Send a friendly reminder about your fundraising through Facebook.

Is your nonprofit organization on Facebook? Our friends at the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) regularly post information about upcoming events, exhibitions, and membership to their Facebook group, so it was only natural that they’d post about their fundraising, too. With just a few days left in their matching gift campaign, they sent out this message to all their Facebook group members:

With a four-person staff and a lot of things to do, the PRC used Facebook to quickly and easily connect their online community to their fundraising efforts.

So, to recap:

Use Facebook for what Facebook is good for. Facebook updates are quick and allow you to connect to many of your supporters at once. Keep your fans and groupies posted on what’s going on with your fundraising efforts.

Happy fundraising and best wishes for success!

Find Firstgiving on Facebook and become a fan.

***Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action! Send us an email: bestpractices@firstgiving.com.

Each month we highlight a couple of our nonprofit partners who have unique fundraising events, great success stories, or something else fantastic going on that we’d like to tell you about. Next up in our nonprofit fundraising series, the Nonprofit Spotlight, is Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and their Wisconsin Football Coaches Association All Star Charity Game (WFCA 09).

If Wisconsin could be any sport, it most definitely would be football.  The Wisconsin Football Coaches Association All Star Charity Game is held every year and honors high school and college players along with anyone who has been an outstanding contributor to the state of Wisconsin football program.  They invite players to compete by splitting the state into two teams, the North and the South, and then by division.  All players involved are required to fundraise for the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.  The game is Saturday July 18, 2009 and although they still have a few weeks left to fundraise they have raised over $73,000 already.  They have fundraised for the game for the past three years and have raised a total of $130,153 through Firstgiving so far; and this year has been their biggest year.

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin is one of the leading pediatric care centers in the united states.  They Children’s Hospital is one of the 14 entities that make up the Wisconsin Health System.  Located right outside of Milwaukee the hospital was built in 1894, and has grown to be a leader in pediatric trauma and and houses over 70 speciality clinics.  Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin holds another big event in the fall; The Briggs & Al’s Run & Walk for Children’s Hospital.

Touchdown Wisconsin!

If you would like us to spotlight your nonprofit please email ashley@firstgiving.com

They’re building an online community of young people involved in the nonprofit sector, and they want you to be part of it.

In their own words:

OnlyUp is an organization that helps nonprofits prepare for the next generation of leaders through consultations, awards, and community-coalition building.

Young people have the vision and energy needed to revolutionize social justice organizations. Amplifying their voice and advocating for their needs will help revitalize the nonprofit sector.

To this end, OnlyUp plans to:

• Publish a blog for information sharing, web newsletters to organize advocacy, and mobilize an active membership database
• Provide constructive analysis of how nonprofits incorporate young people in goal creation and execution of their work
• Connect young people with quality opportunities so they may learn from and contribute to their field: The website will include job listings from organizations that have established histories of providing real opportunities for young people

Find out more at the project coordinator’s blog and join up at OnlyUp.org.

This process is really easy and will help keep your staff informed and prepared about updating your Firstgiving account info.

Here’s a video that will show you how quick and easy it is to add and delete users:

Equip your fundraisers to make the most of their personal fundraising pages.

Our friends at Rutgers University’s Dance Marathon raise money online every year for the Embrace Kids Foundation. Their fundraisers are primarily college students, who don’t have a lot of money to donate themselves, but who are actively invested in the cause.

And where do college students spend a lot of time? Online.

To make sure all the Dance Marathoners knew how to make the most of their fundraising pages, Mike, one of the event organizers, created this quick how-to video and uploaded it to YouTube:

Dance Marathoners who needed an extra bit of inspiration or help could watch this video and learn how to use their Firstgiving fundraising pages as a tool to meet their online fundraising goals.  Result? 471 college students raised almost $90,000 online for the Embrace Kids Foundation.

So, to recap:

Identify where your fundraisers live online, and use the most appropriate medium to reach them. You know your community best–communicate information about your event using email, Facebook, Twitter, or all of the above.

Happy fundraising and best wishes for success!

Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action! Send us an email at bestpractices@firstgiving.com.

Firstgiving’s Account Management Team has been on the road for the past few months, talking with nonprofits like you about how to raise more money online and listening to your feedback.  One thing you’ve told us is how helpful it is to receive an automatic email when someone creates a new fundraising page for your nonprofit.

But have you ever asked yourself, “What should I do next?”

Not to fear. . .this week we bring you #8 in our countdown of top 10 ways to use your page creation auto emails.

