How changes to VAT affect donations on Justgiving

November 27, 2008 at 2:20 pm · Filed under In the News, Justgiving for Charities, New on Justgiving ·Tagged ,

As you may have read in the Pre-Budget report this week, the standard rate of VAT will be reduced from 17.5% to 15% on Monday 1st December. This has a positive affect on donations made through Justgiving because the VAT charged on our transaction fee (5% of a donation plus Gift Aid), will now go down.

So for every £10 donation, an extra 2p will go to the charity. It might not sound like much, but it all adds up.

Also, the monthly fee charities pay to be on the site will be reduced - the £15 plus VAT per month will go down from £17.62 to £17.25.

This reduction in VAT means we’ve had to reconfigure our back office processes pretty sharpish (like the fun we had earlier in the year with Transitional Relief on Gift Aid) and our finance and technology teams have worked really hard to change our systems with virtually no notice.

How are payments to charities affected by the change to VAT?

As you may know, we transfer donations to charities every week (on Fridays) and we’ll be making a donation payment as normal this Friday 28th November.

We will make an extra payment of donations and Gift Aid, where VAT on our transaction fee is charged at the old rate of 17.5%, on Tuesday 2nd December. The report available in the Charity Account on Wednesday. This will relate to donations made on Justgiving until the end of Sunday 30th November.

And because we will be making this extra payment to tie up all VAT at the old rate, the first payment of donations and Gift Aid with the new rate of VAT will be made in the week commencing the 8th December 2008, and not on Friday 5th December.

Just in case it helps, here’s how that looks on a calendar:

payment calendar

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New Head of Client Services: Charlotte Harris

November 25, 2008 at 6:19 pm · Filed under Justgiving for Charities, Our News ·Tagged , , ,

Back in the autumn, we blogged about looking for a new Head of Client Services to lead our charities team.

We’re delighted to announce that, after a lot of searching and plenty of conversations, Charlotte Harris has agreed to join us. With over twelve years of charity and agency experience under her belt, she’ll be working with our existing team to ensure we deliver excellent client services.

Here’s Charlotte at our recent away-day with helpdesk hero, Huu and finance legend Ryan:

Huu, Charlotte and Ryan

For four years, Charlotte was Commercial Director at Whitewater, where she managed the start-up and ongoing strategic direction of their specialist tribute giving division, Our Lasting Tribute.

In that post, she worked with over 50 charities in the UK and another 20 in North America and Australia. Since leaving Whitewater, she’s worked for three years as a consultant with charities and third-party suppliers to the third sector.

Most recently, she carried out a large piece of quantitive and qualitative research on our behalf, to help us understand the issues facing our charities and how we can serve them better.

I asked Charlotte to explain why she wanted to join Justgiving:

“Do you remember Victor Kiam, the perma-tanned silver fox who-liked-the-product-so-much-he-bought-the-company? Well, while I’m neither tanned nor greying (well, only on closer inspection) but after spending two months working independently on Justgiving’s charity insights project, I kind of did a Victor.

I’ve worked with Justgiving in lots of different ways over the past seven years - as a charity client, as a partner supplier and more recently as a consultant - so the opportunity to take on a more formal role was too tempting to miss.

I know from first hand experience that Justgiving isn’t perfect, and there’s always room for improvement. However, I also recognise their incredible achievements. A strong theme in the charity research I did for Justgiving recently was that it’s seen as a brand of integrity and an expert in the field - which is backed up by the fact that almost 7 million donors trust Justgiving with looking after their data. That confidence in the product and the social enterprise values of the company were really attractive to me.

What are you looking forward to doing at Justgiving?

There are a fair few things on the list but first and foremost, I’m looking forward to getting out and meeting charities. One thing that’s high on my list is sharing our expertise more effectively. For example, Justgiving has arguably the single biggest repository of donor transactional information in the UK. I want to be able to see how we can translate that data into useful intelligence for our charities to help them ramp up their online fundraising.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I’m a keen ballroom dancer and am learning to rock climb, although being afraid of heights is a bit of an issue. At weekends you’ll find me at Stamford Bridge (this one, not that one). Great gardens make me weak at the knees. I don’t like chocolate which means I am looked on with suspicion by most people.”

