Online Fundraising – Extremely Profitable Online Fundraising Ideas
Online fundraising is not only easy to do, but it can also be extremely profitable! Some statistics have estimated that the average internet buyer will spend at least $1000 per year on internet purchases. If you have just 100 members purchasing the yearly $1000 average, and each purchase earns an average of just 4%, that means an extra $4000 for your cause. When you add in the fact that you have no expenses and no selling that makes free online fundraising one of the easiest and most desirable ways to earn money out there.
So, the question becomes “how do we make this online fundraiser as successful as possible?” The good news is, success with free online fundraising may be just as easy as you think.
1000 dollars may not look like a lot of money to some nonprofits, but to small organizations, it can be a large sum of money. It’s a proven fact that when times are tough, donations fall – often dramatically. And in today’s tough economic climate, every organization is feeling the pinch. The problem is that consumers can’t afford to spend money buying a scented candle or a tin of caramel pop-corn. Here are 3 great steps to quickly raise $1,000.
Step 1: Sign up – This may seem a little obvious, but your first step is to register your online fundraiser. There are a couple of things you can do during the registration process that will make a big difference later. First, think about whether you want your fundraiser to be “public” or “private”. If you want to gather your supporters only by personally inviting family and friends, private may be for you. Examples of fundraisers who prefer this option might be “Johnny’s college fund” or “The Smith Family Vacation Drive.” A private fundraiser isn’t viewable by the general public and members may only support it through a personal “invitation link” emailed by the organizer. For instance, mom and dad may want to invite the grandparents, aunts, uncles and godparents to support “Johnny’s college fund” even though the fundraiser isn’t viewable by anyone else.
On the other hand, the “Johnson County Cancer Society” may be more suited for the “public” option. Not only can this organization personally invite members to support them through a personal invitation, but others from the general public may choose to support them as well. Anyone can sign up on iFunddrive.com, look through the list of public fundraisers, and choose the one he wishes to support. This brings us to the fund drive description. Having a powerful, well-worded description may be the thing that brings your public fundraiser support from people you didn’t even know. A good description shares your purpose and helps create a sense of “doing good” among your members.
Step 2: Spread the Word- As mentioned earlier, iFunddrive.com provides each online fundraiser with its own personalized invitation link. One of the best things you can do right away is send an email inviting members, friends and family to support you. And to help you out, iFunddrive.com also provides sample emails.
Another great way to spread the word is to place the iFunddrive.com “support badge” on your organizations website. The support badge works just like the link. When your members click on it and sign up for their free iFunddrive.com membership, they will automatically be signed up to support your cause!
Step 3: Remind and encourage- Lastly, you want to make sure to periodically remind your supporters to start each online shopping experience at iFunddrive.com, because each and every purchase means more money toward your cause.
Online shopping is on the rise, and people are always looking for a great deal. With iFunddrive.com, that doesn’t change – same great shopping, same great deals. Why not help a great cause at the same time? With a great online fundraiser through iFunddrive.com, you can!
3 Tips for Convincing Your Committee to Try New Fundraising Ideas
Regardless of whether your organization is large or small, pushing new, innovative fundraising ideas through your committee’s approval process can be a daunting task. It’s true some organizations are more streamlined or receptive than others, but without the due diligence necessary to ensure your big idea is the right one to be executed, your battle could be lost before it’s even begun.
No matter how inspired you think your big charity fundraising idea might be, there are always plenty of people who will prefer to do things the old-fashioned way – to stay stagnant, recycling old ideas again and again. But, when it comes to hosting exciting charity events donors look forward to attending each year, the old-fashioned way often results in significantly reduced fundraising profits over time.
Before you pitch your groundbreaking concept to revolutionize your organization’s next fundraising event, follow these three simple steps for successfully pushing your big idea through your committee’s approval process.
TIP #1: Know Your Audience.
Depending on the size of your organization, pitching a new idea might mean a casual conversation among friends and neighbors, or it could mean going in front of a firing squad of complete strangers. Under either set of circumstances, remember, everyone’s motivated by something.
Maybe some members of your organization’s event planning committee are concerned with the investment your big idea might require. Make sure you’re confident in the return on investment your idea will generate for your organization. Not all fundraising ideas can be guaranteed, but alleviating some of these concerns by being prepared with detailed explanations (as I’ll discuss in Tip #2) is an important part of the approval process – both for you and your committee.