• Number 10- Thank each fundraiser personally for creating a page
• Number 9- Lead by example, create a page of your on to show off to fundraisers as an example
• Number 8- Get inactive pages ACTIVE!

Don’t leave a soldier behind!  We know that fundraisers sometimes create fundraising pages and then never receive any donations.   It’s a busy world out there, and these fundraisers had all the intentions of fundraising, but for some reason they never got around to sending out their pages.  We suggest giving them a “friendly nudge.”  About 7-14 days after you have received the page creation email, check in on your fundraisers see which pages are still at $0.00, and reach out to these fundraisers by email.

Suggest ways for them to get their pages out at, work, school, and among their friends and religious communities.  Direct them to the help section of our site if they have any questions, suggest adding a picture, YouTube video, or Flickr account.  And most importantly, ask them to send out their pages!!  Let them know how important their fundraising efforts are and remind them that with their help, you can reach your nonprofit fundraising goal.

Happy Fundraising!!

Today is an exceptionally exciting day in Firstgiving history as we count up to the $100,000,000 donation mark!  Check our homepage for the most recent update:

Kudos to you! Who will the $100,000,000 donor be?

During the session, we talked about Facebook Pages (aka fan pages) and why they’re good for nonprofit organizations.  A Facebook Page is your nonprofit’s official presence on Facebook, and you can use it to send an unlimited number of messages to your fans, add applications, and track metrics (like how many people visit your Page).  For more on why you might want to have an official presence on Facebook, check out our webinar.

One thing we didn’t get to in the webinar was the topic of adding “Favorite Pages” to your nonprofit’s Facebook Page.  People who like your nonprofit’s Page on Facebook can become your fans, but did you know that you can connect to other nonprofits and organizations on Facebook through your Facebook Page?  Here’s how:

1:  Find a Page you want to add to your Favorites:

2. Select where you want to have the Page appear (if you have more than one Page on Facebook, you’ll need to choose one of them from the drop-down menu):

3.  Voila!  The Page now appears in the “Favorite Pages” box on your nonprofit Page:

In addition to the Elizabeth Peabody House (pictured above), we just added Will Work for Social Change, an organization dedicated to accelerating positive change by serving the talent-related needs of social entrepreneurs, to Firstgiving’s Favorite Pages.  Visit our Facebook Page to see more of our favorite Pages or to become a fan!

1. Dropdown menu

2. Radio button

3. Text area

5. Checkbox

6. Date field

Keep these in mind when you’re setting up your registration questions, and if you have a particular preference, be sure to let us know!

Tweet updates about your fundraising.

Are you on Twitter? Our friends at Basset Buddies Rescue have been Tweeting about all things Basset Hound for some time (you can follow them @BassetBuddies). It was only natural, then, that they’d Tweet the good news about the first fundraising page created for their Basset Fest fundraising event:

As you might expect, the link in their Tweet goes straight to Basset Buddies’ Firstgiving nonprofit page, where participants can register for the event and start fundraising.

Basset Buddies Rescue is using all of their online tools to get the word out about their event and connect fundraisers to their Firstgiving page. Remember, non-profit organizations like yours are successful in fundraising when they generate excitement about their events!

So, to recap:

If you have a Twitter account, use it to tell your followers about what’s going on in your organization, including your fundraising milestones!

Happy fundraising and best wishes for success!

***Follow Firstgiving on Twitter @firstgiving
***Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action! Send us an email at bestpractices@firstgiving.com.

Next up in our new nonprofit fundraising series, the Nonprofit Spotlight, is Childrens Oncology Camp Foundation.  Each month we’ll highlight a couple of our nonprofit partners who have unique fundraising events, great success stories, or something else fantastic going on that we’d like to tell you about.

Children’s Oncology Camp Foundation was founded in 1991 by Henry and Sylvia Granader who donated over 87 acres to house Camp Mak-A-Dream.  Camp Mak-A-Dream offers a camp experience year round for children, teens and young adults with cancer and their siblings.  The first year the camp welcome 45 campers in one summer session and thus far have expanded to year round camping for over 4,500 participants from the US, Canada and many other countries.

Children’s Oncology Camp Foundation hosts the Ride Around The Pioneers in One Day (RATPOD)a 130 mile bike ride that starts and ends in Dillion, Montana.  Weather in teams of 4 or as individuals all are welcome to enjoy a BBQ and Band at the University of Montana-Western campus.  RATPOD has raised over one million dollars for Camp Mak-A-Dream since 2002.

