Best donation drive service to use for liver cancer diagnosis

[V-Man339]

I have a fan who needs help, what's the best service, gofundme, direct pay pal donations?

This is a serious question.

[Anderson]

Patreon I think?

[teh_saccade]

 

For the charities I work with we tend to use our mailing list, existing subscribers or list of past donations during a drive - especally during "special events", such as the recent pineapple fund bitcoin match donation thing over at another place:

https://www.erowid.org/donations/pineapple_drive.php <--- stickied on reddit for duration, 3.5k upvotes, but is a long-standing charitable organisation, with "cause" placed directly within the target demographic.

(although, not knowing about this until too late, there was no time to set up a social media campaign in advance. We will see)
Therefore, applying to known philanthropic organisations or persons might be worthwhile - although many will refuse to donate to individuals, and is not something that I would advise for an individual over a registered charity. Worth a punt.

Otherwise, one I favour and occasionally visit to drop a few quid on for a random cause is:

https://www.justgiving.com/

(I believe the US version might take a cut - but donation, in my experience, doesn't quite have the same motivation in the States).
As an alternative / co-consipirator to justgiving, there is a list that can be found here:

https://alternativeto.net/software/justgiving/

I have also used the lesser-known gofundme, although this is mostly based upon some endeavour or travel (sometimes even a bunch of schoolgirls who just want to visit Paris...) "in disguise":

https://www.gofundme.com/travel-fundraising
or
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk <--- has special section for health conditions.


Also, there is reddit, along with other social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (these are important, as they will spread word of your "cause":

https://www.reddit.com/r/Charity/ <--- don't expect much help, but you never know.

From the fund-raising work I have done myself, social media (esp. FB and IG pages) and word-of-mouth that link directly to justgiving have worked well.

Last year I managed to meet my goal of £1 per km for a trek within a short time, thanks to this (even if they did spell my name wrong on the certificate, I didn't really do it for charity - more myself and hospice was a side effect).
It also persuaded me that raising over a grand for a trek over 1000km, carrying a 25kg bergen up and down hills and cliffs every day was far easier than the work put in to raise the money.

There were a few people who donated along the way, when they asked wtf I was doing. Also donated to me in the form of beer and food in exchange for stories from and tips on the trails.
Not many people undertake that trek solo - it was a novelty.

Perhaps there is something that can be done in order to raise awareness such as this in your instance..?
TDM level challenge or something..? That would be nice, if they are a fan.

I would certainly be more persuaded to donate a few beer tokens to a stranger if their story was highlighted in a TDM event, advertised in steam-group and press (someone might pick it up) or whatever.


The problem with Paypal alone is that - it could be for anything.
Linking to the payment method from somewhere that gives a terse explanation as to what it is for or appeals to individual's [impulsive] "human" side tends to work better.
This is why I have always used Justgiving.
Although there appears to be a lot of competition with the service, it mostly relies on your own efforts in driving traffic to the page in order to make donations and highlighting your cause yourself (social media, etc...) to land them there and get them clicking the buttons.


I cannot stress enough the importance of "getting the word out" about your fund-raising event/cause. Unfortunately, this means dancing with the devil that is the social virus known as social media.
It's less the service that is used, than it is the ability to turn a donation drive into a "cause" that people want to support.

While not to discount Anderson's idea of using Patreon - that is a service I would use only for creative endeavours, rather than as a "donation for a cause" platform - the target audience is not quite on the dot.

 

You may find this information useful in your campaign:

https://www.fastcompany.com/3028656/the-proven-ideal-length-of-every-tweet-facebook-post-and-headline-online
&
http://www.stepbystepfundraising.com/raising-money-for-individuals-with-health-conditions/

It has helped me in the past and it has proven itself many times over.


Raising money for any cause requires a lot of time and effort.

For individuals in crisis, my methodology is FB linked with IG page (nag, nag, regular update and gratitude and invitation), pushed to justgiving page, mobile accessibilty, humanisation of individual and a tug on the heartstrings, impulse button to donate through "official" channels (eg, website with details) while also - using social media - inviting "private" donations through secure payment system and using revenue collection through link shortener / advert on landing to supplement.

Usually meets the goal.
In which case I raise it.

But I'm a narcissitic sociopath, so I have no problem with manipulating people's emotions and using some kind of social engineering in order to get them to sacrifice a takeout pizza in order for them to donate for something they might care about (or do after I've finished with them).

One good way is to have your site redirect have some adspace that will earn a little extra revenue from page-views. It's a little underhanded, but if the advertising is right - it can add a few pennies to the jar on top of what anyone might or might not click to donate, simply because they went there.

Link shorteners not only make any social media campaign look more tidy, despite some lack of trust (unless they display the page, there's still mitm/dns redirect risk if anyone thinks that way), but they are common enough for people to click-thru without thinking too much about it... Being honest and saying you are using a link shortener in order to earn ad-revenue to help - honest and transparent - some people respect. Others avoid. Personally - I take any advantage I can get (I don't tell people, because it requires too many words for a nagging social media message and frankly idgaf - most people click it anyway, if they believe it's genuine [which it is]):

https://makemoneywithurl.com/2014/10/best-paying-url-shortener-or-highest-html <--- says 2014 in URL, list is for 2018. It says...

 

Hopefully the information provided here will give you some ideas on how best to proceed.

Good luck, V-Man.

// spoilered so you don't have to, biker.

Edited February 10, 2018 by teh_saccade