Hi, I’m Alex from Localgiving's Development Team. I’m delighted to announce a series of major updates and improvements to our fundraising product. Sometimes you need more than just a new lick of paint. This is why we’ve looked at our current fundraising pages and thought hard how we could make these pages more feature rich, easier to use and more pleasing to look at from various devices, desktop to mobile. We hope that this will help local charities and their fundraisers to better engage donors - bringing in more funding for local causes across the UK. These changes will provide a better user experience both for fundraisers and their supporters - improving both functionality, design and putting more control in the hands of fundraisers. This marks a significant upgrade to Localgiving’s core product and helps us stand out as a forward looking, value for money fundraising platform. Here are just some of the improvements we’ve made to the fundraising pages, hope you’ll like them: Fresh, friendly and accessible design Quick sign up process where you can save and come back to finish it at any time Tips at each stage to help you maximise the impact of your fundraising page Integrated social media buttons to improve communication with supporters Intuitive user interface and fundraiser page layout Ability to upload videos and up to 8 images Ability to send updates to your supporters through images and videos Optimised for smartphones and tablets Ability to choose from a range of set events or input your own activity   We hope that these improvements not only provide our valued fundraisers with a more enjoyable experience, but ultimately help them bring in even more donations for our groups. We look forward to hearing your feedback soon!

  Dorset Parent Infant Partnership have just launched a new appeal on Localgiving! DorPIP work to ensure that parents and babies can access the support they need to build secure, long-term attachments. This includes providing psychotherapeutic intervention and promoting the importance of investment in early relationship building between parents and their children. As Vivian Allen, the founder and CEO of Dorset Parent Infant Partnership explains: "After 10 years of working as a counsellor, helping children, teenagers and adults who suffer from the effects of poor attachment, I started to look at where their pain had begun and often found it started right at the very beginning of life during the first 1001 critical days, when ‘natural bonding’ should have taken place. Having also experienced problems bonding with my own children i was inspired to set up a specialist community based preventative service to help families when bonding does not come naturally”.   They need to raise a total of £3,600 to run their our #keepintouch groups. These groups ensure that families receive ongoing specialist support during the vital first 2 years of a child’s life. “This support is good for babies, good for families and good for our society too. Please donate now to our appeal. These #keepintouch groups are a lifeline to parents and babies who really need your support." Help DorPIP to continue to provide this invaluable service to parents and babies in Dorset: Make a donation here      

At Localgiving we like to highlight the amazing work fundraisers do for our charities and community groups. Every month I (Byron, Localgiving’s Membership Coordinator and helpline guy) pick out some some of the very best in fundraising events. Here are some of the most inspiring causes and fundraising appeals we have seen this month The 2020 TransAm Bike Race Many people say that everything is bigger in America: the cars, the food the buildings - and now apparently the bike rides. Mike is riding 4,300 miles across America. The Bradley Wiggins of Nottingham is taking on this fantastic feat in aid of Harmless. Mike is  aiming to raise a total of £5000 in aid of the charity Harmless. Harmless is an organisation that combines personal and professional experience to support people who self harm, their friends and families, and professionals. Harmless believe in recovery, and through their work they want to promote health and well being. So many people who self harm feel overwhelmed by their emotions, and this is something they want to work hard to change.Harmless was set up by people who understand self harm and at the heart of our service is a real sense of hope. All the very best from all of us here at Localgiving.   The Retirement fight This is Martin’s last fight before he hangs up his gloves. Martin is a keen boxer and says that it will be thrilling to do what he enjoys best and get to raise money for a worthwhile cause at the same time. Martin is aim to the raise £500 for the Riff Raff Society.The Riff Raff Society is an association of like minded well-doers. Riff Raff’s aim is to accept funding applications in the Greater Manchester area from people who are facing challenging situations in relation to ill health/disability or any other relevant misfortune.The Society aims to provide assistance by funding requests for life enhancing equipment, respite breaks, home improvements, or other beneficial services to those that we support.             3 Marathons in 3 Months for Cancer April is not running just one marathon but three! This fantastic feat of endurance is in aid a local cancer charity that was set up in memory of her friend Faye-Knowles Chapman. April is not only hoping to hit her target of £1000 but to raise awareness around cancer. The Faye Knowles Chapman Foundation was set up in March 2013, Faye Knowles-Chapman sadly lost her battle against Cervical Cancer at the young age of 27.  In memory of Faye they are trying to raise awareness amongst young women and people in general. They are campaigning to get the minimum age for screening reduced or even removed altogether.        