Welcome to the Justgiving team Charlotte, we’re very glad to have you on board!

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Online fundraising lessons to be learnt from the Atheist Bus campaign

November 24, 2008 at 2:09 pm · Filed under Best Practice, Justgiving for Charities, Success Stories ·Tagged , , , , ,

So how did an unfashionable campaign about getting adverts on buses, in one city, in one country, become a global fundraising phenomenon? Whatever you may think about the appeal (and as we’ve said before, we are impartial), the atheist bus campaign has been an amazing example of how appeals and campaigns can use the power of the internet to reach huge fundraising totals and massively increase awareness.

Here’s a summary of what it achieved in just one week:

  • Over £105,000 raised - almost 20 times the original target
  • 6,680 donors, donating an average of £14.27 (£17.38 with Gift Aid)
  • 370 donors donated more than once - that’s 5%
  • One person even donated 56 times!
  • 430,000 page views, from almost 250,000 unique visitors

But how did the British Humanist Association get to benefit from this? They weren’t the first organisation contacted to run the appeal and they had no guarantee of success. But they took a gamble, and gained more publicity and funds than they have probably ever had - all through the internet.

The scale of the awareness raising

Almost a quarter of a million people saw the fundraising page in a week. But interestingly, only 60% of the page views were for the front page - 40% were for the 74 pages of comments that followed.

People were interested in what others were saying. They were reading through the comments on every page, spending an average of nearly 3 minutes on each page. That’s a very long amount of time for people to spend on a web page.

atheist bus analytics 1

Plus, people were having conversations on the page, like this one:

athesit bus conversation

So if you’re running an appeal, one way of increasing engagement is to allow people to have their say by commenting - clearly people donating to this appeal wanted to know what others had written. Having said that, you do need to have a clear policy on what kind of message content is acceptable.

While most messages on the atheist bus page were good natured, we did have to remove some that were inappropriate and we emailed people to explain that, as well as blogging that message.

What country did the donors come from?

People accessed the page from all over the world: 67% came from the UK, 14% from the US, 2% each from Canada and Australia, and then 1% from Holland and Germany. People from a total of 152 countries accessed the page - that’s a staggering global response for a campaign about adverts on London buses.

atheistbus analytics country referrals

When you are running an appeal, does it have the potential to work in other countries? Do you think about the simplicity of the message and how you’re communicating it? The best stories work in any area of the world, and connect with people from any country. The beauty of this campaign was its simplicity.

What websites did the donors come from?

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the websites of traditional media like the BBC and the Guardian were the biggest referrers. There were also many hits from Google and Facebook (where users had sent the link to their social network).

After that, the campaign’s website and the charity’s website feature highly - showing how you need to be able to update your website to lead with the latest news.

And a single (albeit extremely popular, and not for the faint hearted) blog sent more traffic to the page than a Telegraph article featured on the front page of one of the most popular websites on the web - Digg. There was also a lot of traffic from stumbleupon, a very popular site where people recommend websites of interest to other users. atheistbus analytics server referrals

So when you are doing PR for your appeals, do you reach out to bloggers? Or influential famous people (in this case Richard Dawkins) that might carry your story? Or even a forum that talks about issues you’re campaigning about or fundraising for?

These are areas of the web that carry a lot of influence and have traditionally been ignored. But you need to reach out to these people, and make it easy for them to share content - over 12,000 different articles on the internet linked to the atheist bus fundraising page. And there are almost 100,000 results for “atheist bus” on Google. That’s an astonishing number of people writing about it, discussing it, arguing for and against it, and ultimately donating to it.

What next?

Listen to your donors. Here’s one comment on the page that shows how the charity has listened to the comments, seen the need and acted on addressing that need.

athesit bus comment

So the routes to success can be summarised as:

  • prepare to lose a certain amount of control
  • make it easy to share content online
  • reach out to bloggers as well as traditional PR and print media
  • enable people to have conversations about your appeal
  • be prepared to be imaginative and take risks

Clearly, the recipe for the success of the atheist bus campaign cannot be easily copied to provide exactly the same results for every appeal. But the pointers above show the potential that exists, when all these different strands come together, to create a true viral online fundraising phenomenon.

