CrowdLoving

Most of you have probably never heard of Web Summit. But you probably should have.

Web Summit has been described by the New York Times as:

“A GRAND CONCLAVE OF THE TECH INDUSTRY’S HIGH PRIESTS..”

In a nutshell, Web Summit is where the disparate factions of the tech world meet: CEOS from the top Fortune 500 companies share space with the hottest, young tech startups in the world. Web Summit is also arguably the largest and most prestigious technology conference in the world.  This year, between Nov. 4-6,  celebrity attendees like Bono and Eva Longoria will mingle with the top tech leaders, including Drew Houston of Dropbox, Urs Hölzle of Google, and Werner Vogels of Amazon in Dublin, Ireland.

Every year, Web Summit invites 150 of the world’s highest potential young companies to participate in the START Program. Previous attendees have included Uber, Stripe, Vine, and Coursera, all before they became industry giants. Fundly was honored to be chosen this year as one of the 150 startup exhibiters. If you happen to be in Dublin, come find us in the Philanthropy area, Stand PHL302.

To learn more about Web Summit visit http://websummit.net. To learn more about the START Program visit http://websummit.net/startups/start.

Photo Cred: The Independent (http://www.independent.ie/)

#FundlyGivesBack Winner: 

Happy Halloween! We have a winner, folks! We loved seeing all of your tweets, shares and mentions for #FundlyGivesBack. We always look forward to seeing the Fundly community rally around your campaigns.

We wish all of you could be our #FundlyGivesBack winner, however, only one of you can win the $100 prize. We’re proud to announce that the winner got their friends to share over all social platforms and hounded us for attention on Twitter using the #FundlyGivesBack hashtag!

Check out everyone that used the #FundlyGivesBack hashtag. Without further adieu, the winner of #FundlyGivesBack is:

See Cincinnati Benefit Concert for Children’s CampaignPowered by Fundly

We’re Reducing Processing Fees On All Donations To Your Campaign Today!

#FundlyGivesBack is here! For the next 24 hours our processing fee is 6.9% so get as many donations as you can. AND when you share your campaign using #FundlyGivesBack you’ll be entered to win $100 towards your campaign.

Enter To Win Our Contest

The more shares, tweets and mentions the higher chance you have of winning! The more creative your shares, tweets and mentions, the higher chance you have of winning! Make sure to check our hashtag board throughout the day to see where you stand on the leaderboard and what other campaign owners are doing.

Not running a Fundly campaign but still want to be a part of #FundlyGivesBack? You can help by donating to a campaign in your area or browse by a category that interests you. Sharing the hashtag gets you into a contest too!

Happy fundraising!

For the past 10 years, Avi Gandhi has owned and solely operated Center Lane Stationery in the iconic suburb of Levittown, New York. Seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, Avi is in complete service to its residents. Not once in the entire decade has he taken a sick day.

But hope is in short supply in Avi’s corner these days. Like many other small businesses on Long Island, and across the greater U.S., Center Lane Stationery is suffering. People buy lotto tickets, but little else. Avi’s shelves have become dusty, his legs weary. Tired of the long days and wanting to spend more time with his wife Bharati, who recently survived cancer, he might be forced to shut down the store come January.

When the Levittown community hears about Avi’s troubles, watch them give Avi the surprise of his life!

For more about the film “Cash Mob For Avi,” visit cashmobforavi.com.

To read more about Avi and his family and to donate to their Fundly campaign, visit https://fundly.com/everyone-loves-avi.

We are proud to be partnering with the 2014 NewCo Festivals! What is NewCo you ask?

NewCo is the “inside out” conference model where attendees get an opportunity to get an inside  look to some of the most innovative and smart companies of our generation. These companies  open their doors and invite the community to their offices for a one-hour informational session.  Once inside, participants have a wide range of experiences – from behind-the-scene tours of  cutting-edge work environments to founders candidly sharing insights into their own entrepreneurial journey.

Fundly is honored to be one of the featured companies at this year’s NewCo Silicon Valley, along with Google, LinkedIn, eBay, and Yahoo!, among others.

Steve Chew, VP Biz Dev

Our session, held on Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m., titled “The Evolution of Crowdfunding,” will cover the social psychology of giving among millennials, the impact of mobile payments, and the influence of geographic location on donation patterns. Our awesome VP of Business Development, Steve Chew, will be the session presenter.

