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www.bmycharity.com/philipfinch - Philip Finch is running the equivalent of 2 marathons each week for the
next six months! He's already covered 580 miles, braving sand storms and high altitude - all within the confines of a British military base in Afghanistan.
Philip has generously offered to sponsor anyone who sponsors him, so if you want to help him help Help for Heroes and The Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys, visit his page at www.bmycharity.com/philipfinch.
As Twitter becomes more and more popular among fundraisers, we've noticed that many major charity
names are not yet registered, so we're offering to secure Twitter names for UK registered charities for free.
We've already secured accounts for 3 of the UK's leading charities and handed these over when the charity is ready to start Twittering, and we'd be pleased to do the same for any other organisations. If you know of any Twitter names that you think should be held for a UK charity, please let us know and we'll secure them. Then we'll hand them over (without charge!) to an authorised representative of the charity.
We first noticed this when we checked RNLI's Twitter feed and found that http://twitter.com/RNLI had not been registered. Since Matt Cooper (one of Bmycharity's founders) was saved by the RNLI while studying Marine Biology at university, we knew we owed them a favour or two! And we'll do the same for any other charity.
If you know of a Twitter name you think should be saved for a UK charity please comment below or email twitter@bmycharity.com.
We're adding 5p to every £1 donated through Amanda's page at www.bmycharity.com/amandawilkie between today and the end of March.
Amanda's created an awesome Twitter following and we're really pleased to be able to help her persuade her followers and visitors to become donors by topping up every donation to help hit a fundraising target of £20,000!
This is a once-only offer - we want to help Amanda explore Twitter fundraising, and find out whether this kind of matched giving increases the probability that a visitor will donate - and the average amount they will donate. Sadly we cannot extend the offer to every fundraiser. But if anyone else would like to match the giving of Amanda or any other fundraiser using Bmycharity please let us know - it's a great way to make your own gifts go further!
Amanda Wilkie is taking part in the 2009 Moonwalk and in the last 3 days has used her Twitter account to invite more than 220,000 people to visit her sponsorship page.
She's persuaded these 6 celebrities to forward her link to all their Twitter followers, and following Jonathan Ross's mention yesterday over 4,000 people visited her Bmycharity page at www.bmycharity.com/amandawilkie to find out more.
Amanda has so far raised £160 - but she's also recruited an army of Twitter followers and over the coming weeks she'll be able to build those relationships and increase support for Walk the Walk.
If you want to hear the latest about how Amanda is doing, and more about fundraising and Moonwalking, come join us at http://twitter.com/bmycharity.
Meanwhile Walk the Walk has also started tweeting - to follow the latest news from this excellent charity, visit http://twitter.com/walkthewalk.
Amanda Wilkie is taking part in the 2009 Playtex Moonwalk. Here is her fundraising page.
Yesterday, Amanda set out to use Twitter to build support from her Twitter account at http://twitter.com/MandyPandy32. Here's what happened:
What can you achieve in 13 seconds?
Within 24 hours Amanda reached a huge audience and persuaded 264 people to follow her on Twitter and over a thousand people to visit her Bmycharity page. However, these visitors spent less than a twentieth of the average time a visitor usually spends on Bmycharity, and only 2 of them donated.
A toe in the door...
But Amanda now has a large network of supporters who she can keep updated with her progress as she prepares for the Moonwalk on 16th May. Using Twitter to spread the word and her Bmycharity page to highlight what she is doing and why, she has plenty of time to develop her fundraising story and encourage her Twitter followers to become more involved - and maybe donate.
Sharing the story
Amanda's example shows that Twitter is a great way to gather a crowd to listen to your story - but you've got to keep the story interesting! Here are some suggestions:
If you have any suggestions please share them below!
We've had a fantastic response to our new service so we've decided to open it up to all Bmycharity
fundraisers. Here's how to boost your online sponsorship with donations from purchases with over 600 online retailers:
easyfundraising works by generating donations every time you shop with major retailers. Your easyfundraising account shows you how much you’ve generated from every purchase, in around 24 hours.
Funds raised will be paid to the charity quarterly following receipt of the easyfundraising donations from the retailer. This means that your Bmycharity page will be updated every 3 months. Move fast to take advantage of the next payday, which is in April!
To add a link to your Easyfundraising page to your Bmycharity page like the one on this example page, you need to login and edit your page, choose the HTML editor by clicking on the <> symbol and paste in the following, replacing "peterexample" with the Easyfundraising address you have chosen:
<a href="http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/bmycharity/peterexample" target="_blank">Help me while you shop! Visit my personal shopping site and make a contribution to my fundraising total at no cost to you, when going shopping with major retailers!</a>
Here are a couple of buttons - just right click on them to save and then link them to your Bmycharity page...
If you've any suggestions for new buttons or badges, let us know by leaving a comment below!
In an exclusive innovation, Bmycharity fundraisers can now add to their sponsorship totals by earning cashback commissions on purchases from over 600 retailers including Amazon, John Lewis, Dell, Boots and many more.
By generating affiliate commission payments from the retailers on all your own purchases and by asking your friends to do likewise, you can quickly supplement your online donations - a perfect way to recession-proof your fundraising!
So what are you waiting for - let's make fundraising even easier! Here's how...
More than 12% of the traffic visiting Bmycharity comes from Facebook. The world's favourite social networking site is also a great place to share your fundraising stories, find people taking part in the same challenge, keep friends informed of your training and preparation, and post video and photos.
Now there's a Bmycharity Group on Facebook, so come and join us and get involved! We're here to help you share your fundraising story on Facebook and beyond...
Here are some top tips on how to make the most of fundraising on Facebook.
Facebook and other social networking sites can really help your fundraising by involving your friends and contacts. And if you really want to share the moment, you can use services like Twitter to update your sponsorship pages anytime, anywhere - even while you are out trekking, moonwalking or waiting to skydive...