you start an online fundraising campaign like this one?

The great thing about this campaign is, that it is pretty easy to implement if you already have a website for your group. A website is important, so potential supporters can easily get more information about your cause and have a place where they can donate. However, unless your group already has a Twitter account, plan for some additional time to attract followers, find others to follow and learn about how Twitter works before you start your campaign.

You have to sign up for several accounts, so make sure you have all contact information handy before you start.

1. Sign up for a PayPal Business account. (Sign up is free.) PayPal will verify all new accounts, so it may take a few days before you can actually use your account and accept payments through it. PayPal is a great way to collect money, because supporters can donate with credit cards or electronic transfers and PayPal is integrated with many online donation services. You can also use PayPal to raise funds through your website. Having a payment portal like PayPal is useful for any online fundraising campaign, not just this one, so sign up now, even if you’re not ready yet for this particular campaign.

2. Sign up for ChipIn.com. (free) This will allow you to create a widget that shows current contributions – like a ‘fundraising thermomenter’ – to your campaign (see example on TweetsGiving.org website) through PayPal. Put this widget on your website to show your fundraising progress.

3. Create an account at Twitter.com. (free) Be sure to pick a user name that reflects or describes your cause. Do allow some time between signing up for a Twitter account and the start of your campaign, so you can get familiar with Twitter and attract some followers for your cause. You will see that the more you interact on Twitter, the more followers you will get; you will also meet many others who have worthwhile causes!

4. Confirm your time frame (over a weekend or just a few days) and make sure you or your volunteers get familiar with Twitter before you start your campaign. This will assure everything will go smoothly.

5. You’re ready to launch your fundraiser! Announce your fundraising campaign on your website and through your e-mail list.

Make sure your or your volunteers are signed in to your Twitter account during every day of your campaign. You can chat with others, answer questions about the campaign, direct followers to your website (where they can also donate), thank each person for their donation, etc. The key is to be a part of the campaign and spreading excitement about your cause.

The TweetsGiving campaign asked followers to ‘tweet’ about what they’re thankful for. This created a conversation and a buzz around the campaign. Some posted funny videos or photos and linked to them on Twitter, which created even more interest. You can do something similar with your fundraiser to get people talking, laughing and telling their friends about the fundraiser. People like to be a part of something positive and people like to help!

Overwhelmed?

Yes, it can get overwhelming. But don’t fret! There’s another way to gain a better understanding about this type of fundraiser: look at it from the perspective of a supporter.

1. Learning about the ‘giving information’ and ‘receiving donations’ part: Go to the TweetsGiving.org website to read about their fundraising campaign and to see the fundraising widget at the top of the page. Then click on the fundraising widget, which takes you directly to their PayPal account. Now donate – any amount is welcomed! You can just donate a dollar if you like. (Since they’ve already reached their fundraising goal, any additional funds will go to building a library for the school.) As you go through the payment process, take your time; this is the same process your supporters will go through, when they donate to your cause once you’ve set up your fundraising campaign.

2. Learning about the ‘social networking’ ‘creating a buzz’ and ‘asking for money’ part: Go to TweetsGiving.org’s Twitter page and read the messages created by them throughout their campaign (3 days around Thanksgiving). They welcomed new followers, thanked people who donated and spread the word about their cause, asked for money, made jokes, linked to funny videos and pictures etc. This is the part that you or your volunteers need to take time for if you decide to do a campaign like this. This is also why a short time frame works best; someone always needs to be available.

(While you’re on Twitter.com, you may want to set up your own personal account and start using it. You’ll see what others are ‘tweeting’ about, you can search for your favorite websites’ Twitter accounts, follow others who are promoting their causes and more.)

Don’t forget:

Just because this fundraiser is virtual doesn’t mean you should just forget about it when it’s completed. Make sure you ‘tweet’ about your fundraising success, thank everyone again for their generosity and also write about it on your website.

Also ask supporters if they’d like to keep informed about future fundraising campaigns and collect e-mail addresses.

Any questions about this fundraiser? Please post them in the comments section below.

Update: For Thanksgiving 2009 EpicChange is moving the celebration offline with live gratitude parties across the globe, to be held during November 24 – 26, 2009. Already, events are scheduled from Tel Aviv to the Silicon Valley, and from Phoenix to Frankfurt. Learn more about staging your own Gratitude Party.

