Hands On New Orleans Social Media

Watch this excellent entry to Fundly’s Social Fundraising Video Contest  .

HandsOn New Orleans

Since Katrina and Rita, HandsOn New Orleans has mobilized over 25,500 volunteers to provide over 614,000 hours of service to the community.

The Mission: HandsOn New Orleans transforms communities through volunteer service and leadership development.

The Vision: HandsOn New Orleans envisions Greater New Orleans as a hub of civic-minded individuals that take action through service to meet critical community needs.

Start up your own community fundraising   campaign using Fundly today! Gather volunteer support, accept donations online  , and do some social good for your community… it’s easy with Fundly.

Texting To Support the Cause: Texting Donations vs. the Benefits of Raising Money Online

Fundraising organizations have been turning to text messaging as a way to raise money.  A text messaging campaign raised over $30 million for the people of Haiti in the wake of the tragic earthquake that devastated the small island nation on January 12, 2010.

The immediacy of text messaging and the convenience of typing in a short code on your mobile device, instead of a complete phone number, has been an effective way for charities to raise money.  It is estimated that 1 in 3 people in the United States alone will own a cell phone by 2012 and as the age of Internet children mature – children born after the advent of the Internet – text messaging and mobile devices will become as ubiquitous as televisions.

Convenience comes at a cost.  A fundraising organization accepts donations by partnering with an intermediary like mGive, a wireless application service provider. mGive provides a software application that connects the fundraiser with major cell phone carriers.  The software creates a code, donors type in the code on a cell phone, wait for a response to confirm, ‘yes’ and the donation is made.  Each donation is billed to the donor’s monthly cell phone bill.

100% of the donation is passed to the fundraising effort.  But software licensing fees can cost the charity $400 to $1500 a month plus a small transaction fee for each donation.  These charges add up quickly.
Texting your donation is a quick and easy way to pledge your support for a needy cause.  But that’s where the quick and easy stops.  Donations can take 30-90 days to process.  In the wake of a disaster, like the earthquake in Haiti, the delay can cost lives because assistance is needed immediately.

Efficient and cost effective ways of supporting your favorite cause through fundraisers have been developing to capitalize on the growth of the Internet.  Online fundraising platforms, like Piryx have been created to provide charities with a way to raise money online fast and effectively.  A fundraiser can be created in just minutes by signing up for free.

Online fundraisers can be accessed by donors on a myriad of devices including laptops, mobile phones and tablets.  The donations are made immediately like a text donation by clicking a donate button on a webpage.
Unlike texting, online fundraising platforms are free to setup, free to manage and provide the charity with tools to collect donations in a variety of ways.  And the charity receives the donation within a maximum 10 days.

Innovations in technology continue to provide community fundraising organizations with the power to reach their donors in newer and more efficient ways.  The most successful ones carry out due diligence to determine which are the most efficient and cost effective so they can concentrate on the most important part of their work: supporting the cause.

How Non-Profit Fundraising Programs Are Using The Power Of Social Media: Online fundraising platforms key to non-profits’ success in 21st century

In the past non-profits raised money through community fundraising, government grants and relied on volunteers to help support the causes they were most passionate about.  Yet to compete and succeed in our ever-evolving world of connectivity savvy non-profits are turning to social media to advance their causes.
Over 600 million registered users on Facebook.  That’s almost twice the population of the United States.  The more people you are able to get your message to the greater the opportunity to convince them that supporting your cause is the right thing to do.  And social media platforms do not operate as a collection of disparate parts.  When you connect with one person you are really connecting with a community of people.

Online fundraising platforms like Piryx have developed to take advantage of the social media movement.  A non-profit can create a campaign for free with a few clicks of the mouse and be up in running in a few minutes.  Free fundraising tools alert your friends to the great work you are doing and invite them to ‘join in the conversation’.