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Saving Africa’s Witch Children - update from Gary Foxcroft

November 21, 2008 at 5:02 pm · Filed under In the News, Justgiving for Charities, Success Stories ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Last week we blogged about a Channel 4 Dispatches special, Saving Africa’s Witch Children, and the appeal set up by the charity Stepping Stones Nigeria to coincide with the film.

The response to the appeal has been amazing - over £18,000 has now been donated to the fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/witchchildren

If you missed it, you can watch the whole program again or catch two short clips. The incredibly moving program was broadcast last Tuesday from 9-10pm and you can see in our graph how donations started to fly in even before it had ended - the original target of £10,000 was almost reached that night!

Saving Africa's Witch children appeal graph

This is a brilliant example of a television appeal working in harmony with online fundraising. There was no mention of the fundraising page address in the program, but it was highlighted on the charity’s website. It shows the importance of signposting appeals on your charity’s website to make it easy for people to give online, even if they find out about you offline.

Following up on the appeal, we asked Gary Foxcroft, Programme Director of UK charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, some questions about the reaction to the film’s broadcast.

So many people have been moved by your film – what were the best and the hardest parts of making it?

The best bit was undoubtedly the resounding success of the child rights rally. I’ve been involved in many other protests over the years but none as successful as this. The hardest bit was actually being followed by a film crew everywhere you went. And watching yourself on the screen really isn’t pleasant I can assure you!

What kind of feedback have you had from people who watched the film?

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Before it came out I was very concerned that we may end up being accused of racism or colonialism. However the response from Nigerians and other Africans has been really lovely and I’m so happy that people see this as a humanitarian issue and not simply one of race.

How have you found using Justgiving?

Fantastic! I’m just so relieved that we managed to set the account with you up in time. The response completely overwhelmed us and Justgiving took a massive weight off our shoulders in terms of making it easy for people to donate and support our work. The whole Justgiving team have been nothing but outstanding in the support that they have given us. A truly top class outfit!

How often are you in touch with the children in the film, and the charity working with them in Nigeria?

I’m in almost daily contact with the guys at CRARN (the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network) and quite often speak with the children via the loudspeaker on Sam’s phone.

What practical work is Stepping Stones Nigeria doing right now, and what’s planned for the future?

At the moment we are working hard on making sure the film is as widely watched as possible in Nigeria. It’s a great advocacy tool and we feel it is of great importance that as many people get to watch it as possible. We are also planning a large Prevent Abandonment of Children Today Campaign event in Oron (where Mary was rescued from) in December.

As for the future, well the support we have received on the back of the film will allow us to significantly expand the facilities at the CRARN camp, set up a new street child project in Oron next year and carry out a widespread enlightenment campaign. One thing that I am looking forward to working on is producing our own Nollywood film that portrays the actions of exploitative pastors and ends with them being sent to jail. It’s likely to be called “The Real End of the Wicked”!

What’s the best way for people to help Stepping Stones Nigeria at the moment?

Other than donations, we really need people to pressure the UK government and Nigerian government to act to protect these innocent children. There are online petitions to sign, letters to write to key stakeholders, Facebook groups to join. We need to spread the word about what is happening in Akwa Ibom State and exert as much pressure as we can on the policy makers so that we can put an end to the abuse of these children’s rights.

* * * *

That’s fantastic - thanks for taking the time to speak to us Gary, we wish you all the best in your ongoing work and appeals.

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Fundraising appeal pages on Justgiving

November 20, 2008 at 5:41 pm · Filed under Best Practice, In the News, Justgiving for Charities ·Tagged , ,

Over the last month we’ve highlighted a number of different appeals on the blog, all delivered through fundraising pages. Some have been hugely successful, others less so. Delving into why some have raised more money than others is a topic for another day, but creating appeals does seem to be something of a trend on the site.

charity-support-bigLooking at the analytics for our fabulous new charity support area confirms this - one of the most popular questions (posed by the 7,145 unique visitors to the area in just 7 weeks) is: how do I create an appeal page?

