I literally hate watching the news, but I do it anyway so that I can stay tuned to what is going on in the world. Over the past 2 years, people around the world have suffered from floods, oil spills, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, and it is so important to donate to charities that help countries and communities struck by natural and man-made disasters.
While many organizations respond to crises as they hit, these organizations depend on the generosity of personal fundraisers and the masses in order to provide aid to these areas. That’s right: the volunteer community that makes relief projects possible needs us!
That is why me and me and my girlfriends are lunching a new fundraising project to raise money online to support the efforts overseas. We’ve been brain storming all week to figure out what organizations we want to fundraise for and how to get the word out about our new charity fundraising campaign. We’re even thinking about giving away prizes to those who donate to charities or just visit our Internet fundraising pages.
The money that we raise online will go directly to the charities so that they can send the money to their relief programs. More importantly, my rich aunt even says that she is going to match all the donations that are made on the day our Internet donation pages go live.
My friends and me can’t wait to get our online fund raiser started and to really make an impact in those areas in the world that require immediate relief.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
I'm convinced. Anyone can do this.
It’s official. I’m a fundraising junky. I just love to give back and love the causes that I support. Yesterday, I saw on tv that there was a 10 year old girl who gave up her b-day so that she could donate that money that would have been spent to charity. She had started a whole fundraising campaign online and had people make online pledge pages for her b-day, and apparently, she was able to raise 20,000 dollars for this conservation charity working in South America. I know I wasn’t thinking about that when I was her age. I just wanted all the presents I could get.
As you can see from my other posts, I think this whole fundraising online internet thing is really cool because this means that you, an individual, a human limited by their local concerns and obligations and community, can make a monumental impact through personal internet fundraising campaigns. If a 10 year old girl from Georgia can do it, why can’t everyone in America pick up the slack and really move to make a difference in our neighborhoods and beyond.
I was telling all of this to my mom and she said that she would give it a try too. So I’m going to help her set up a profile and some fundraising pages like mine. She is really bad with technology so I’m wondering how she will do, but she is definitely excited to help out and get involved. So, if my mom and a little girl can raise money online, really I think anyone in the world can do it.
As you can see from my other posts, I think this whole fundraising online internet thing is really cool because this means that you, an individual, a human limited by their local concerns and obligations and community, can make a monumental impact through personal internet fundraising campaigns. If a 10 year old girl from Georgia can do it, why can’t everyone in America pick up the slack and really move to make a difference in our neighborhoods and beyond.
I was telling all of this to my mom and she said that she would give it a try too. So I’m going to help her set up a profile and some fundraising pages like mine. She is really bad with technology so I’m wondering how she will do, but she is definitely excited to help out and get involved. So, if my mom and a little girl can raise money online, really I think anyone in the world can do it.
Global Causes
The sweetest thing about online fundraising is that you can support global causes and projects all over the world. One person can fundraise online for numerous projects, supporting numerous charity fundraising campaigns.
For instance, I just started two new projects on Crowdrise. One is supporting an animal shelter down the street from my house and the other is supporting a Charity: Water and their work in Honduras. These online fundraising pages are both on my profile page so they are super easy to get to and you can just click on them and donate.
In the past, a person was limited to the amount of fundraising projects they could take on and fundraising involved so much work. If you were raising the donations offline, you had to figure out how to not only get people to write checks, but also figure out how to get the money to the charity. Now, one person can be in as many fundraising communities as they want, supporting projects all over the place.
So, I just thought that that was a really cool and there are some really good ways to raise money online if you want to give back and support, but just don’t have the time to do it.
For instance, I just started two new projects on Crowdrise. One is supporting an animal shelter down the street from my house and the other is supporting a Charity: Water and their work in Honduras. These online fundraising pages are both on my profile page so they are super easy to get to and you can just click on them and donate.
In the past, a person was limited to the amount of fundraising projects they could take on and fundraising involved so much work. If you were raising the donations offline, you had to figure out how to not only get people to write checks, but also figure out how to get the money to the charity. Now, one person can be in as many fundraising communities as they want, supporting projects all over the place.
So, I just thought that that was a really cool and there are some really good ways to raise money online if you want to give back and support, but just don’t have the time to do it.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Expanding the Drive Through Online Fundraising
The other day I was with a couple of my close friends at a local blood drive in our area. Not only did we give back to our wonderful community but we got a chance to talk with the amazing people who do such a great job over at the American Red Cross. They shared with us how blood drives and other event fundraisers like this are so important to our advancing community. That each and every day blood is needed by some patient somewhere in the world, and many times they never find a match. So very intrigued by this information, me and my friends got to talking and realized that since our community is advancing so quickly with technology maybe our fundraisers and donation events like blood drives should do the same.
We came up with the idea that blood drives and events like this should not only be advertising with little blurbs online but should have entire charity pages set up explicitly for online fundraising. We found it very odd that most events today don’t have donation pages set up for their cause online and they have yet to start online fundraising. And being the technology based community that we are today we thought… “How could they be getting the word out to all of their supporters?” And from the turnout at the blood drive I attended we realized that they’re not. In my own opinion I felt that by posting this event or any other event like it onto the World Wide Web and make an event fundraising page out of it we would help gain more supporters. In the end, this gives the Red Cross and any other important charity that uses online fundraising more donations and a possibility for more blood for those in need.
