Charity: Who cares?
This was a post I saw on Mint.com and thought I would share it with our Givimo fans. Image is provided by Charity Navigator National Center for Charitable Statistics The Center on Philanthropy. What do you think?
Givimo
An easy way to receive gifts online and give to the causes you believe in.
Conferences Givimo should attend in Q1 2010
When we first launched Givimo a week or so ago, the first thing we started doing is looking at our short list of nonprofit organizations we were connected to and knew could use our social giving software. We contacted the Garcia Pass It On Foundation, a client of Mindbox Studios, and the foundation of Jeff Garcia and his wife Carmella. They became our first customer. Then we've contacted multiple churches, and other small causes, all of which have signed up or are planning on signing up this coming week. The next step, come January 2010, is to begin looking for our early adopters.
Some of our early adopters will continue to come from our warm market or friends of friends, but most of them, I hope, will be causes we've never met before. It is our goal to sign up 500 unique nonprofit organizations in 2010, and reach over 15,000 users and crazy givers. In order for us to reach this goal, Givimo needs to get in front of as many groups in the nonprofit sector as possible. We want to reach those that need us most, right now. Those feel those groups are churches, missionaries, environmental and medical causes, and other small nonprofit organizations. To reach these groups and others this next year we are planning to attend a few conferences every quarter and network as much as possible, in hopes of becoming the best social giving platform on the web.
Conferences we hope to attend in Q1 2010
Unlikely we've registered in time to make it to this conference, but it would be great if they sent us an email tomorrow, giving us the green light.
This will be a great opportunity to connect with missions organizations from around the globe and helping them with their fundraising needs.
This is a network we want to join and challenge with new fundraising tools every year. We hope to exhibit and possibly teach a workshop or two on how technology and social media is reshaping our fundraising opportunities.
Do you think we should attend a conference that's not listed here? Post a comment to this blog.
Operation Christmas Child- Samaritan's Purse
This holiday season I am spending time with family in the Edmonton, Alberta area. Over the course of the last few days we have spent time with various family members as people begin showing up for my brother-in-law's wedding on the 27th.
Today, we spent the day with my wife's aunt and uncle from Calgary. Her Uncle Randy works for Samaritan's Purse as the Director for Operation Christmas Child in Canada. So consequently, I started spewing my passion for nonprofit fundraising all over him, and showed him our wonderful web software, Givimo.
He asked really good questions, like, "Why would an organization like Samaritan's Purse, who already has a way for people to give online?" Thus, leading to really good conversation around the social giving aspects to Givimo, like using Facebook and Twitter, and the different ways different organizations are using the software. Some will use it as their primary giving engine, especially smaller nonprofits. Others, however, will use it for alternative or secondary means to raising funds or managing particular campaigns.
The follow up to this great conversation will come in February, when Givimo, has been invited to Calgary, Samaritan's Purse Canadian headquarters, where we will give a presentation to their executive team. Randy also informaed us about many great conventions coming up that could be beneficial to growing the Givimo network. Missions Fest Vancouver and Missions Fest Edmonton are both in the first quarter of next year, where thousands of missionaries and church groups gather each year looking for resources and information for those serving in the mission field.
It's kind of funny that our last Givimo blog post was featuring Operation Christmas Child, and come to find out, one my family members is actually on staff. Coincidence? I think not.
The 5 Top Christmas Charities Givimo Supports
At Christmas time, gift giving is on our minds. We are often prompted in the month of December to tap our more generous egos, and for your favorite charities, this means the last quarter of the year is essential to their survival. For many, this season inspires us to give bigger to our local churches, community causes, and global initiatives. But some of us don't know what organization we should be giving to. So, in light of this constant dilemma, we thought we would suggest a few organizations for you to consider this holiday season. Many these nonprofit organizations are household names, but still rely on the support of people like you and me everyday.
Our 5 Top Christmas Charities
1. Angel Tree
We hope you give generously this month. Follow @givimo on Twitter.
Package Pricing
We labored over many months on how to charge for Givimo accounts. Do we make it free and charge a "transaction fee" like the other nonprofit giving sites, or do we provide a Software as a Service (SaaS) model where packages are set with a variety of options and user selects what they need? After researching the pros and cons of either option, we have decided to launch Givimo with a hybrid of both models.
The subscription packages we created offer both options for nonprofit organizations with various budgets. Our $10/ month package for smaller organizations has a small, 3% per transaction fee (not including the discount rate charged by credit card companies). Every other package offered through Givimo has a 0% transaction fee, $0 setup fee, and yet a very affordable monthly subscription charge depending on your specific organization's needs.
Our goal is to not punish the small, startup, missionary, church, or community group for being small. However, we also don't want to leave them behind as technology advances and donors change their behaviors either. That is why we have based our pricing and packages on the organization's ability to pay. Larger organizations have bigger needs and desire more features as they grow. Whereas, the smaller organizations or individuals are looking for an easier way the manage and raise funding for their causes.
That is why we love Givimo, but I guess I'm biased.
For more information go to www.givimo.com.
New Homepage Design
Givimo is finally here!
It has taken two years, 3 different business models, and way too much time, but Givimo is finally here. When we started building what was then, TERRAconnection, it was a dream to help the technologically left-out nonprofit organizations, by providing a social network enabling them to connect with their supporters in real-time. It was our hope that by developing this system, nonprofit groups would be able to raise more funding for their organization or cause. I am pleased to announce, that although Givimo is not a social network, it is still striving toward the same objective- more money for more nonprofits.
We have evolved our execution of this dream over the years to, now a SaaS subscription model. Your organization can simply choose the best package that provides the tools your organization needs like, Campaign Management, Gift Management, Twitter Giving, Facebook Connect, or a Custom Gift Page and then you'll be on your way to being Givimo enabled.
We really look forward to upcoming features that will revolutionize the way people give on the web.