Whether people are asking the question after seeing these appeals or not, it’s certainly a great use for the humble fundraising page outside of traditional (or non-traditional) sponsored events. So, here’s how to do it:

  • In your Raise Money section (which looks like this), click on Create your page
  • Select other from the drop-down box under your official events list and click continue
  • Choose how long you want the page open and click continue
  • Log into your personal account (rather than your Charity Account) or select I’m new to this site and enter your charity’s name in the name boxes, as it will show on the page and thank-you message
  • Choose a web address for your page
  • Personalise your page by explaining where funds will be spent in the personal message and adding your own photos and a video
  • You can show cash or cheques you’ve received in the Amount raised offline box
  • You can personalise your donor thank-you message in the Donation confirmation box

The advantage of creating an appeal page this way is that you’ll be able to see how many people have donated both on the page itself and in your Charity Account.

Fundraising pages are popular appeal pages because people can link to them in their Facebook profiles and use our widgets on their websites and email signatures. This way, pages attract more people who would never even know the appeal existed.

So that’s how to create an appeal - it’s not very hard to do, but we’re planning on making appeals themselves work harder next year… In the meantime, our charity support area has already answered over a thousand questions, and you can ask yours too at www.justgiving.com/charitysupport

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Fundraiser of the month, November 2008

November 18, 2008 at 12:19 pm · Filed under Fundraiser of the month, Inspirational fundraising, Our News ·Tagged , , , , ,

jm-royal-parks-run1Jamie Markham, 32, from Birmingham, smashed his fundraising target for YouthNet when he ran the Royal Parks Half Marathon last month.

It was his first ever half marathon, and not only did he manage to complete the tough 13 mile course, he also raised over £1600 for the UK’s first virtual charity, YouthNet, which runs The Site.org and do-it.org.uk.

*And* he got 3 new runners on board for the charity, so counting their fundraising, he’s helped raise an impressive £3132.82 for a great cause.

YouthNet, which operates 100% online, was set up to “guide and support young people, enabling them to make educated life choices, participate in society and achieve their ambitions.” Their website TheSite.org aims to be the first place for young adults to turn when they need support and guidance through life.

Becca Lucas from YouthNet, who nominated Jamie, said:

“His constant enthusiasm and positive approach to the event has resulted in him surpassing the target by more than we could have hoped for…”

So how did he do it? We got in touch with Jamie to find out more and here’s what he had to say:

How did you decide to raise money for YouthNet?
I am a keen supporter of children’s charities, and YouthNet is a wonderful example of how the modern world can provide a modern solution for children and young people in need, at a level tailored to them in a format that they understand and respond to. I also needed to get fit - so the half marathon was the perfect opportunity!

You managed to beat your target - what tips can you pass on to other fundraisers?
Actually my approach was based around your Justgiving hints and tips! I asked the people I thought would be most generous to donate first, to get the ball rolling, then I emailed all the others. I set my target at £1K first and within a week I’d almost reached it, so I increased it to encourage people to carry on donating. I upped my target three or four more times after that.

I sent a follow-up email to remind people of the date of the run, and asked them to send my page on to their friends. A few people were uncomfortable giving online, so I offered to take their donation offline then made the payments myself online.

What was the furthest you’d ever run before the Royal Parks Half Marathon?
Only about 3 miles!

How often did you train beforehand?
Typically running 6 miles 3 times a week, with longer distances as the day came near.

What was so good about the way the day was organised?
Everything was taken care of, so we just could focus on the task in hand.  The YouthNet team had been a real additional help with local knowledge, transport advice tips and the all-important cheering spot information for family and friends!

What was the atmosphere like?
Great - much bigger than I’d expected and putting your name on your shirt as suggested by YouthNet really got you a mention - just when you needed it!

Would you consider doing anything like this again?
Yes - I’m already thinking of 2009!

