A sneak preview of changes to Justgiving…

heatherbird

Posted on: Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

A sneak preview of changes to Justgiving…

We’ve already told you that Justgiving is getting a new look and that some new features for fundraisers are on the way (exciting).

So, what are all these changes to the Justgiving website going to look like? Well, first of all, we’ve got a new logo:

You’ll see it in blue on our homepage and other information areas, but we want it to be a bit of a chameleon and change colour according to the company it keeps. So, in future, you’ll see it in different charities’ colours too.

We’ve also got a new thermometer:

At Justgiving, charity fundraising is all we do, and we want our charities and fundraisers to shine. So we’ve made a new thermometer that can take on the colours you choose. The starburst shape celebrates the wonderful things you do and it’s nice and eye-catching, wherever you see it.

And here’s how your Justgiving page will look (depending on the colour you choose):

We’ve worked hard to bring out the really important bits – the button that asks people to donate and the thermometer that shows how much you’ve raised. There’s also more space for your own photos (yay), and some new colour themes to choose from.

Plus, it’ll be much faster and easier for people to donate on your page, and they’ll also be able to choose a little icon to go with their name and message.

So how about sharing your page with other people?

As well as our Justgiving widget and Facebook app, you’ll be able to use the very handy ShareThis button to broadcast your fundraising through lots of different social websites and networks, from Facebook and Twitter to Digg and Delicious.

And what about making changes to your page? Well, we’ve also made your account much easier to use and added even more resources, including tried and tested tips from fundraisers on how to raise as much as possible.

And now you can extend your page for as long as you like, from your account – so if you want to carry on fundraising for a few extra months, you can.

We’re really looking forward to hearing what you think of our new look and features, so please let us know, emailing any ideas and suggestions you have to heather@justgiving.com

Tags: app, Charity, Facebook, Fundraising, Widget

http://www.ukoko.com Alec East

It’s great that you are improving the JustGiving service.

Is there any chance of an API so charities can create their own branded widgets and access the public info such as fund-raising stats / comments etc?

It would also be great to have more control over the user journey – e.g. If I send a visitor to JustGiving to donate / sign-up and have them redirected back to the original charity site after a donation.

That way non-profits can integrate JustGiving’s payment services into their own sites in a more coherent manner, instead of potentially losing them after the transaction.
http://www.stevebridger.com/about Steve Bridger

Well done guys! I know what a commitment you’ve all made to this new site.

Heather, I think you left the best till last. The ‘toolkit’ control panel really packs a punch.
http://www.justgiving.com jwaddingham

Hi Alec, thanks for the comment.

We are currently researching with a number of charities the viability of an API and what form that would take. We have taken our first step into providing more integrated web services in the back end of the site through releasing data in xml (see here http://justgiving.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/how-we-are-working-to-help-charities-integrate-data), but we are still in the research stage for front end web services.

One of the biggest reasons we decided to update our technology platform was to make it more open, and allow services to be provided on other websites. Our research (with donors, fundraisers and charities), and feedback from charities and digital agencies alike, will help us decide how exactly to develop and provide those services, but it is the long-term direction we are taking.
http://www.goodwoodmarathon.co.uk/ Dogsbody

Just as Alec said, I am VERY interested in an API and integration but we are not a charity.

Our event send all of our competitors to you to set up justgiving pages to raise money for the NSPCC but because we aren’t actually the NSPCC we have to rely heavily on them to do a lot of work. I would love to be able to come to your site and set up an event, pick the NSPCC as our preferred charity and be able to report on it.

Currently our event website has a list of all the people signed up to race, if the racer has told us their justgiving page I then go to justgiving and get a live feed of how much they have currently raised to put on this page. I have to scrape this data off your website (which will likely break when you redesign). I would love to use the RSS feed or the badges you offer on your site but they all use a unique user ID for each fundraiser instead of their unique website URL so I still have to screen scrape their fundraising page to find their UUID.

I love your company and what it does but integrating your business into our event is horrible :-(

Thank you for listening

Dan
http://www.freelancefundraiser.co.uk Graham Richards

Hi Jon and the gang,

Just wanted to say what a crisp, clean site you’ve come up with. Love the colours, white space and graphics. A real Web 2.0 experience. Well done!

Graham ;0)
francesca garde

i guess donating for the benefit of others is good thing to do. after all what’s our real purpose is to hold hands together to gather from all across countries to help those in need.
Bridget Rendall

Have you managed to fix the bug between justgiving and facebook where new amounts are not immediately reflected in the profile link in facebook, otherwise the new look is exciting!!!
http://www.theyarnyard.co.uk natalie

Will the widgets change automatically?
Quite a lot of people have the widget from my page on their blogs.
I am hoping they won’t have to download a new one.

http://www.justgiving.com/theyarnyard
Chris Merrick

well done guys this is looking good :)
Helen Gallacher

Well done team, a lovely fresh makeover, a credit to you all.
http://cfskydive09 Sarah-Jane Johnston

This is all great when will the changes become live?
Pete Knight

Thanks guys, that’s just what I always wanted! I particularly like the additional control you’ve given us, makes me feel like it really IS my web page.

Pete
http://www.sponsormark.co.uk Mark

Thats great news that you are releasing an API, something I think a lot of people will benefit from, including you guys! I was in need of one when i was building my sponsorship page.

