Just a quickie to let you know I've used the Justgiving site as a way of online sponsorship. It's so easy to set up, takes about 10 minutes to get a page up and running, and it enables donors to give by credit card, saving the hassle of having to round up your sponsors after the big event.
For those interested in having a look at a page in action, check mine out at
http://www.justgiving.com/marathonmadnessThis isn't a plug to try and get sponsors (although I won't turn you away if you insist on sponsoring me!) but I thought I'd post this to try and help you charity runners out there.
Comments
I used justgiving last year and raised about half of my FLM sponsorship on it without having to run around after people.
Great for family, friends and colleagues who live abroad to easily make a sponsorship payment.
My experience was that I got a few large donations. I missed out on the larger number of small donations that I would have got by wandering around the office with a sponsorship form.
Many of the people sponsoring me found it difficult to navigate and use. I suspect that this was because they just weren't that familiar with making transactions over the web.
I e-mailed the address in a circular to all my colleagues and friends. Well, we all know how easy it is to skim and delete an e-mail! If you're a serious fund-raiser there's no substitute for sticking a form in front of someone's nose.
Not only that, but it makes an enormous difference to the charities as it makes claiming gift aid on each payment so much easier. From our point of view, the more you use it, the better!
But no, it certainly won't be a substitute for sticking a form under peoples noses.
Also quite handy as I've got a lot of contacts overseas that may donate via the website.
Anyway, for 10 minutes of setting up, anything is better than nothing.
I'll agree it looks very easy to use, but since the charities seem to be able to use a sponsor form to claim gift-aid then it's got to be a 2nd best option - only to be used to get donations from people who wouldn't be practical otherwise!
As I read it, they take 5% out of the gift-aid, not 5% of the donation.
Unless I read it wrong?
I've just re-read the bit on their website and indeed you were right about the fees. The page that details it is http://www.justgiving.com/statements/our_fees/default.asp
So they do take 5% of the total, but only take it out of the Gift Aid tax relief, so I assume if tax relief doesn't cover it (if they aren't a UK taxpayer or whatever), they don't get their fee.
I will speak to my charity and find out what they think. I don't expect Justgiving to do it for free, they obviously have their costs to provide the service. It makes it a darned sight easier for me to get the sponsorship rather than collecting from client sites that could be miles and miles apart (and possibly require repeat visits to get all the money from all the sponsors), but I will find out what the charity think about it. If they disapprove, then I won't use Justgiving.
hope that all made sense?
Adrian we still take a 5% fee if the person donating is a non UK take payer but again charities think it is worth it as they would have probably not got the donation from a person from overseas in the first place without our online service.
All the charities who work with us have agreed to our fees and as Ellie says above the actual admin costs of reclaiming all those 28%'s in gift aid tax are more than offset by us doing it for them.
Bear in mind also that over 90% of sponsors make a donation straight to the charity through our pages rather than using the "pledge to pay on completion" option, so that's money up front for the charities way before the race.
Also it's entirely up to your charity to decide if they want to use us or not. Not every charity approached signs up with us but we have over 400 and this figure is growing everyday.
Anyway sales pitch from me over as you guys already seem to be doing a good job of arguing both sides of the case for me ;-)
All the best and if you have any further questions about our service I'm happy to answer any questions publically on this forum or personally by email.
Mecca
Free sponsorship webpages for the London Marathon.
Thanks for clearing things up. I'll certainly still be using the sponsorship pages. My legs are going to be tired enough after the marathon without chasing people for money! lol
Cheers
Ade
PDSA this time....love animals!
Because it is done remotely, it also takes away a lot of that uneasy feeling when you do things face to face.
So far, I am impressed.
PDSA are on board with us and Cancer Research have also signed up with us for 2003 FLM (although we didn't manage to get them on board in time for 2002 which was a shame for you).
Yep Philip email signatures work well too. We'll be giving people more advice next year on getting the most from their pages although there's a few online hints and tips here.