When people join in the conversation they are announcing their support.  Once one person joins, friends follow.  A feeling of social well being develops because people love recognition of the good they are doing and that feeling drives people to celebrate their goodwill by:

·      Liking on Facebook

·      Posting on their walls

·      Tweeting

·      Creating links in LinkedIn

That community of goodwill spreads as more and more potential donors are informed of the cause.
Oftentimes social media platforms are linked to spread updates automatically so a single tweet can ring across a range of social media platforms.  This gives non-profits unprecedented access to potential donors.  As word spreads throughout the social net more and more people are inspired to participate.  Inspiration drives action and the more people that become inspired to act the more work you can do to effect positive change.

Online fundraising platforms are free to setup and simple to use.  Non-profits do not have to rely on a team of people to carry out fundraising efforts.  Resources can be devoted to supporting the cause instead.
Connecting with people on a more personal level inspires call to action.  With social media people can share their social good with friends and inspire those friends to advance the good.  For non-profits looking to help their causes in the 21^stcentury recognizing the power of social media is tantamount to their continued success.

Community Fundraising Events: Building a Relationship with Your Donors Online

It is wonderful to belong to a community where each one is willing to lend a hand to be able to do something good for their community’s welfare.  However, it could be difficult to invite all members of a particular community to join and be involved. There are those who have jobs and those who are busy with house work.  No matter how we convince them to gain enough manpower, there would always be someone who could not join.

Planning a community fundraising event within your community can be very frustrating and disappointing especially if things are not going according to planned.  You can plan a Dance-for-a-Cause event or a bake sale but if the members in the community are unresponsive, these community fundraising ideas might not work accordingly.  This is why you should find a way to get each member involved without demanding too much of their time and effort.

Everyone is so into the internet nowadays.  Who would not?  Everything is so user-friendly and interesting.  Even grandma could easily surf if she wants to.  So why not take advantage of this technology to make a difference in your community? The internet is the best place to invite donors to support your community’s projects.  But you can not just go ahead and post your good intentions online.  You have to do this properly if you want people to take you seriously.  This may seem difficult but it is not.  At least Fundly does not make this difficult for anyone.

Fundly is an online fundraising platform that can help you put your community fundraising ideas to life.  This is so easy to use.  It will guide in setting up your account.  It provides innovative tools that you can use to personalize and customize your community fundraising page according to your preferences.  There are various designs and layouts that you can choose from.  Make your fundraising page as attractive as you could be able to catch the attention of anyone who comes across it.  If you wish to change anything after creating your page, you can easily edit and adjust whatever you have set.

Once you have created your fundraising page, you can now post this online.  You can post it on any social networks like Facebook, twitter, or MySpace, wherever you can.  You can also post it on your personal blog site.  You can send it through email.  The great thing about Fundly is that your page can be seen easily because almost everyone has an account with the social networks mentioned earlier.

Compared to other community fundraising ideas, this is the most visible of its kind.  You barely have to promote it.  Posting it alone can invite donors and supporters.   Even the people in your community can easily join and support your fundraising efforts from the comfort of their own homes or offices.  Of all the community fundraising ideas, this is the only one that lets you and your community unite online.  You can easily build a relationship with your donors as well as your supporters with just a click of a button.

Set Up Your Community Fundraising Event the Easy Way

A lot of communities nowadays are not that dependent anymore on their community, city or government officials. This means that they do not rely solely on the budget that is given to their community for the expenses that they need to pay for, or the financial assistance that the city or the government provides their community. The reason for this is that because with all the budget cuts that the government needs to do, if a community will be overly dependent on that budget, their community programs will not function because of the lack of budget. This is why they hold community fundraising events that go a long way to add security to the community’s finances.

A fundraising event is a process wherein a group of people or even an individual sometimes, provides their own manual labor and physical effort to collect donations and contributions for a cause. So when it comes to community fundraisers, the people of the community help one another out with what they can to be able to get donations and contributions from other people. This financial assistance will then be used to pay off expenses, and make other community programs function well.