It might be the case that some members of your committee are afraid to make potentially risky decisions because they have personal stakes in the charity fundraiser’s success. Be sure to come to the table prepared with clear, thoughtfully reasoned explanations about how the idea you’re recommending will be worth the risk.
Perhaps some folks on your committee just say “no” to everything. We all know these kinds of people, and depending on how powerful a force they are in the overall group dynamic, these individuals can be intimidating. The key here is to convince the rest of the group to get behind your big idea. If the naysayers are an extremely powerful force, this will be tough, but with the right idea, it’s far from impossible to earn support from the group as a whole.
TIP #2: Become an Expert.
Every day, we’re tempted by new ideas, in both our personal and professional lives. No matter what industry we work in, what town we call home or what our personal interests are, we’re always tempted by exciting, new ideas. The challenging part is having the wherewithal to distinguish the good ideas from the not so good ones.
Consider the idea of adding a charity auction to your event, for example. Maybe your organization has never hosted an auction fundraiser before, sticking mostly to more easily projectable events, like dinners and other revenue sources that rely largely on total attendance numbers, rather than the quality of the guest list. Since you’re the person with the big idea of adding an auction to your fundraising event, there’s only one thing for you to do: become an expert.
Ask questions like, “How much do similar organizations raise at their auctions? How do they do it? What should our goals be? How will we gauge our success?”
Research these questions, talk to other charity event planners who have experience with auction fundraisers. Understand the answers to these questions and other potential questions or objections that might come up. Preparedness is essential to any successful pitch.
TIP #3: Sell the Benefits.
Becoming an expert will help you answer many of the questions you’ll inevitably encounter, but often, the way we say things is just as important as the content of what we say. That’s why selling the benefits – not the idea itself – is the final crucial component to making your fundraising ideas happen.
If you wanted to work with an organization like Autograph Store Charity Fundraising on your charity auction, for example, the case you’d make to your committee wouldn’t be centered around how cool the charity auction items available are. Rather, it would be about selling the benefits of working with an organization that offers a zero-risk, all-reward program featuring auction items that can’t be found anywhere else.
As tempting as it may be to rely on autographed guitars and once-in-a-lifetime experiences to sell a charity auction concept on their own, what your committee is concerned with is how your big idea will help increase fundraising revenue for their organization.
The truth is gaining that all-important committee support for your big fundraising ideas can be a tremendous challenge. But, if you take advantage of these tips and come to the table prepared, you’re a critical step closer to success.
Time To Find Online Business Ideas
The first step of creating a business is setting up a presence on whatever topic you enjoy writing about. There are many resources out there which will let you have a free blog or website. Some of the most common resources include blogger.com, wordpress.com, webs.com, and 000webhost.com. All of these are free and will give you a domain name, storage, and bandwidth. I personally recommend setting up a blog because it makes updating your presence with fresh unique related content extremely easy. Google and the other major search engines favor the websites that have content updated regularly so if you would like to begin an online business with the intent of being able to earn money online having a presence that you can update is important.
Setting up a presence is actually quite a bit easier than you think. All you need is an idea such as teaching online business or instructing webmasters how to build Free Website Traffic. You can also create a presence which is used to sale products either from amazon.com or clickbank.com. There are countless online business ideas if you know where to look. When I am trying to think of new ways which I can build a successful add on to my business there are several places which I use for new ideas. One of the best include Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These search engines are where you can search and find other peoples presences and see what they are doing to make money. Search for top keywords in your niche and when the top ten websites pop up go to them to see what they are doing.
When you are looking at your competition there are several different things you should be looking at. One of the most important is how they are presenting their information and how they are making money on their websites. Usually the top websites will have information which is updated regularly. The most common presentation is a wordpress platform, but of course there is a wide array of different presentations. Usually these top websites will not be a simple presence, but a network. One great example of this is what Darren created over at problogger.net. Once the blog succeed he create a forum to compliment making a simple blog into a online business network. The same can be said with Jeremy over at shoemoney.com who created a marketplace to compliment his blog.
Watching others is one of the best way to find what is working in the online business world. These top players do not settle for simplicity they create networks rather than a presence. It is possible to earn decent money by creating one presence and you shouldn’t even consider creating network until you understand how to succeed with a simple presence. Start small and let your presence grow incorporating different presences as you learn about online business and web development. If you try creating an online business network before you have an understanding of basic online business you will find yourself quickly overwhelmed and giving up before you have the chance to grow a successful online business.