Frequently Asked Questions/Take action/Fundraising on Causes
Personal fundraisers - campaign best practices
James
posted this on May 04, 2012 04:41 pm
Here are some tips for running a successful fundraiser on Causes:
1) Make it personal - Be sure that the story you tell answers the question of why you're raising money for a specific nonprofit. Why is this important to you? What speaks to you about their work? How has it affected your life?
2) Plan around an event - Running a fundraiser around an event in your life, like a birthday, wedding, memorial, or race, can help you tell the story of why you're raising money. Turning a life event into a fundraiser is not only a great way to celebrate, it helps give your friends and family a reason to donate and a deadline.
3) Promote early - You want to announce your fundraiser to your friends as soon as you launch it, giving them enough notice so that they can plan to make a donation before your deadline. We recommend that you create and announce your fundraiser to your friends four weeks before your deadline.
4) Make a video - Making a quick video explaining why the cause is important to you and asking your friends to support your fundraiser is a great way to boost your chances of success. Since you probably can't ask all of your friends to give in person, the next best thing is asking them via video and giving them a deeper glimpse into why you care.
5) Make the first donation - To kick-off your fundraiser, make the first donation and ask your friends to join you. Your friends will know that the cause is really important to you when they see that you gave, too.
These are just a few of the best practices to ensure that your fundraiser is a success. To learn more, feel free to ask a question below.
Comments
How do I "Tell friends about your wish". When I get to this screen, there is no where to do this.
Hi Debra,
Thank you for your question. Our Wishes feature is currently experiencing a bug during the creation flow where you're asked to invite your Facebook friends. While we work on the issue, please copy and paste your Wish's URL and post on your friends' Facebook walls. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
The nonprofit I want to raise money for isn't on the list of options ... there are only 12 listed. How do I choose the only I want to raise money for?
Hi Kara,
Awesome that you want to start a Birthday Wish on Causes. You can search for any Guidestar.org registered 501(c) by using the search field. Simply type in the name or EIN of the organization you wish to fundraise for in the search field and hit enter/return. This should then show the name and details of the organization you want to benefit. If you find that this isn't working, please file a support ticket with more information.
hello, I have two questions for you.
First, can I set up a wish that will donate to more than one non-profit? What are the options for distributing the funds? For example, is it always evenly divided or can it be specified how it goes?
Second, what if an organization is a 501(3)c non profit but is not registered in the Guidestar database? Can you accommodate that?
Hi Marc,
Great questions!
1) Your Wish can benefit only one nonprofit organization. If you'd like to support multiple organizations, we recommend that you create a cause for your birthday and post multiple fundraisers on this page. Pass along the cause link to your friends/family and then they can select which organization to support. Here's a great example of someone using a cause page as their birthday wish to support multiple organizations.
2) All organization's listed and fundraising through Causes must be registered on Guidestar and opted-in to receive online donations from 3rd parties. An organization can learn more about being listed on Causes here.
James - has the INVITE A FRIEND feature still not been fixed? This was the best feature on the wish and made it so successful - you posted in July of there being a bug. Does Causes intend on fixing it or will it not be available anymore?
Hi Parker,
We apologize for this error. We investigated the bug when it was first reported and discovered that Facebook no longer supported this integration. Sometimes we find this page appears during the Wish creation flow although we have optimized it to be removed. If you would like to share your Wish with your friends, please copy/paste the URL directly onto your friends' Timelines.
How do I start my personal fundraiser? When I looked on here it didn't give me a link to get started with it. Would I get the donations?