Please welcome guest blogger, Pepy Ride President, Daniela Papi

Successfully Giving

When we first started raising money for PEPY www.pepyride.org and our educational programs in Cambodia, we were looking for an online way to raise funds.  One of our heroes, Alastair Humphreys, told us about Justgiving (Firstgiving’s UK based partner) www.justgiving.com/alsmarathons where he had been raising funds to support ‘Hope and Homes for Children’ during his five year bike ride around the world.  Talk about inspirational!  We trusted Al’s advice and that was how we found Firstgiving.

PEPY has successfully raised nearly $100,000 on Firstgiving alone in the last three years.  One of the keys to our success has been getting our partners and supporters to create their own Firstgiving pages in support of PEPY.  Those who join our cycling and volunteer tours of Cambodia www.pepytours.com are encouraged to start their own page to reach their fundraising minimums for the trip.

When it comes to fundraising, the lesson we have learned is to not be intimidated!  Fundraising is not that hard, especially with tools like Firstgiving to help.  The key, though, is researching the organization you are fundraising for so that you really know that they are sustainable and trustworthy.  With this knowledge, you can then easily articulate the organization’s merits while you are fundraising.  Once people know more about the great projects you are supporting, they will be enticed to learn more and to give.  We have found at PEPY, that by keeping people informed about our work through our monthly newsletters and updates, many donors continue to support our projects year after year.

Thanks to Firstgiving, we have found an easy way for our supporters and tour participants to fundraise for our projects, and this funding has been able to really make a difference in the success of educational programs in Cambodia.