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For final statistics on this fundraiser visit MeshugAvi.com. He was part of the team putting this fundraiser together.

More about How Others Raise Funds.

Visit our Twitter page!

In The News: Record Profits, Mobile Donations – Using SMS To Raise Funds, New Online Fundraising Service

FundraisingIP.com — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:13:13 +0000

cMarket Network posts record profits through its online auctions:

cMarket Network, an online auction fundraising service for nonprofit organizations, announced in a press release that they had surpassed $50 million raised for charitable causes through its online auctions, which included a $10 million increase in just six months.

They attribute this recent growth in record sales to a tightening economy and a growing need for nonprofits to increase their fundraising income.

Is an online auction right for your group?

Read more about online auctions, or go to cMarket’s website. To see what’s currently up for auction, visit BiddingForGood.com.

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Unicef’s mobile donation campaign makes use of SMS to raise funds:

This year, UNICEF employed a text messaging SMS ‘Text-or-Treat for UNICEF’ campaign to raise funds for their annual Halloween fundraiser. Each SMS to Unicef resulted in a $5 donation which was added to the supporter’s mobile phone’s billing statement.

This mobile donation fundraiser added another dimension and fundraising opportunity to their regular trick-or-treat campaign. There is no word yet on how successful this fundraiser was. Go to their site for details on this fundraiser.

Where can you get more information about mobile donation campaigns?

Mobile donations are still fairly new in the US, which means there aren’t many providers yet. Unicef’s mobile fundraiser was run through mGive.com.

WirelessFactory.com and mCommons.com both also offer mobile donation services.

For a list of charities that accept mobile donations, visit the Mobile Giving Foundation ‘charities’ page. The Mobile Giving Foundation is responsible for certifying nonprofits wishing to participate in a mobile donation program, managing the wireless industry’s Mobile Giving Standards and Best Practices and insuring compliance with Federal and State Regulations. This organization’s website is also a great resource for more information on mobile donations.

As with any financial service, be sure to inquire about any fixed and variable fees, like application fees, monthly fees, per donation fees etc., your organization will be charged when signing up for a mobile donation fundraising campaign. Expect fees for a mobile donation campaign to be quite a bit higher than fees from a ‘donate now’ button on your website.

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Virgin Money announces new online fundraising website:

Virgin Money announced their new non-profit charity donation and sponsorship website to be launched in the Spring of 2009. This announcement was made on their UK website and it wasn’t quite clear if this service will also be available for US charities. Virgin Money Giving will be a direct competitor to such popular online fundraising sites as JustGiving.com.

The organisation noted that by operating on a not-for-profit basis it would be able to give a higher percentage of sponsorship money to charity and non-profits. That means that a higher percentage of donations would go to the actual cause than can currently be paid by the popular online fundraising sites.

Fees for online fundraising services can be as high as 10% which cuts deeply into fundraising profits. Competition in this field will be welcome by non-profits everywhere!

Fundraising For A Dog Park With Dog Houses and Doggie Bowls

FundraisingIP.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:49:05 +0000

The Provincetown Dog Park Association in MA auctioned off artist embellished dog houses and a local gallery owner helped with a display of dog bowls to raise funds for building a dog park for their town.

The event included online bidding, bidding by phone and a silent auction and raised $12,000 in one day.

In a dog-crazy art colony like Provincetown, the idea for this particular fundraiser made perfect sense, said Candace Nagle, head of the Provincetown Dog Park Association.

She made a general shout-out to artists this summer and, in a few days, more than 50 had volunteered to personalize a plain pre-built wooden house…

…Nagle said auction officials were also fielding phone calls, e-mails and text messages from people as far away as California who wanted to bid on the houses.

…gallery owner Denny Camino bought 500 lime green dog bowls at Ikea, Nagle said. He placed them in front of the Denny Camino Gallery on Commercial Street and posted a sign asking for donations to be placed in the bowls for the Bark Park. By summer’s end, Bark Park volunteers had scooped $9,000 in change from the bowls…

To read the complete article, click here.

How can you apply information from this fundraiser to you yours?