Visit the NewCo website at NewCo.co to read more.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Lia Rose’s songs are definitely American and decidedly Californian. She has been featured on  NPR’s West Coast Live, has opened for such musical artists as Huey Lewis & The News, and has performed as a backup singer on Jimmy Kimmel Live. And yet the singer, based in Berkeley, Ca., has had only modest musical successes in her native United States.

And so it is in a bizarre twist of fate that Rose might finally get her shot at fame through the show “Britain’s Got Talent.”

Rose, who is half British, did not have the money to pay for her airfare to England.  She knew she would need help from others to realize her dream of making it on the show. Through fundraising platform Fundly, Rose was able to raise money to cover her trip expenses days after her fundraising page went live.

If enough money is raised, Rose hopes to hire a videographer and document her journey to the audition on camera.

To help Lia Rose, check out her fundraising page (she is giving out free copies of her holiday album to donors!).

To learn more about Lia’s music, visit her website at www.liarose.com.

When b-boy dancer and artist Vandor ‘Whacko’ Hill realized that popular dance venue and artistic studio Cellspace was closing its doors, he took action.

Using crowdfunding site Fundly, Vandor rallied the San Francisco artistic community around his fundraiser and was able to raise over $6,400 for a new local venue for emerging artists and dancers.

His advice for running a successful campaign:

Keep your timeline short and simple–don’t drag it out. Post [on social media] and much as you can. Thank people as much as you can. Stick to your guns and ride it out. You’re going to have doubt, but if you stick to your guns you will be successful.

  Check out b-boy dancers as they battle it out at CellSpace’s final event.

Photo Cred: Shane Menez

Many people think that once they start a crowdfunding campaign, all their financial woes will disappear. If only it were that easy! One of the biggest challenges in running a successful crowdfunding campaign is knowing how to market it. Though you don’t have to be a marketer, you do have to expand your vision and feel comfortable reaching out to your family and friends, social network and community circles.

Before getting supporters, it’s important that your campaign looks nice and portrays what you’re wanting to raise money for. At Fundly, we encourage all campaigns to include at least one image or video, a description of why you’re fundraising and add a few giving levels as incentives. We’ve broken down a few of our best tips to help you get supporters.

Step 1: Recruit Your Inner Circle Of Family and Friends

When initially starting a campaign it’s important to recruit your core supporters first, this includes yourself, family and friends. This “inner circle” will be the the root of your crowdfunding campaign so make sure to make them feel connected and passionate about why you’re raising money. When you’re communicating and sharing your campaign be descriptive and excited, this will help them want to back you 100%.

How To Reach Your Inner Circle: Email is a great way to share your campaign with family and friends. Make them feel special by personalizing each one, this may take more time but will pay off in the long run. And if you want some traction immediately, try sending them a text with your campaign URL.

Email is a great way of sharing your campaign with friends and family. Make sure to customize your message to each person, and remember to make them feel connected to your story and passionate about helping you raise money.

So you’ve shared your story via email and social media to your friends and family. Now what? Two words: Remind and Repeat! Our platform makes it easy to send automatic reminders to your friends and family who have not yet supported your campaign. Fundly’s automatic reminder emails receive a 10% conversion rate, proving that even those with the best intentions forget to do things. If at first you don’t succeed… ASK AGAIN!

Email is the best way to get donations to your campaign. Start by importing the contacts from the email service you use most.

Don’t be shy! We’ve found that each email sent to a family member or friend will increase the amount you raise by $45 on average.

Add your voice to the template below. Write from the heart and make your recipients feel good about giving – and maybe a little guilty if they don’t.

Step 2: Spread Out To Your Social Circle

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+ are super helpful towards marketing your campaign. A good place to start is to focus on the social media platform that you use most frequently and where you have the most number of followers.

Once your “inner circle” has supported you it’s important for them to market your campaign on their social networks as well. People are interested in what others are doing on social media and generally if someone donated or supported a cause, they want to share it with their network – think of it as a chain reaction!

Actionable tips:

Use hashtags. Let’s say you’re raising money for autism awareness. Make sure to use hashtags such as #autism #autismspeaks #autismawareness

Make sure to post pictures. We’ve noticed that when people post pictures on Twitter, your tweet becomes more popular and noticeable.

Give a shout out on social media to “thank” your supporters or donors – publicly making them feel special will give them a reason to share your post or retweet. It’s the little things that matter!

Before posting on social media, craft an upbeat and smart pitch that will get people excited to click on your link. Make sure to include a compelling photo in your social media update!