What makes this NPO really stand out is the unique cause and how fast the event has grown since 2002.  Bravo Camp Mak-A-Dream, keep up the good work!

But seriously, it’s good to see Mary Lasker on a stamp, and a nice coincidence that it’s the exact stamp we at Firstgiving use to send out welcome packets to our new NPO clients.  If that’s you and you haven’t received our little bundle of valuable info, tips, event planning worksheet, and success stories, get in touch with your account manager pronto.

But why, you ask, are we sending out paper packages when we’re the online fundraising company?  The simple answer is that when information is important, you might need to send it more than once or in more than one format.  Plus, different people digest information in different ways, so it’s always best to choose the right medium for each message and audience.

That said, with the price of postage going up and looking like it will keep doing so, we have to wonder what postal projects smart nonprofit fundraisers will put off or take online.  Can email fundraising ever completely replace paper fundraising, or will it just become the only cost-effective way?  Are you cutting back on postage by mailing less or mailing smarter?

Give your fundraisers one final boost of encouragement one week before your event date.

Our friends at the Lupus Foundation Connecticut Chapter were one week out from their annual fundraising walk.  Knowing that many donors wait to give until the event date is close at hand, Lupus Foundation sent out the following email to all their walk participants:

With Walk for Lupus Now just one week away, we’re in the final stretch to raise funds and make this year’s Walk our most successful yet. If you haven’t done so already, send a final email to friends and family that have not yet contributed asking them to donate and to forward your message on to others they think could help.

Help us spread awareness of Lupus AND the Walk for Lupus Now! We greatly appreciate your participation and fundraising efforts, and hope you’ve found the process to be fun and rewarding.

Quick Tip - Change the language in your final email to reflect a sense of urgency. Let people know you’re almost to the day of the event and that any and all help is greatly needed and appreciated. Remember, each walker who raises $100 or more will receive a T-shirt on Walk day.

Thank you for your continued efforts and we look forward to seeing you at the Walk for Lupus Now!  Please feel free to contact the Chapter at xxx-111-1111 or address@nonprofit.org email.

Note that this email itself expresses thanks for support of the Walk for Lupus, reflects a sense of urgency, and also reiterates the importance of reaching the fundraising goal.  In other words, the Walk for Lupus event organizers are leading by example.

Result?  Here’s what Lisa, Lupus Foundation’s CEO had to say:

“We surpassed our goal.  We reached $58,200.  Exciting news in a tough economy.  I think it was the online giving and the weekly emails that really helped bump our numbers.”

So, to recap:

Most nonprofits see a surge in donations during the week leading up to the event.  Take advantage of the momentum generated by your event, and remind your fundraisers to send out a final ask to their family and friends.

Happy fundraising, and here’s to raising more money than you ever thought possible!

Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action by sending an email to bestpractices@firstgiving.com.

Firstgiving’s Account Management Team has been on the road for the past few months, talking with you about how to raise more money online and listening to your feedback.  One thing you’ve told us is how helpful it is to receive an automatic email when someone creates a new fundraising page for your nonprofit.

But have you ever asked yourself, “What should I do next?”

Not to fear. . .this week we bring you #9 in our countdown of top 10 ways to use your page creation auto emails.

• Number 10

Thank each fundraiser personally for creating a page and offer a few quick tips to get them started

• Number 9

Lead by example

It’s a fact: people get inspired by other people.  Make the most of this and send around an email to all your fundraisers with a link to an example of a page you find particularly good.  That doesn’t necessarily mean the page that has raised the most money–maybe it’s a page that has a compelling message, a funny picture, a YouTube video or something else that you feel will be inspiring for other fundraisers.

Some nonprofits have an employee create a fundraising page and send it out as an example.   This also communicates to your fundraisers that you are in this fundraising effort together.

To get you inspired here are a few examples of terrific fundraising pages we’ve seen recently:

Keith is raising money for  the Special Operation Warrior Foundation, running 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West
Leslie is raising money for the Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota
Laura is the ED of Mustard Seed Communities
Maggi is an Account Manager here at Firstgiving

If you or your fundraisers have any questions, you can chat with our support team here.  Or give us a call at  (877) 365-2949 .

Remember, when your fundraisers get inspired to ask for donations for your organization, they’ll really surprise you.  Happy fundraising!

As you can see, we’ll talk about the basics a bit and then get right to the meat of how to raise money and build community on Facebook.  Since about 75% of our usual webinar audience already has at least a personal presence on Facebook, we’ll be sure to leave some time for your questions.  You can register now here: http://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/694448243 All are welcome but space will be limited.