This fundraiser had people from across the country bid on the dog houses. If you’re planning to auction off items you think might be attractive to a large number of people, make sure you market your fundraiser with a local newspaper article, potentially a national press release and an e-mail campaign. Also send your info to bloggers (Google your topic to find relevant blogs) and post on social networking sites. (More on marketing your fundraiser…)

The idea to put out dog bowls to collect money was creative and reached people who would not necessarily be interested in buying the dog houses, but who were willing to donate small amounts of money. Consider adding an aspect to your fundraiser that lets people donate small amounts of money. It does add up!

For more posts like this one, click over to our How Others Raise Funds Category.

Angling In On Fundraiser Marketing

FundraisingIP.com — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:49:00 +0000

Fundraiser marketing can present unique challenges because of the large amount of fundraisers during the months school is in session. The most important aspect of fundraiser marketing is getting the word out; but the most successful fundraisers – regardless of the organization type or group size – are those that set themselves apart from the rest of the fundraising crowd.

One way to make an impact is to put a spin on your fundraiser, and market that angle. That little extra spin can turn a regular fundraiser of moderate interest into a fun event that people want to be a part of in whatever way they can.

Almost any fundraiser can be spun with an angle. For example, a pizza fundraiser for a volunteer fire department in Michigan was turned into a community affair by having the firefighters actually bake, serve, and deliver the pizzas. An additional fire-safety spin was put on the event when a local Ace Hardware store donated smoke detectors to be given to the first 200 customers. The success of the event netted more than $1800 for the department.

This is just one way forward-thinking organizers made more of an otherwise regular fundraising event. There are plenty of other ways fundraisers have taken advantage of marketing angles. Some fundraising marketing angles that have grown in popularity, and proven to increase the bottom line of fundraisers include:

Faculty vs. student sporting events
Fashion shows with community models
Fun takes on old themes like casino nights, or a day at the races with turtles
Events that let students and/or community members ‘stick it to’ administrators and authority figures; events like the age-old dunking booth, pie throwing, shaved heads, duct-tape-the-principal, kiss-the-pig and so on…
On the more serious side, fundraisers with dual beneficiaries, such as partnering with charitable organizations, or providing education and awareness for participants (for example, bike races being coupled with bicycle safety campaigns, or carnivals coupled with child safety initiatives; more about joint fundraising events)

These are all great ways to put a spin on a fundraising marketing campaign, but you may find that your group can do even better. The appeal of fundraising marketing angles is that they provide a great product or service in a new, interesting, in-demand way. That means that the possibilities for your group are virtually endless!

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Design Marathon Fundraiser In Charlottesville, VA

FundraisingIP.com — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:19:13 +0000

Are some of your fundraising profits spent on things like designing or printing marketing materials like flyers and posters? With the current economic slow-down you might already experience a reduction in donations to your group and feel that every dollar earned needs to go directly to the actual program or cause you’re raising funds for. But not having marketing materials will only cause a further decline in donations. So what are you supposed to do?

Instead of using hard earned fundraising dollars to pay for a service, “fundraise” for the actual design or marketing service instead.

That’s exactly what happened when a Design Marathon was held to benefit local non-profits in Charlottesville, Va:

Thirty professionals and students from Charlottesville’s thriving design community donated an estimated $30,000 worth of time to complete 10 projects in just 10 hours.

Projects ranged from creating a poster ad campaign for the Rivanna Conservation Society to designing a low-cost playground for Children, Youth and Family Services (CYFS).

How can you apply this information to benefit your cause?

Regardless of what service you’re in need of, local businesses, high school or college students might be able and willing to help you. Businesses will get exposure and free promo, students will be able to put the experience on their resume and get their work published.

There is power in numbers and partnering with other groups in need to organize an actual event like the one mentioned here might be just what’s needed to be successful!

For more information about this fundraiser, click over to their blog.

For more posts like this one, go to our How Others Raise Funds category or our Fundraising Events category.

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Book Aid International Uses eBay Live Auction To Raise Funds

FundraisingIP.com — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:26:02 +0000

This fundraiser is for Book Aid International and uses eBay to auction off books. The books were picked (and autographed) by celebrities and politicians because of the big impact these books had on their lives.

Book Aid is also auctioning off original illustrations by Nick Sharratt, Satoshi Kitamura and Sue Heap.

“Celebrities, authors and politicians have selected and inscribed beautiful editions of the books that have meant the most to them, to help us raise money! Over 50 gorgeous lots are available, including books chosen by Robbie Coltrane, Sir Ian McKellan, Helen Mirren and David Cameron.”