Good to see JustGiving is on it! :)
Susi Jenkins

Well done – looking forward to using it. Good reminder to me to get going – my Breast Cancer walk is 5th July and I’ve not started fundraising yet.
Matt Richards

Hi, looks great. Will the facebook app now keep up to date with the correct total ? Mine and others is ‘stuck’ on a total from weeks ago
http://www.bolseragency.com Richard

Hi

This is great news I personally raise a lot of money through Justgiving also the agency I work with do a lot of rund raising sports events and we also work with charities and companies who use justgiving.

API’s are really needed (I cannot stress this enough) – JG seem to be a bit behind on this one… So I was eager to read your post at http://justgiving.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/how-we-are-working-to-help-charities-integrate-data/ – unfortunately this link is dead…..

We’ve had to write our own code to scrape the fundraising webpages and pull out the sponsor messages in the html to display within external sites. The less work like this we have to do the better for you, your charities and the fundraisers…
http://www.redturtle.co.uk Will Webster

How exciting!

Can’t wait to see the new site live. I will wait in anticipation to set up my London to Brighton donation page on the new release.

Will
http://www.studio-bodhi.com Michael Murdoch

This is great. Can’t wait to at this to our website http://www.lovebox.org.uk !
Lynda Wilson

Brilliant! Can’t wait for these functions to become available. This will be great in making the page interesting, concise and above all, open-ended so we can harness a sustained and prolonged fundraising effort without time constraints!

LET US KNOW WHEN THIS WILL BE AVAILABLE AS WE CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!
Jennie

I think it look great. How about being able to add music to the page?

Is this possible

Well done, it’s bang up to date..love it

Jen x
matt

when will these great improvements take effect
http://www.justgiving.com/stephenauker Stephen Auker

Donations have taken a dive since I started to so get my £50,000 target is going to require a lot more effort. So any changes JG have made to help me to do that, and very welcome indeed.
I do have some (3) corporate sponsors now, which is great and I will be running for one of them this next Sunday at the Stoke on Trent half marathon and getting £500 to boot. Thanks to http://www.castlecomfortstairlifts.com for the sponsorship.

Follow me on Twitter @NimbleRunner

Stephen
Apryl Sheppard

The new page sounds fantastic, i need all the help possible to raise the on line giving for Breakthrough Breast Cancer an there is plenty of time until September to do this. Hoping the changes will make all the difference for the charity. Thanks!
http://justgiving/seacaulfield sean caulfield

looks good, especially like the idea of being able to add more photos. When are the changes up and running ?

http://www.justgiving.com/seancaulfield
heatherbird

Hi everyone, thanks for all your comments – we’re really glad that you are as excited about the changes as we are.

Firstly, it’s great that you are all dying to know when the new site will go live, we are currently in the very final stages of testing it to make sure it can handle absolutely everything we can throw at it. Once we are satisfied that everything is spot on we will go live, this should be within the next few weeks if not sooner :)

@ Natalie – If you are using a fundraising widget anywhere on the internet it will change over to the new version automatically so you don’t have to do anything to update that.

@ Jennie – Currently you won’t be able to add music to your page but part of the reason we are so excited about the new Justgiving site is that the new platform will allow us to make changes to the site much more quickly – it is great to hear your suggestions so that we can constantly improve the website. If you have any more ideas please email them to suggestions@justgiving.com
Ed

I don’t like you or what you’re doing. Just like the banks you are making a profit out of people’s efforts to raise money for charity, which the Government should do in the first place – I don’t like them either.
http://www.justgiving.com/rotaryride&www.thorpebayrotaryclub.org.ukom/rotaryride Pam Watson Jones

WHY HAVE YOU REDUCED THE SIZE OF WRITING , IT LOOKS SO MEAN AND TINY, AND IS ONLY 3/4 OF A PAGE WHEN PRINTED??

I PREFER THE LOOK OF THE ORIGINAL, IT DOESNT DO JUSTGIVING OR THE CHARITY JUSTICE

Pam Watson Jones
Ryan

Hi,

Love the flash totalizer, but is there any chance you will release it without the blue background (totally transparent) for better integration on websites?? Or if i could get ahold of a copy of it without a blue background (playing hell with my website colour scheme!)

Thanks

R
sophdea

Hi Ryan

If you’re talking about the widget, yes we’re planning on making that more customisable – hope to make that possible soon.

Thanks for the suggestion – always helpful to hear what people want.

Sophie
http://www.siyelo.com Glenn Roberts

+1 for the API !
Catherine Macmurray

Hello, how can I add the justgivingwidget and my page details to all of the emails I send out? Is this possible?
Anonymous

Hello

Thanks for your email. I’m out of the office until Monday 9th May. I’ll get back to you then.

Melanie
http://www.justgiving.com Tal Wolgroch

Hi Catherine, you can manually add a message that includes a link to your fundraising page by editing the email signature within your email client settings (this is different for each email client: hotmail, googlemail, outlook, etc.)

You can also add a JustGiving badge with a link to your fundraising page: log into your JustGiving account, click on “Your Pages” tab at the top, click on the page you’d like to use, and click on “Get a widget” in the right column.

Hope that helps :)
Tal
Anonymous

Hello

Thanks for your email. I’m out of the office until Monday 9th May. I’ll get back to you then.

Melanie

JustGiving blog

heatherbird