Traditionally, community fundraising programs were done by holding events such as fundraising campaigns wherein people from the community will offer services like car washes, cold calling, door to door canvassing, selling baked goodies, other food and snacks, and holding event dinners. Most often, these traditional ways have worked, but you can never remove the fact that these ways of the traditional community fundraising events are sometimes intrusive, and are very time consuming.

The traditional fundraiser events held and done during a community fundraising program such as selling baked goodies, selling food and snacks, car washes and the door to door canvassing require a lot of time, effort, and of course the manual and physical labor that a person needs to make. Baked goodies and other food need to be prepared and made, and the serving should be done in a nice manner. Car washes require muscle strength, and door to door canvassing consumes energy, not to mention that you will be walking directly under the sun’s heat.

However, because science has brought so many advancements in technology, the need for events or face-to-face solicitations that are the traditional ways of community fundraisers has come to pass. With the invention of the Internet, your efforts do not need to be directed to these time-consuming works that requires all your energy and physical labor. With all the tools that you can now use for your community fundraising programs, holding the fundraising event online will surely result to better news.

Online community fundraisers are now becoming very popular and more and more people choose this modern way because we all know that a very big percentage of the world’s population uses the Internet and the World Wide Web. By setting up your own website, uploading graphics and other photos, plus posting a comment or a status message on any networking site, you can now easily call the attention of a lot of people to the cause you have for your community fundraising event, without the need to put so much effort with all those labor work needed for the traditional way.

Community fundraising Ideas for your Community Fundraisers

Community fundraising is done to raise money for a specific cause that helps the overall community or society. A number of community fundraiser activities are organized to raise money for a cause that is affecting the whole community. It is important to convince the members of the community to support and donate for the cause. If the cause for which money is being raised is materialistic then strong persuasive techniques will have to be used whereas donors will be willing to donate for social causes.

Tips for community fundraising
In order to have a successful community fundraiser event it’s important that the members of the community know and trust your credibility. It’s integral to develop strong relationships with the members of the community so that they can contribute easily knowing that their money is being used for the right cause. Before organizing the community fundraiser event you should identify your target market including the potential donors and supporters and try to convince them to donate for the cause and improving the whole community.

Communicating the main cause of raising money effectively is integral for the success of the community fundraiser event. Articulating a compelling and emotional message can help you in attracting a larger audience or more donors for the cause. Clearly communicating your cause for raising money is important because it makes members of the community feel more engaged and involved in the fundraising.
It’s important to connect well with the community because it will give them a sense of ownership for the overall community and increase the chances of them donating.

Community fundraising ideas
Deciding upon a community fundraising plan is important. The fundraising idea must be generated considering the demands of the society and the cause of raising funds. Some attractive ideas for such purposes include concerts, plays, fashion shows, auctions, bake sale, yard sale and cake sales. Raising funds by providing entertainment shows like concerts and plays is common for raising money for the community.
Providing entertainment activities attract the members of the community to the event and also give them a chance to interact with each other. However if organizing entertainment activities for community fundraising is not possible then services can also be provided to raise money. In order to provide services volunteers will be needed who have some skill and can provide services. Some of the services that volunteers can offer include car washes, making portraits, palmistry and packing gifts.

After deciding about the kind of event that will be arranged to raise funds, colleagues and friends must be consulted to decide on the date of the event, the resources that will be needed and how to publicize the event.

Community Fundraising Online
The fundraisers mentioned above about community fundraising activities can be quite expensive. Yet, fundraising online for a community fundraiser is simple, less time consuming, and ultimately much more productive in raising more money for your cause. By creating an online fundraising campaign, you can raise money via your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, and more while allowing your supporters to raise money on behalf of your community fundraisers today.

Community Fundraising Ideas that will help your fundraiser
The fundraising process does not need to be difficult, time-consuming, or cost much money to raise funds. You should read over some great community fundraising ideas to better plan out a successful online fundraising campaign for your community fundraiser.