You can view the eBay auction here until October 22nd.

This live auction takes place on the UK eBay website, but the same auction would be possible on the US eBay website as well.

Are you running a fun, creative, or innovative fundraiser? Let us know!

Click over to our Fundraising Online category for more information on online fundraisers.

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Zorro The Traveling Cat!

FundraisingIP.com — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:33:19 +0000

Update: Unfortunately the following project has been discontinued, but it was a clever and fun way to bring attention to the well deserving charities WWF World Wildlife Fund and the SPCA. This post is the first in the series of guest posts on “How Others Raise Funds”.

Zorro The Traveling Cat!

by: Eric of Zorro The Traveling Cat!

CATs, Traveling, Donations… Three words that each mean a lot and can be used in the same sentence when you think of Zorro The Traveling CAT; the CAT that donates in order to help out animals in need and helps you discover interesting places to visit!

We started this site because we wanted to honor our little buddy and we also love traveling. We contribute every month to the SPCA and World Wildlife Fund as we believe in their missions and goals. Now, Zorro The Traveling CAT has become something that represents so much more then we’ve ever anticipated! We receive wonderful emails and photos that help us discover what a great World we live in. Hopefully you will learn and enjoy too!

We invite you to submit a photo of your travels or a local landmark; if the site on your photo has a great story behind it, or the site has historic value, even better!

Zorro’s site will post up to five contributed photos a month, based on photos that meet our “quality standards” and in order of submission. In the future, we would like to make donations of $10 per photographic contributions, as of now, the maintenance costs of the website limit us to a budget of $7.00 per submission.

Once we post your photo, we will send you a proof of transaction by email (SPCA will send it directly to your email address) and we will also post it on the web site (hiding your full name of course!).

If you would like to contribute a photo(s) and have a donation done in your honor, please follow these steps:

1. Send your high quality photo through our website. We will add Zorro!
2. Provide a brief description of your photo.
3. Include the city/town, state/province and country of where your photo was taken.
4. Let me know if you want me to contribute $7.00 to the World Wildlife Fund or to the SPCA.
5. If you want to receive your $2.00 for your photo contribution, please leave me your PayPal email address so I can deposit the amount!
6. We would also like to know where you are from! City/town, state/province and country!
7. Please note that we cannot accept photos that depict people.

That’s it! When you’re ready to submit your photo, please visit us at Zorro The Traveling Cat!

Successful Online Fundraisers

FundraisingIP.com — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:41:07 +0000

One way to raise money for your favorite cause is with an online auction. One branch of the Better Business Bureau in Colorado found this to be the pot of gold when it came to fundraising, managing to raise $13,000 from the online portion of their fundraiser. Online portion, you say? Was there another? Actually, there was. In addition to using BiddingForGood.com to auction off various items like a hot-air balloon ride and a getaway vacation to the Canary Islands, they also had a live auction with some of the items that had been featured online. Combining an online auction with a live one meant that they raised more than twice what they would have raised using only one or the other.

Of course, nothing compares to that old standby, word-of-mouth. Which is what Joshua Wells counted on, when he set a goal to raise $1,200 for the Expedition Inspiration Fund for Breast Cancer Research. He asked people to sponsor him to climb a nearby mountain, Ryan Peak, in order to donate the money to the Fund. He ended up raising nearly twice that amount, at $2,322.

And when it comes to fundraising, sooner or later someone’s gonna bring up magazine sales. Why not do it online? The Marquette Rowing Club did – and they managed to raise $1,700 using the site magfundraising.com. The premise is the one we all know: order magazines from them to raise money for the group. But the twist is that with online sales, there’s no door-to-door selling, so the fundraiser is safe even for school groups. And with it being online, the event can go on all year – raising funds little by little for your organization.

An innovative way to raise funds online is fundable.com. Though many of the projects on this site have a small budget, there’s no reason why anyone couldn’t use it to raise any amount of money. One creative director of the dance group Misnomer Dance Theater used it to raise money for a new choreography routine in New York City, and reached their goal of $800. What sets fundable.com apart from other online fundraising services is that if you don’t reach your goal by the deadline, your supporters aren’t charged anything – ensuring that you won’t be left with partial funds and wondering what to do with it.

Read more about online fundraising, magazine fundraisers and other fundraising ideas.