We came up with the idea that blood drives and events like this should not only be advertising with little blurbs online but should have entire charity pages set up explicitly for online fundraising. We found it very odd that most events today don’t have donation pages set up for their cause online and they have yet to start online fundraising. And being the technology based community that we are today we thought… “How could they be getting the word out to all of their supporters?” And from the turnout at the blood drive I attended we realized that they’re not. In my own opinion I felt that by posting this event or any other event like it onto the World Wide Web and make an event fundraising page out of it we would help gain more supporters. In the end, this gives the Red Cross and any other important charity that uses online fundraising more donations and a possibility for more blood for those in need.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Raise Money Online
Donating is now easier than ever with the Internet. Traditional forms of fundraising like phone donations, door-to-door requests and mail-in checks are no longer the go-to methods of fundraising. Using the Internet, you can now create your own personal fundraising web page to ask your supporters to donate to.
Now, some may think that this method is not as personal as the others, but creating a personal fundraising page online allows you to showcase your efforts using multiple mediums. These Internet donation pages provide space for information you can write about your cause, pictures and even videos. You can email your personal fundraising page to your friends and family or easily link it to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Using this method, your reach increases significantly.
Not only can you share your Internet fundraising page with your own friends and family, but you can interact with strangers who support similar causes online by donating to each others causes or teaming up to fundraise together. It’s an amazing tool. I encourage everyone to take the time to set up an online fundraising page. You’ll be surprised with how easy it really is.
Now, some may think that this method is not as personal as the others, but creating a personal fundraising page online allows you to showcase your efforts using multiple mediums. These Internet donation pages provide space for information you can write about your cause, pictures and even videos. You can email your personal fundraising page to your friends and family or easily link it to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Using this method, your reach increases significantly.
Not only can you share your Internet fundraising page with your own friends and family, but you can interact with strangers who support similar causes online by donating to each others causes or teaming up to fundraise together. It’s an amazing tool. I encourage everyone to take the time to set up an online fundraising page. You’ll be surprised with how easy it really is.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Generation - Online Fundraisers
Last week I was asked by a family friend to speak to her 8th grade class about volunteerism and fundraising with a focus on fundraising online. I jumped at the opportunity because I really believe that our upcoming generation is going to be heavily involved in giving back. Technology today has completely changed the way we communicate. It has become such a large part of our lives and will only continue to grow.
I prepared for the session by researching personal fundraising pages, volunteer communities and charity fundraising campaigns online. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a group of 8th graders. There was a good chance they were going to be nodding off in their chairs listening to someone talk about online fundraising and volunteering. To my surprise, when I got there and started mentioning what people are doing right now to give back to the community, they were fascinated.
I discussed how to use the Internet to fundraise and more specifically how to create your own Internet donation pages through sites like Crowdrise. Here, anyone can easily get online and start a personal fundraising page that they could send to their friends and family with the click of a button asking them to donate. This is the perfect tool for their generation and a lot of the students had questions about the site and were enlightened by the idea and how easy it was to donate. Since we were in a computer lab, I spent the last half hour helping them get their online fundraisers set up.
I was really pleased with how everything turned out. I felt like I had actually made some sort of impact on their views on fundraising and, most importantly, I think they understood that one person’s voice really can make a difference.
I prepared for the session by researching personal fundraising pages, volunteer communities and charity fundraising campaigns online. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a group of 8th graders. There was a good chance they were going to be nodding off in their chairs listening to someone talk about online fundraising and volunteering. To my surprise, when I got there and started mentioning what people are doing right now to give back to the community, they were fascinated.
I discussed how to use the Internet to fundraise and more specifically how to create your own Internet donation pages through sites like Crowdrise. Here, anyone can easily get online and start a personal fundraising page that they could send to their friends and family with the click of a button asking them to donate. This is the perfect tool for their generation and a lot of the students had questions about the site and were enlightened by the idea and how easy it was to donate. Since we were in a computer lab, I spent the last half hour helping them get their online fundraisers set up.
I was really pleased with how everything turned out. I felt like I had actually made some sort of impact on their views on fundraising and, most importantly, I think they understood that one person’s voice really can make a difference.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Internet Café Fundraising
This weekend, I was invited by a good friend to an online fundraiser at an Internet Café to help raise money for various local charities. When I walked in, they had a least 20 computers hooked up, a local band playing some really cool jazz, coffee samplings and lots and lots of hors d’oeuvres. In particular, I must say the lobster mac & cheese was out of this world. I always thought that was such a weird pairing of food and that lobster is too expensive and decadent to be mixed with cheap mac & cheese, but that’s neither here nor there…
The event started out with the charity spokespeople giving their 5 minute spiel about their cause and mission. Then we were directed to their specific charity fundraising campaign online to learn a bit more about it. Fund raising online is super easy to do and even more fun when you have the option to create your own personal fundraising page. The event organizer taught us how to do this so we could create our own page featuring the various local charities to not only donate on our own, but share with family and friends to raise awareness for the causes and hopefully bring in more donations. It was fun to be in the same room as others who are involved with internet fundraising and passionate about it.
After we were done with the online portion of the event, more and more people dropped into the café to see the band. It got pretty crowded in there, so my friends and I left to go see a movie. Overall, great event and great idea to get people together at an Internet café to spread the word about raising money online. And if you’re ever in town, I would suggest you stop by to sample the lobster mac.
The event started out with the charity spokespeople giving their 5 minute spiel about their cause and mission. Then we were directed to their specific charity fundraising campaign online to learn a bit more about it. Fund raising online is super easy to do and even more fun when you have the option to create your own personal fundraising page. The event organizer taught us how to do this so we could create our own page featuring the various local charities to not only donate on our own, but share with family and friends to raise awareness for the causes and hopefully bring in more donations. It was fun to be in the same room as others who are involved with internet fundraising and passionate about it.
After we were done with the online portion of the event, more and more people dropped into the café to see the band. It got pretty crowded in there, so my friends and I left to go see a movie. Overall, great event and great idea to get people together at an Internet café to spread the word about raising money online. And if you’re ever in town, I would suggest you stop by to sample the lobster mac.
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