When we talk about websites for fundraising, you probably are thinking of your ministry's website. However, let's flip things around and talk about setting up websites for your donors and volunteers. A recent online giving trend has people using sites such as CrowdRise, Convio, or First Giving to let their donors build their own fundraising pages to support their ministry.
Picture this: You are doing a 5K run as a fundraiser for your ministry. You have 500 people signed up, and some of them have people also sponsoring them to run. This is a decent amount of people, clearly, but let's think about how this could grow simply using personal fundraising sites.
What if when people registered for the 5K, you confirmed the registration and set them up with an online fundraising page., using one of the simple online giving software programs. With this page, one person could send it to all their email contacts, share it on Facebook, tweet the link, post it on their blog, and continually refer their friends back to it. Do you see the potential? Add in an online giving link on the page, and suddenly your ability to expland the reaches of your fundraiser goes far beyond just your registrants.
The uses of a personal fundraising site are not just limited to fundraisers. Give your faithful volunteers their own pages so that they can share it with their friends. Use the sites to capture email addresses in addition to gaining donations and increasing awareness. Get people excited about using these sites, and give them a vision for how it benefits you and them.
Online fundraising is as creative as you make it. These past posts really are just scraping the surface of basic things you already know about. Do some research. Test out a few ideas. You have the time for whatever you make time for. Dive in!
Jessica High manages marketing and research at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online. Find Jessica on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-high/23/235/477