Good stories are personal. Great stories make your supporters feel like they are a part of them. If your supporters can interact with your story in real-time–by making a donation or volunteering–it means you are giving them an avenue to get invested in your cause. That kind of storytelling is uniquely useful for nonprofits. Your efforts as an organization directly help the people in your stories and involve your donors and volunteers. So how do you tell personal, interactive stories? The ways you communicate with your audience is just as important as the story itself. Choosing your storytelling medium Traditionally, email, social media, etc. are all good ways to get your story out to your supporters. It’s efficient, letting you reach a ton of people at once. And it works, convincing a lot of them to make a donation to your cause. But ask them about the gift a week later, and most would have already forgotten all about it. It’s evident in the numbers–The average nonprofit receives a repeat donation from less than half their yearly donors*. A significant amount of supporters stop giving because they don’t remember donating and because of minimal or non-existent communication on the part of the nonprofit.   Today’s donors crave and are more likely to remember authentic, personal interactions with the organizations that they support.  Doing that means reaching out to people as individuals, and a channel like text messaging is excellent at that.  Text messaging in the UK Smartphone ownership is only set to grow in the UK, with a predicted 92% ownership by 2023. With the texting being so ubiquitous, it makes sense for charities to use texting as one of their primary modes of communication with supporters. Another factor to consider is what donors really want from your communications.  According to the 2014 UK Giving Report, 68% of respondents agreed that charities proving their impact was most likely to be valued by supporters. You probably want to show your supporters the successes you have had in your campaigns. The challenge is showing the impact in a way that reaches people. Supporters aren’t going to visit your website unless they have a reason to, and the standard email open rate is not very impressive. Communicating the impact your organization makes towards your campaigns needs to be done in a way that is direct and likely to be seen.  A channel that has a high chance of being read, like texting lets you do that and make your communications personal at the same time. Using text messages to tell and promote stories Messaging, whether it is through SMS, Whatsapp, or even Facebook Messenger, lets you have conversations with your supporters in real-time, without having to meet face-to-face. That means being able to provide updates on the people you are helping and answer questions as your supporters ask them. Of course, it’s not possible to reply to every text in person. You could automate texts to go out based on keywords in the messages you receive and jump in whenever you need to. Storytelling in the form of a text conversation Having conversations about your charity’s missions and goals can be made more personal and persuasive through peer-to-peer texting. With a messaging software, a single volunteer can have around one thousand conversations every hour.  For example, an initial text message could introduce them to your latest campaign and ask them if they would like to know more instead of asking them for a donation up front. If they respond positively, you can send a link to your donation page. After a successful donation, thank them through the same conversation. One thing to note about storytelling through text messages is that the story is in the form of a conversation. For it to be most effective, you need to keep them updated on how your mission is progressing, and how their support is helping your cause. Keep your supporters up-to-date and invested with your cause through follow up texts. Your next text could tell them about the funds raised from the last campaign: Your final update should let them know about how their funds were used and tell the stories of those who were positively impacted by your campaign. Your supporters will appreciate your transparency and willingness to keep them looped in. An invested and informed supporter is more likely to make further donations or volunteer for your cause. How else can you use texting? An alternative to peer-to-peer texting is to use text messages strictly as a way to link to your blog and website. This can be a broadcast message to all your supporters, telling them they can learn more about your campaign by following the link. There can be many other ways to use texting to engage your supporters. You can send reminders to campaigners and supporters to attend upcoming events and rallies (with their corresponding venue/timing details). Depending upon the volunteer’s role, you can also send texts reminding them of their respective duties on upcoming campaigns. It is evident that telling a charity’s stories in a way that can bring in donors and keep them engaged needs nonprofits to rethink donor communications. Channels like texting let supporters talk to you directly and make them feel like they truly are an important part of your cause. Augustus Franklin is the founder and CEO of CallHub, a California-based Voice and SMS service company bridging the communication gap for political campaigns and advocacy groups. When he is not working, he is either making toys with his kids or training for a marathon. *2018 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report  

