Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Charity Through Fundraising

Many Australian charities are supported through various kinds of fundraising events. The school lamington drive or selling chocolates door-to-door are well known in most communities. Many children's charities could not exist without this generous support from the community; however, people do get tired of the same fundraising event over and over.

Why not make the next fundraising event a little different? In these days of computer technology, an online store for your chosen charity would be appropriate. It not only saves a great deal of time, but is relatively easy to set up.

Not everyone likes to be asked to buy something when they answer that ring on their front door bell. But nearly everyone likes to spend time on their computer and many people have become used to shopping this way. If your fundraising includes things to buy that are practical and useful, then many more people are likely to buy from you and support your charity.

You can make the product something that is personal to each person. For instance, you could offer photo mugs that they will upload their own photo for. This gives supporters a chance to buy something that is unique to them alone. Such a mug will make a beautiful gift for family members, so it is useful too. It will meet a need for a gift in a way that is easy and fun.

If you added other things such as key rings, calendars, photo books, mouse pads and T-shirts you would get a great many more buyers. People would buy because those are things they need anyway. So really you are fulfilling a need in the community as well as helping out a charity – something that will make any fund-raising event successful.

Once your fund-raising event has an online presence it is possible to attract a great many more donors than you could do locally. People all over Australia would be able to find your website and buy goods from your online store.

Internet Fundraising : At Crowdrise.com, we offer internet fundraising pages. Create your compelling project pages and share them with your friends to raise funds online.

Online Fundraising Potential of Social Networking Sites

A couple of years ago, the term 'social networking site' would have drawn blank looks from all but the technologically savviest of us. Now, websites such as Facebook and MySpace have a global currency to rival brands such as Coca-Cola and Nike.

Initially frequented by teenagers and university students, the sites are increasingly popular among people of all ages. Recently, the average age of users of Facebook was found to be 32.

The publicity potential is huge. Most celebrities have spotted an excellent avenue for self-promotion. According to a recent study by JupiterResearch, 33 per cent of European online advertisers plan to launch their own profiles on social networking sites in the next year.

And charities, quite rightly, want a piece of the pie.

Many have already got in on the act. There are countless unofficial groups dedicated to charities on Facebook but the organisations are now taking the initiative and creating their own online ventures.

Oxfam has a new online charity shop which hopes to raise £2m a year. Currently over 50,000 donated items are available, along with goods such as Fairtrade chocolate and coffee, jewellery and other gifts.

Everyclick provides an online fundraising platform where users can donate to or be sponsored for any UK charity. Everyclick is also a search engine which donates 50% of its advertising revenue to charities, chosen by the user as they search the web.

Charity blogging has also seen big growth. Oxfam has its own blog on MySpace, while visitors to Second Life, Actionaid's networking site, can tour WWF's virtual conservation island.

The Royal British Legion has taken advantage of the power of social networking and has created a virtual poppy for Facebook users. Although the poppy badge does not directly earn the charity any money, they hope it will spur people on to make a donation.

Google has also developed an application programming interface called Opensocial, which will enable the creation of Facebook-like applications, including charity badges, on any social networking site. Everyclick provides its users with a ‘widget’ which can be added to any website, through which people can search and donate directly to the charity chosen by the user.
In short, many different methods, one aim.

Brand Control

But where there are benefits there are risks.

Networking sites can also be used to quickly spread misinformation and negative publicity, and there is always the chance people will bypass institutions altogether and locate beneficiaries themselves, recently noted in the Guardian.

Nate Elliott, senior analyst at JupiterResearch, issues the following words of warning: "As it stands, most European advertisers are jumping on the engagement marketing bandwagon without truly understanding which tactics represent the most appropriate and effective use of their marketing resources."

Will it work?

Research suggests a more personalised approach is effective at converting awareness to giving. A recent survey by Harris Interactive revealed that 61 per cent of people gave to charities because a personal connection asked them to make a contribution.

And there is an element too, however subconscious or subdued, of wanting to flaunt your goodness, as well as ask people to share in it, which should give charities hope.

