Fund-raising 2.0

April 4, 2008

By Liz Wargo

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One week ago when I herd the word fund-raising I inadvertently cringed. The thought of tracking down students, hours at the copy machine and counting cash was enough to make me push the idea of a swim team fund-raiser to the bottom of my to do list. But then I found out about fund-raising 2.0. Below is an account of how fast and easy I found fund-raising 2.0 to be this past week.

Three days ago I opened up my inbox and found this email from one of my students who happens to be an athlete that I coach on the swim team as well.

Hi,

I just found out about “World Swim Against Malaria Day.”

This is a fundraiser coordinated by Speedo to raise funds to buy malaria nets. The organization being supported is “Against Malaria Foundation.” You can find out more information on http:llwww.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/AboutUs.aspx

Please let me know what would need to be done to make this possible.

Thank you again for your consideration.

A******

So I clicked, the World Swim Against Malaria site came up.

Organized.

Legitimate.

Easy!

Hmm, now this is my kind of fund-raising. So I clicked again and followed the directions of how to set up our own swim team sponsorship page. I filled out the template, loaded a team picture and clicked submit. A few moment later and the page appeared. Out team photo, a list of names of participants and all the necessary information needed to solicit sponsorship.

I emailed the student back:

Hey A*******,

Great idea lets go for it. I registered the team and our official site is http://www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/SAS

I created a post on the blog. Can you create a facebook page to spread the word to your teammates?

Again great idea. I like the way you are thinking about helping others from a global perspective!

~Ms. Wargo

Then the really powerful part of fund-raising 2.0 the sponsors (family, friends etc.) came into play. They followed the site link clicked sponsor and instantly donated. After two days our fund-raiser that took me three clicks of a mouse to set up has 40 students (and growing) that have all added themselves as participants, created a Facebook group centered on the event and have thus far collected enough donations to prevent the death of four children from malaria.

After seeing fund-raising 2.0 for me and my students unfurl before my eyes, I was curious about how it could be applied in other circumstances. I found Justgiving a site that has facilitated 4,798,129 people to raise £250,653,249 for4,657 charities.

Next time you think about fund raising forget about tracking down students to collect cash think fund-raising 2.0. By creating an online fund raising page participants point their donors to one site and they donate instantly.