When I started my career as a fundraiser 30 years ago, many of the things we now take for granted did not exist.  We did not have the internet, mobile phones, smart phones, e-mail or social media. A shared computer sat, neglected in the corner of the office as we struggled to use its counter-intuitive software and retreated to the familiarity of our desks, telephones, Rolodex, pens and paper.  I was a Community Fundraiser.  We had the best jobs in fundraising.  We could not compete with the glamour of the High Level Donor teams, or the prestige of the slick, suited Corporate Fundraisers. But we didn’t care because in our hearts we knew that we practiced the art of building relationships in all their human, unpredictable, chaotic, grassroots glory.  The community was the place to be. Then, one day my boss arrived and with great fanfare installed something called Windows. From that moment, the world changed quickly.  We saw unprecedented mass marketing and data crunching. Words like acquisition, retention, attrition and segmentation became part of our fundraising vocabulary. The rise of the database meant that big charities cultivated direct marketing teams who mapped out donor journeys and, in turn generated work for a vast number of creative agencies and fulfilment houses. In the mid-1990s we could feel the tectonic plates of fundraising shift.  In the big-charity world community fundraising became the poor and noisy relation of teams that delivered a better, faster, more clinical return on investment.  Technology meant that significant funds could be generated quickly at arm’s length. Suddenly there was no need to get down into the messy grassroots, or engage with challenging, complex, emotional people. Since then I have worked my way up through the fundraising ranks, to middle manager, Department Head and Director of Fundraising.  I’m no luddite, but there have been times during my career that I have hankered after the days when fundraising was about communities, not segments. When we valued the quality of relationship above the in-year return on investment. To my delight I feel the tectonic plates shifting once more. I see global and local hashtag communities coming together to demonstrate, march and fundraise in all their messy, noisy glory.  I see the arm’s length direct marketing one-way traffic slowed by legislation, regulation and reputation.  And I see emotional and passionate people and communities back at the heart of fundraising and activism. Ironically technology has helped us to come full circle and given a voice to communities once again.  There was a point when I thought that technology would kill off Community Fundraising. But now I have hope, because they are two sides of the same coin.  So, my message to all those fantastic, entrepreneurial, innovative local charities and groups is embrace technology. Not to send one-way, direct marketing, envelopes through doors asking for £2 per month. Embrace technology to find your voice, tell your story and build your community, whether it’s on your doorstep or another continent. This is a new, reinvigorated, generation of community fundraisers.  

It is a known fact that the UK has seen a spike in youth violence, particularly knife crime, over the last couple of years. Sadly, the news has become all too familiar: another grinning picture of a lost kid, another grieving parent’s pleas for the violence to end, another youth worker discussing the impact of local government cuts, another politician with a soundbite playing to his or her agenda. Most of us, read these ‘by-numbers’ articles, feel a pang of sadness, anger or guilt – and then move on with our lives, much as we do when we hear about a famine or war in the global south. Sometimes however the reality of the situation is driven home a little harder. Last year a 16 year old was shot-dead one road from my house in Tulse Hill in South London. On this occasion it was impossible to ignore the deafening-silence of the neighbours and friends stood behind the police tape. Then, just a matter of days ago, my friend’s son, who is 15, was threatened at knife-point and interrogated about whether he had any gang affiliation. This happened just yards from his house - in broad day-light. My friend’s voice trembled as she told me that, what made this so hard was that this had happened in the very place that both she and her son had been brought up – the place they call home. Nowhere felt safe anymore. Like thousands of young people in London and across the UK, my friend’s son is now approaching adulthood in a state of fear and faces stark questions around how to remain safe in this environment. Of course, there is not single cause or single solution. The government, police and schools undoubtedly have huge roles to play, particularly when it comes to addressing the underling socio-economic issues at play. However, in many cases it is the people living and working in the affected communities who have the best understanding of the dynamics on the ground and therefore the best solutions for tackling these issues at the local level. At Localgiving we work with grassroots organisations across the UK who work tirelessly, to tackle youth and gang violence and its multiple causes. Many of these groups have been set up by people who have first-hand experience of these issues, some by parents of victims and some by former gang members themselves. These groups are embedded in their communities and are therefore, not only acutely aware of the specific dynamics of the situation in their area, but also find it far easier to gain access to, and the trust of those they aim to help. This is a particularly important factor, given that many of the communities most adversely affected by the uptick in youth violence have also experienced a break-down in trust with police and local authorities. The type and level of support offered by these grassroots groups varies considerably. Many services are tailored to the specific needs of the young people they work with and communities they work in. Some groups provide peer-to-peer support, some provide safe spaces for healing, some help secure safe, stable housing and provide their young people with training and education opportunities. One thing they all offer however is hope. Hope that there is a way out of the current cycle of violence and evidence of the tangible difference that people can make in their own communities – even when faced with the most painful and seemingly intractable social problems. Below are some of the amazing groups on Localgiving who work to tackle youth violence and its causes.  Jags Foundation (Croyden, London) Real Action (Kensington, London) St. Matthews Project (Lambeth, London) Aik Saath - Together As One (Slough) The New Cross Gate Trust – “carrying knives costs lives” campaign (London) Safe (Oxford) Newark Youth London (Newark London) Prospex (Islington, London) Copenhagen Youth Project (Islington, London) Lambeth Action for Youth (Lambeth, London) C2C Social Action (Northampton) Fitzrovia Youth In Action (Camden, London) Fast Project (Battersea, London) Sports4Health CIC (London) The Reasons Why Foundation (London) The Jan Trust (Haringay, London)