20 Jul 2011 2 Comments
Introducing: FirstGiving’s online donation button
Online donations have grown steadily over the past few years, becoming a major piece of nonprofit development strategies – and a convenient way for the rest of us to support the causes we care about. We wanted to use our expertise in online donation processing to make that process even easier for everyone involved, and are pleased to introduce (drum roll please)… FirstGiving’s online donation button!
We launched the button in beta last fall, and have continued to improve upon it. Now it’s ready for prime time. Nonprofits love it, because they can place a Donate button anywhere, while maintaining their own branding and keeping supporters on their web site. And individual supporters and fundraisers love it, because they can raise funds for their favorite causes directly on their Facebook pages or blogs and rest easy knowing the money will make it to the nonprofit.
What’s not to love? Here’s how to get a button of your own, whether you’re a nonprofit or a supporter.
Buttons in action.
The Melanoma Research Foundation placed our button on their homepage, using html code we provided for them when they generated their button. They even customized it to fit the look and feel of their site (easy work for a web developer). They have received over $138,000 in donations since they added our button to their site in November of 2010.
The MRF is also receiving donations on their Facebook page.
Facebook donation app.
This extension of the donation button, also known as the “donate” tab, can be used by anyone who creates a Facebook page. For example, we’ve spotted it on various business pages, such as Honda of Morgan Hill, a car dealership in California, who customized the tab so it reads “Charity of the Month”. They support several local charities on a regular basis:
We’ve also seen nonprofit pages taking Facebook donations, such as Habitat for Humanity of Great San Francisco:
Crazy stuff: Generate your own QR code
Brand spanking new is the ability to generate a QR code that can be placed anywhere to generate mobile donations for your nonprofit. Our heads are spinning thinking about all of the possibilities. A food bank could put a QR code on their trucks. An animal shelter could place them on public transit advertising posters. Place them on table cards at a gala event. At the finish line of a charity run to encourage athletes and their supporters to give more. Anywhere you might find supporters on the go who want to make a donation wherever they are
The serious stuff.
Our suite of online donation tools – whether you’re raising money on your website, Facebook or via QR code — costs nothing to create and use, and only a small percentage of each donation is taken out to cover fees and credit card processing. The button is fully customizable to your brand, organization or personal taste. It’s simple to use and analyze using FirstGiving reports which can be exported to your database. Your supporters can even give on a recurring basis, in honor of or in memory of a loved one, or if they choose not to be recognized, give anonymously.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact support@firstgiving.com.
Happy Fundraising!
FirstGiving Team
Helen Corlew
Jul 20, 2011 @ 16:53:29
Is there a way to make the donation goes to a fundraiser you have set up on first giving for a charity? In other words so any donation done on you FB or website you know goes towards your fundraiser’s goal?
Thanks
Helec
Lucky Masoka
Aug 24, 2011 @ 08:32:33
We have sec21 .company as a none profit company,
we are looking for funraizer of grunts. computors to open community skills development traing & dissaster manegement, feeding ascheme