This week’s featured fundraiser is a fellow by the name of Shane who is raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Utah.  He wins the spot on today’s blog by acing his "personal message" field and showing that he really understands how powerful an online fundraising page can be. 

Shane does a beautiful job of using the personal message field on his page to explain why his cause matters to him and why everyone should contribute.  After reading his message, it’s really easy to get excited about giving.  Even better, he posted an update that serves the dual purposes of keeping everyone up-to-date on his fundraising efforts and thanking everyone who has donated thus far.  It can be easy to forget just how important gratitude is, but Shane makes a point of recognizing the generosity of his donors and how big a difference their contributions add up to.  Well done, Shane!

One other thing I love about this page:

‘I
can create a website and email it to all my friends and family and in
turn have them email it to their friends and family. Eventually we will
have hundreds of people emailing this website to their friends and
family so everyone can make even the smallest donation to help find a
cure for Cystic Fibrosis.’

Shane really understands just how powerful an online fundraising page can become, because it leverages the ever-expanding network of his friends and family, and their friends and family, on so on.  A traditional sponsorship campaign would reach only the immediate friends and family of the fundraiser, and only those from whom s/he could collect paper checks.  A fundraising campaign run directly by a nonprofit extends only to that nonprofit’s existing supporters who are already in the organization’s database.  An online fundraising page, however, can easily be passed around to more and more and more people and offer them the easiest possible way of contributing: clicking a link and making a donation (of even the smallest amount) with a credit card.  Shane so totally gets it! 

Check out Shane’s page and get inspired

to give to his cause or raise money for your own.