As nonprofits try to figure out the optimal way to use the internet to build community and raise money, many options for collecting donations online are becoming available. In a recent blog post, I wrote about some simple options for offering online giving to a nonprofit’s constituents. Other nonprofits have taken advantage of more complex options, including fundraising pages. Fundraising pages are basically pages your constituents create themselves that allow them to discuss why they are interested in your cause, recruit additional donors/gifts, and raise money towards a specific goal. They often include some type of “thermometer” to track donations from the page.

One service that offers these fundraising pages is FirstGiving. To hear more about how FirstGiving works, check out this video:

Note that FirstGiving charges 7.35% of each online donation received via their site, so it is one of the more expensive options out there. But if you believe this type of effort would be an effective way to raise money, it may be an option to consider. These fundraising pages are most often used for walks and other types of fundraising events that allow participants to recruit others to sponsor their efforts.

DonorPerfect Online has a similar feature called DonorPages. This functionality can be integrated with your existing DonorPerfect Online system. They charge 2.99% of each donation, plus $0.35 per transaction.

This type of functionality can also be custom-developed and integrated with your website. For example, Spectrum Health has created what they call Team Fundraising pages. These pages allow interested constituents to recruit others to help them raise money for the cause they are interested in.

Have you tried fundraising pages or other more advanced online donations functionality? Has it been successful? Please let us know in the comments below.

If you’ve found many alumni in Facebook and decided to focus some of your limited resources on the social networking site, you may have already created a Facebook Group or Page for your camp. You’ve likely prepared engaging content and added many, many friends of your camp. I included some basic information about using Facebook in my previous blog post about Social Networking Sites.

I recently ran across this blog post from the Wild Apricot’s nonprofit technology blog that explains some specific applications that you may want to use to customize your camp’s official Facebook Page. It mentions some specific applications you can utilize to make your page more engaging, like the YouTube Box to show your camp’s videos or the RSS Feed application to show your camp’s blog posts on the Page. It also mentions incorporating the Causes application for focused fundraising efforts.

In addition, I recently received an email via Facebook about some new features for utilizing pages in Facebook that may be especially useful to camps:

(1) You can restrict your Page to users over age 13, 17, 18, 19, or 21, or the legal drinking age where they live. On your Page’s edit page, scroll down to “Settings” at the bottom. This functioanlty will allow a nonprofit to only allow users of a certain age join the page. Of course, they will still be able to view the page in Facebook.

(2) You can target your messages from your Facebook Page. When you send a message to fans, you can target it by geography, gender, and age. For example, a camp can promote a regional Alumni event to alumni only in a specfic area. When sending an update, check the “Target this update” box to utilize this feature.

Comment below if you have any experience setting up a Facebook Page. Any words of wisdom? What worked? What didn’t?

Are you accepting online donations yet? There are a number of services out there that can make it fairly painless to offer that big “Donate Now” button on your website. Companies such as JustGive and NetworkForGood offer relatively simple options for accepting online gifts. The costs are fairly reasonable as well. Our Technology Program also offers an online giving option through Sage Payments. And, of course, the Causes application in Facebook has had some mixed success.

As this recent article from the Christian Science Monitor suggests, every nonprofit should be offering some way for donors to easily and quickly give online. For smaller nonprofits like camps, this is even more important. As the article states, “The Internet also has been a boon for numerous small charities, providing a cost-effective way to reach people. ‘It has opened up new channels for a lot of smaller nonprofits with limited budgets to actually make an impact…’”

The younger generation expects an online giving option. The older generation is beginning to prefer online giving. Both appear to be giving more money (per transaction) online than off. It’s becoming more clear every day that a nonprofit must be offering this option.

Are you accepting online donations? If so, what tool(s) are you using? How successful has it been?

If not, why not?