Online Charity Auctions

If you are a charity or a non profit organisation of any kind, using an online auction system could be a great new way of raising funds for you.
Web based auction websites using online auction software are becoming increasingly popular and have shown their potential when used to power silent auctions at charity fundraising events for example.

A lot of auction software companies now even have a special branch specialising in online charity auction software to help organisations achieve their goals and raise more money for charities.
As a company, you can also associate yourself with a charity by using an auction software if you wish to give away something to a non profit organisation. By doing so, you actually give a very interesting replacement mean to raise funds, simply because the popularity of your brand name and the awareness generated can be used to sell what you want by using an online auction software.

This process works in fact very simply.
Companies can donate what they want by simply adding the product or service offered to the online auction system. After that, the user can find the items that are for sale on the actual brand’s website. The items would actually be marked as being for sale for charity. As a matter of fact, the items would also appear on the charity’s website.
So from either the brand’s website or the non profit organisation’s website, the final user can purchase directly or bid on the item of their choice.
A lot of benefits can be drawn from this process. First of all, the charity you are donating something to is going to gain money from that donation which always is a great thing. Then the person who bought the item is actually getting something they wanted, so it makes that a happy customer who also had the occasion to donate to charity.
Finally, the company that donated the item can gain from that noble gesture by showing to their customers that they have a social conscientiousness and are concerned with the world’s problems and not only by making money.

It is something really good to be able to help a charity by donating an item, and using an online auction system to do it is probably one of the best ways to go. It really is benefiting to everyone.
Obviously, auction software can also be used by businesses that wish to increase their sales and market. One of the best examples is with estate agents that can sell houses and flats online by using online auction software.

Different Kinds of Communication

Forms of Communication

Each communication type can be classified on the basis of the various methods, processes, channel and style used for it.

On The Basis of Communication Channel

The process of communication involves encoding and sending of a message by the sender and transmission of the same via a communication channel for being received by the receiver who is responsible for decoding and processing of the transmitted information and replying back via a communication channel.

  • Verbal Communication: This can be further differentiated into oral and written communication. Oral communication lays emphasis on speaking words which are utilized for face-to-face, on-the-phone, voice chat or Internet communication. The effectiveness of these words depends upon pitch, speed, voice modulation, clarity and volume of speaking.


Written communication includes communication by email or snail mail. The writing style, grammar, language precision, grammar and vocabulary used are important facets of written communication. Pictorial representations, paintings, photographs, signboards, sketch and symbolic communication also falls under this category. Humans have used this for recording history through cave writing dating back to more than a million years.

  • Body Language: This includes communication through a person's body language through the body movements, postures and hand gestures. Facial expressions play an important part in conveying the intensity of the communication. Emotions can be independently conveyed through a hug, a smile or hand gestures such as a handshake. Accurate reading of a person’s body language helps in indicating whether they are angry, upset, stressed out, nervous, relaxed, happy, tired or sad.


On The Basis Of Purpose Served

  • Restrained Communication: This kind of communication occurs in a predefined formal format with a straightforward, precise and stringent tone attached to it, for communicating in a corporate environment. The communication style is very official in these cases involving meetings, corporate letters, written memos and official conferences.

  • Unrestrained Communication: This includes cases of free communication being employed by people for creating an informal rapport with one another. This communication type is not bounded by the limits of time, subjects or place and is devoid of any rigid guidelines and rules to be followed while communicating. The foremost requirement in this kind of communication is that the involved parties must properly understand each other.

On The Basis Of Technology

  • Electronic or Digital Communication: This includes communication through modern technological tools like computers, faxes, satellite television, telephone, radio, cellular phone and e-mail. These technologies have helped mankind in fulfilling its quest for efficient communication.


Communication is an integral part of the lives of every human being. The technological advances in the field of communication have provided us with wonderful resources and tools leading to the enhancement of our lives aided by convenient communication. Amongst all the above communication forms, face-to-face communication is probably the best communication type. It helps in keeping the emotions, thoughts and feelings intact between two human beings and make accurate perceptions about each other which is a rather difficult task in modern technological methods because of the absence of humanness in them.