Step 3: Tap Your Community Circles

Once you’ve gained the support from you and your “inner core’s” network, it’s time to get the creative juices flowing. Tapping into community circles are important because it allows you to reach a broader audience that have similar interests. An easy way to start is by asking yourself what types of communities does your campaign fall into?

Questions To Help You Find Your Communities:

What is your campaign raising money for? If you’re a college basketball team raising money for nationals, you would look into sports, basketball, the college where you play and alumni communities.

Is there a local chapter you can connect with?

For example, if you’re raising funds for your local San Francisco church, you could look into local SF communities, other church parishioners, church member forums, etc.

Another example would be If you’re raising money for a community project, you could look into Junior Leagues in your area, local volunteers programs, community leaders, town/city hall, community forums, etc.

Example: Bringing Your Circles Together

Let’s say you’re a fashion and lifestyle blogger and need to raise $5,000 for blog expenses.

Step 1: After you create a campaign page, you send a personal email to your family and friends (aka: “inner circle”) telling them about your fundraiser and why it’s important for you to raise the funds.

Step 2: Next, you tap your extended network, which is your social network. With your fashion blog, you might have a stronger following on Twitter and Instagram so you would post there first so more followers will see it.

Tip: Make sure your content is different everytime you post, people don’t like reading the same material over and over. Make them want to support your cause.

Step 3: Other than using hashtags in your tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts, you could try to reach out to fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogging communities, as well as relevant clothing and product brands, to see if they’ll help share your campaign and support your cause.

We love hearing about your campaign and the kinds of communities you love. Share the communities you’ve had success with in the comments below.

—

 Veronica Olah is Community Manager at Fundly.

By Jessica from The Stomping Ground,

The Stomping Ground, a not-for-profit community play space opening soon in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

As every parent knows, raising a child can be exhausting, taxing, exhilarating, and at times overwhelming—sometimes all in just one morning. To raise a child well, it really does take an entire village. Creating that village is the intention behind The Stomping Ground, a not-for-profit community play space opening soon in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

This membership-based play space was started by a group of parents who yearned for a safe, dynamic, and nurturing space for our children to come together to play and learn, and where we could meet other parents, find support, lend a helping hand, and create a true sense of community. All of our founding moms and dads have been working on a purely volunteer basis to find the right space, raise funds to cover move-in costs, build a strong membership base, and create a menu of interesting classes for our kids, including music, yoga, puppetry, and story-telling. We have made it happen.

The Stomping Ground will open on March 1, 2014 with forty family members—and growing—in a beautiful location. While we have been able to raise the start-up costs through membership fees (including the first few months of rent and move-in costs), our Fundly campaign is designed to help us make the space as magical as possible.

With the help of our Fundly donors, we plan to build a climbing wall and a place to tumble, and a special area where kids can dress-up and imagine themselves a superhero or evil villian. There will be a designated play space for our youngest members, filled with soft toys and objects to encourage their development. There will be a reading nook for quiet moments, and instruments for louder ones. And come this summer, we will transform the currently neglected backyard into a beautiful garden filled with flowers, sprinklers, swings and much more.

We hope that you will join us in these efforts, and wherever you may live, we invite you to become a member of our village. We need all the help we can get. You can read more about our efforts at our Fundly page or www.stompinggroundbk.org 

From our families to yours, thank you!

  Check Out This Campaign

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The Stomping Ground fundraising video from Stomping Ground on Vimeo.

Inspired by Jessica’s story? Start raising money, we’d love to hear your story!

  Want us to feature your campaign? Submit your own guest blog!

By Brittanie Gordon 

My younger sister Mackenzie, at age 18, fractured her C5/C6 vertebrae in a car accident June 4, 2012. This caused spinal cord damage, resulting in paralysis. These injuries classified Mackenzie as an incomplete quadriplegic. Immediately we were told Mackenzie would never walk again.

Mackenzie spent seven weeks at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. In that time Mackenzie had a numerous hour surgery where she had rods and screws put in her neck to stabilize her C4 through C7 vertebrae. When Mackenzie left St. Mary’s she went to Craig Hospital in Englewood, CO for long-term therapy. She spent another six plus weeks in Colorado trying to relearn to do everyday tasks. While she was in Colorado we learned she had minor controlled movement of her legs, this gave us great hope to what the future could hold.

