Fundraising online
May 13th 2008 09:24
My mother was never the sort of person to have things like life insurance, and, because she lived with us for the last 22 years of her life, she had no need of house or car insurance (she’d given her car away one day to a young man who had his eye on it!). Furthermore, she believed in the principle of sowing riches in heaven, and for some time after she died we were still getting what she rather ironically called, ‘begging letters’, from the large number of the charities she had donated to, in small amounts, for many years.
I often wonder about all the charities that take money over the Net these days, as to whether they make as much money that way as they used to do by sending out direct mail the old-fashioned way. I thought it would be interesting to find out if there’s been a survey done on the subject.
Well, I didn’t get as far as checking out any survey. The first search result from Google was FundraiseOnline.co.nz (which, curiously, has a .com address). They’ve basically set themselves up to help charities, big and small, get themselves represented online in such a way that, hopefully, they’ll see the dollars rolling in. With them you can create a fundraising page within minutes. I guess the good thing about it is that you can use this site for a short-term fundraiser, as Duncan Bayly’s did for Motor Neurone Disease.
On the weekend of 3 and 4 May 2008, he cycled from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to London in the United Kingdom with the aim of being sponsored. All funds would be donated to Motor Neurone Disease research.
They raised some $93,000, but only about $4,500 appears to have been raised online. Still, that’s $4,500 they might not have otherwise got.
There’s another charity called Nurture, which is taking a rather different tack. They’re raising funds to help families in NZ who’ve had trouble having children. They’re primarily doing research on the subject.
Actually the stats make pretty scary reading:
So, there we go. Check the site out. It might inspire you to aid some charity of your own – or at least donate to it!
I often wonder about all the charities that take money over the Net these days, as to whether they make as much money that way as they used to do by sending out direct mail the old-fashioned way. I thought it would be interesting to find out if there’s been a survey done on the subject.
Well, I didn’t get as far as checking out any survey. The first search result from Google was FundraiseOnline.co.nz (which, curiously, has a .com address). They’ve basically set themselves up to help charities, big and small, get themselves represented online in such a way that, hopefully, they’ll see the dollars rolling in. With them you can create a fundraising page within minutes. I guess the good thing about it is that you can use this site for a short-term fundraiser, as Duncan Bayly’s did for Motor Neurone Disease.
Duncan Bayly, who has himself got Motor Neurone Disease
They raised some $93,000, but only about $4,500 appears to have been raised online. Still, that’s $4,500 they might not have otherwise got.
There’s another charity called Nurture, which is taking a rather different tack. They’re raising funds to help families in NZ who’ve had trouble having children. They’re primarily doing research on the subject.
Actually the stats make pretty scary reading:
One in six couples experience infertility.
One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
One in five first-time mothers is at risk of serious pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia or preterm birth.
Nearly 600 babies are stillborn or die within 28 days of birth in New Zealand every year.
They’re so scary I find them almost hard to believe. But then we were fortunate – we did have one very early miscarriage, but otherwise all five of our kids were born without problem. One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
One in five first-time mothers is at risk of serious pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia or preterm birth.
Nearly 600 babies are stillborn or die within 28 days of birth in New Zealand every year.
So, there we go. Check the site out. It might inspire you to aid some charity of your own – or at least donate to it!
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