Firstgiving Blog

FoTW: Trottin' For Charity

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Thanksgiving isn't just a day to gather with your family, watch football, and overeat to your heart's content; it's also a great time to give back to the community and help those in need. Artist Jill Stutzman and author Scott Berkun did just that with their amazing and creative fundraising page: www.firstgiving.com/scottandjill . The page benefits Hopelink- a nonprofit based in the Seattle area that is dedicated to supporting homeless and low income families. The duo participated in the Turkey Trot, a 5K walk in Kirkland, Washington on November 18. According to Hopelink’s website, “Turkey Trot proceeds help Hopelink provide emergency services for low-income families in our community during the winter months when they face added pressures such as higher home heating costs and additional food needs.”

As if helping those in need wasn’t reward enough, Jill and Scott are making great use of their artistic talents to provide supporters with incentives to donate. Jill is offering to give anyone who donates $25 or more an assortment of Art Cards with images of her own, beautiful paintings. Anyone who donates $50 or more will receive a signed first edition copy of Scott’s book, The Myths Of Innovation.

To give supporters and idea of just how much help their donations give to those in need, Jill and Scott included a list on their fundraising page of what Hopelink is able to do with the contributions they receive. For instance, a $100 pledge covers fresh produce for 100 families during one holiday, $50 provides food and two nights shelter for a homeless child, and $10 purchases the turkey trimmings for a family in need this holiday season. With the $1,544.51 that Scott and Jill’s page has already raised, Hopelink will be able to do a large amount of good.

FoTW: Collaboration for Education

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Firstgiving is all about having people utilize their social networks to reach as many people as possible for a good cause. This is exactly what Dane Low is doing with his fundraising page for Room to Read, www.firstgiving.com/danelow .

He is conducting "a social psychology project to see if 17,000 people collabor ate through Facebook to raise $17,000 for "Room to Read" to build a school in a developing nation by donating online at Firstgiving.com." The money would be able to fund the building of a school in Vietnam that will "give the gift of education to 100s of children every year.” Dane urges donors to donate a dollar and, in turn, influence 5 of their closest friends and family to do the same thing. To help in the process, Dane will be donating a dollar for every $100 that is donated until the page reaches its goal.

Keeping with the theme of collaboration, Taylor the “Condo King” Conroy of CondoGroup in British Columbia is offering to match the $1027 had already raised. The offer comes with one condition:

“If you can get 50 people to donate just $5 each in the next 25 days (until Dec. 5/07)…” the CondoGroup will match the amount of funds that had already been raised.

Fully utilizing the social networking capabilities that the internet has to offer, Dane has set up a fantastic Facebook group called “Facebook For Education in Developing Nations,” which has already gathered over 400 members for the cause. He has also created a YouTube video that explains the project and gives viewers great tips for how to generate more donations. In fact, word is spreading so fast and far about what Dane has been doing that the project was featured at Trend Hunter, a site that specializes in covering hot trends around the web.

We here at Firstgiving are excited about what Dane is doing. He is truly embodying what we, as a company, are all about. Keep up the good work, Dane!

WHAT'S NEW AT FIRSTGIVING?

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Firstgiving Welcomes American Express® & Discover® Card

As part of our ongoing effort to make online giving easy and accessible to all, Firstgiving now accepts American Express® and Discover® Card!  Now donors can take advantage of the benefits of using their AMEX and Discover cards, while supporting the charity of their choice!  In addition, we still continue to accept Visa® and Mastercard® as payment options.

Firstgiving launches Referral Program for Nonprofits

Firstgiving is focused on expanding our nonprofit community.  As a Firstgiving Subscriber you can now refer another nonprofit organization that you believe may benefit from our person-to-person online fundraising tools, and earn a referral discount in the process! 

The discount equals $100.00 off of your next annual subscription fee once your referral establishes a new Firstgiving Subscription.  Firstgiving users tell us they refer Firstgiving all the time because of the positive results and experience.  We feel this referral program is a great way to reward you for your assistance in growing our community.

Click here for instructions on how to refer a new nonprofit organization to Firstgiving. If you have any questions regarding the referral program feel free to contact us at james@firstgiving.com.

Add your 2008 Events TODAY!!!

Now is the time to promote your Winter/Spring 2008 events via your Firstgiving Start page.

New this year: "Add an Event" Feature has been added for your convenience!

Simply click here or go to http://www.firstgiving.com/design/1/add_event.asp, fill in the required fields (marked with an asterix *), then click the Submit button.

It's that easy!

If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us at yvette@firstgiving.com.

Spike's Challenge! EAT A DOG, SAVE A DOG!

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On Friday, November 2, 2007, 5 brave souls from Firstgiving descended on Spike's Junkyard Dogs in Davis Square  Somerville to stuff their bellies for bragging rights and raise money for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals!  Click here to read all about it!  Click here for photos.  Donate to the cause here!