She returned to Craig Hospital in March 2013 for a checkup, and was told her ongoing improvements qualified her for a new therapy at Craig, The NueroRecovery Network. NRN was everything we were looking for except it had a price tag well over $20,000 for eight weeks. Our parents already had numerous expenses including home renovations and a handicap accessible vehicle and $20,000 just wasn’t something we could afford. I refused to let a lack of funds keep Mackenzie from getting the therapy she needed.

Our community had been so great in supporting Mackenzie and making her previous fundraisers highly successful, I knew we would be very limited to what there was left to do locally. I got the idea to share Mackenzie’s story all over Facebook. I made a few Youtube videos and started posting it on any page I could. People started asking where they could donate, and that’s when I found Fundly. Fundly’s website allowed us to post pictures and videos and made it very easy to share our fundraising page online. In ten days we raised $10,000 and it was just amazing! The outpouring support from people that didn’t even know Mackenzie or our family started donating money and spreading her story.

Mackenzie made great strides her second summer at Craig. She became able to stand with a walker for five-minutes plus, previously she was in the thirty-second range. She was able to walk with a walker around the gym of Craig and for the first time in over a year she was able to walk outside with some robotic assistance. The muscles in her abdomen and arms also greatly improved.

Mackenzie got home the end of August and I got married on September seventh.  Mackenzie was my maid-of-honor and I wanted her to be able to walk down the aisle in front of me so badly. With the best man on one side and our brother on the aisle, Mackenzie walked the aisle. It was an amazing moment that no one there will ever forget.

Without Mackenzie’s continued therapy I know she would not have been able to walk on my big day and without Fundly we would have never had the funds to pay for that therapy. So Fundly, the Mackenzie Gorden family thanks you ever so much!

Click here to read about Mackenzie’s inspirational recovery: A paralyzed bridesmaid defies disability on The Denver Post

Check Out This Campaign

Inspired by Mackenzie’s story? Start raising money, we’d love to hear your story!

  Want us to feature your campaign? Submit your own guest blog!

Telling your story to gain support for your fundraiser is a major component to running a successful online fundraiser.

Key questions to help tell your story:

What are you fundraising for?

Why is it important to you?

What impact will each donation make?

Telling Your Story

Each campaign has its own unique and compelling story. Don’t be afraid to get personal and share with your potential supporters why your story matters.

Don’t be afraid to get personal – potential donors and supporters love being able to relate and understand why you’re raising money and what the money is going towards.

Think of the 5 W’s and H (Who, what, when, where, why, how) when telling your story.

Incentivize your campaign! “Giving Levels” are incentives that help donors know exactly what a specific amount will go to pay for, and is a great way to showcase some creativity and encourage larger contributions.

Write the complete story behind your campaign. It’s important to include as much detail as possible and we encourage you to write from the heart and let your voice shine through.

Beautify Your Campaign!

The first step to running a successful campaign is making your page look great. Adding at least one video or photo of who the campaign is going to impact will increase the number of donations you receive by 30%.

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words. Make sure to include pictures on your campaign page.

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words. At Fundly, fundraising campaigns that include photos receive 6 times more donations than those without any! Make sure to include pictures in your social media posts, emails, or on your fundraising webpage.

When choosing your campaign photo(s), make sure to use high-resolution images that express who your campaign will be benefitting. For example, if your campaign will help your mother, make sure to include personal photos of her on your campaign page.

Think about making a video! Try to keep your video under 3 minutes.

Need some inspiration?

Check out these Fundly campaigns that tell an effective story:

Browse more examples.

Let us help tell your story and start raising money

When you are raising money for political fundraising campaigns you have to deal with state and federal regulation with respect to campaign donation disclosures. This is easier said than done.

There was a good article in the Boston Globe recently on how Massachusetts political candidates are improving their campaign donation disclosures. Having all your donation information in one central database sure makes it easier to comply with these regulations.

A great example is Fundly user, Mary Z. Connaughton for State Auditor. Mary Z. has set the standard by providing full compliance information for more than 97 percent of donors.

As a contrast, Mary Z.’s competitor, Suzanne M. Bump for State Auditor, is the worst filer. Ms. Bump (great name) only provided information for 61 percent of her major donors as of the end of September.

Data is power. Campaigns can make better decisions when they have good data. Fundly gives campaign fundraisers the power to make good decisions, which is especially important in these last 24 days of the election cycle.

There are many other benefits of a centralized donor database; not in the least your ability to leverage past donor to raise more money. This will be the topic of a future Fundly blog post!