Congratulations Jamie - you’re our fundraiser of the month for November! We’ve made a £25 donation to your page to show our appreciation :-)

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Saving Africa’s Witch Children

November 12, 2008 at 11:22 am · Filed under How fundraisers use Justgiving, In the News, Our News ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Tune into Channel 4 at 9pm tonight for Saving Africa’s Witch Children, a Dispatches special.

witch-children1

The film tracks the work of Gary Foxcroft, Programme Director of the UK charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, and his mission to save and transform the lives of the Nigerian children who are blamed for disasters and famine, branded witches and then abandoned, tortured and murdered.

Working with the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network in the Niger Delta, Stepping Stones Nigeria raises the money desperately needed to rescue children accused of witchcraft, give them medical treatment and  help them recover from the trauma they’ve had to endure.

Stepping Stones Nigeria has set up an appeal page on Justgiving to go with the film, and all the donations made will go directly towards helping the children featured in the film, as well as countless others.

You can do your bit by donating something to Stepping Stones Nigeria here or raising money for them here.

If you’d like to find out more about their work, you can also go to their website.

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A fireman takes on Antarctica

November 11, 2008 at 3:37 pm · Filed under Inspirational fundraising ·Tagged , , , , , ,

tim-ralphTim Ralph, a retired fireman from Harrogate, is setting off to climb Mount Vinson this weekend.

A quick look at the weather forecast shows it’s going to be a bit cloudy here. Probably chilly too. But if you find yourself muttering about the cold on Sunday, spare a thought for Tim as he prepares to face temperatures of minus 30 degrees - and that’s just at basecamp.

The expedition is all in aid of Henshaws Society for Blind People, which gives practical advice and support to people with visual impairment and disabilities, ranging from the very young through to students and older people too.

Mount Vinson will be number six of the Seven Summits Tim’s climbing and, if he manages it, there’ll only be Everest left to tackle. He’s been training for the tough challenge ahead by wearing skis fitted with wheels and towing a tractor tyre round the streets of Harrogate, to simulate the weight of a sled! Go Tim - we salute your dedication.

Here’s what he emailed to us earlier this week:

“I am meeting 100% of the cost of the expedition myself, so all monies raised will go to Henshaws Yorkshire, Society for Blind People. I hope to be back in the UK by 18th December. The blog will be updated whilst I am both hiking/sled hauling and climbing and we hope to arrange a live satellite phone call from the summit.”

We wish you lots of luck Tim! You can sponsor him here and leave him your own message.

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openDemocracy launch campaign on back of Obama victory

November 5, 2008 at 5:03 pm · Filed under Justgiving for Charities, Success Stories ·Tagged , , , , ,

openDemocracy logoTo tap into the energy brought about by the election of Barack Obama, The Open Trust has launched a campaign to support its openDemocracy program that works to promote democracy, human rights and respect on a global scale.

You can show your support for the campaign by donating at www.justgiving.com/makechange

As it says on the fundraising page,

We want to make Obama’s change a reality and we need your help

The internet has played a huge part in this Presidential Campaign, like no other before, with Obama himself pioneering a new way of engaging and motivating his supporters through online fundraising.

The interest overseas has been so much greater than past elections, with various websites set up to predict what the world would have voted, and wall-to-wall press coverage.

The Open Trust have started their campaign to harness the feelings of change felt by those outside of America and to give people a platform to show their support for democracy.

As they say on the fundraising page:

Energised, hopeful, excited? American voter or not, there’s an air of optimism and belief in the possibilities of the future.

Let’s transform those feelings into real change.

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Merlin’s DR Congo Appeal

November 4, 2008 at 12:33 pm · Filed under In the News, Our News ·Tagged , , , , ,

dr-congo-appeal

Photos by Aubrey Wade

You’ve probably seen the news this week about the humanitarian crisis in the new Democratic Republic of Congo – and we know lots of you will be keen to do something to help.

So we’ve set up an appeal page on Justgiving to raise money for the work that Merlin is doing in the area right now.

Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International) will be making sure that the money you donate here goes to their DR Congo Appeal, which you can read more about on their website.

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