Over the last month we’ve highlighted a number of different appeals on the blog, all delivered through fundraising pages. Some have been hugely successful, others less so. Delving into why some have raised more money than others is a topic for another day, but creating appeals does seem to be something of a trend on the site.
Looking at the analytics for our fabulous new charity support area confirms this – one of the most popular questions (posed by the 7,145 unique visitors to the area in just 7 weeks) is: how do I create an appeal page?
Whether people are asking the question after seeing these appeals or not, it’s certainly a great use for the humble fundraising page outside of traditional (or non-traditional) sponsored events. So, here’s how to do it:
- In your Raise Money section (which looks like this), click on Create your page
- Select other from the drop-down box under your official events list and click continue
- Choose how long you want the page open and click continue
- Log into your personal account (rather than your Charity Account) or select I’m new to this site and enter your charity’s name in the name boxes, as it will show on the page and thank-you message
- Choose a web address for your page
- Personalise your page by explaining where funds will be spent in the personal message and adding your own photos and a video
- You can show cash or cheques you’ve received in the Amount raised offline box
- You can personalise your donor thank-you message in the Donation confirmation box
The advantage of creating an appeal page this way is that you’ll be able to see how many people have donated both on the page itself and in your Charity Account.
Fundraising pages are popular appeal pages because people can link to them in their Facebook profiles and use our widgets on their websites and email signatures. This way, pages attract more people who would never even know the appeal existed.
So that’s how to create an appeal – it’s not very hard to do, but we’re planning on making appeals themselves work harder next year… In the meantime, our charity support area has already answered over a thousand questions, and you can ask yours too at www.justgiving.com/charitysupport
Tags: appeal, charity support, Help