There are number of factors that lead to donation support but the first question I always ask someone who asks why their page is lacking support is:

‘Who have you told about your page?’

Remarkably, a number of people say, ‘Well… no-one‘.

Whilst we do know some fantastic people who browse Givealittle every month to find new causes to support this is not the norm.

Givealittle provides smart online tools that provide a place to tell a story and share that story with the social web with the aim of receiving support.

Here are a few tips to get your Givealittle page working for you:

Tell your story, try to use more than words, load images and video to the galleries

Update, use the update blog to provide more detailed information and to update on progress and news

Share, share, share! Email the page link to supporters and your team and ask them to share it far and wide.  Post on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and again ask people to share.

Links, add a link to your page or use a widget on your own website or blog. Ask others to do the same.

When creating your page think about who you should be sharing it with, then share it. Remember, your Givealittle page, just like your website, blog or service is only going to work for you if someone knows it is there!

In recent weeks I have been channeling my inner 8 year old.

Like many of you – I have found it hard to stomach the images coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. My brain can not compute the devastating impact that the spill is having as every hour goes by.

Well it is not 1992, and the tools have moved on from Nana’s typewriter – but together with some other angry people I hope to pull off an online protest action capable of putting a small dent in BP’s medium to long term retail fuel consumption.

I don’t vote Green, I use disposable nappies – but if this oil spill doesn’t make you sit up and think about Mama Earth, then we should all go to sea in a rowboat because there will be no hope.

I am looking for expressions of interest from anyone keen to contribute, individuals with skills and experience in getting stuff done online.

Take a look at this EOI form and please share as far and wide as you can.

Also check out @BPGlobalPR.

What are your favourite online tools?

budget planner – Mint.com

Facebook has come along way in the last few years. It is now more than just a social network for the younger generations but an important tool for individuals, businesses, community groups and causes to engage.

While we all understand why we should we dip our toes in the water, it is important to create a Facebook profile account that is appropriate so that your experience starting out in Facebook is a positive one.

A common mistake I often see is an organisation creating the wrong profile and therefore limiting their potential interaction with supporters. So what kind of profile should you have?

Facebook Personal Profile Page:

Personal Profiles are for individual people only.  As obvious as this might seem, many businesses and other organisations make a mistake here and create a Personal Profile.

If you have persevered in registering your organisation with making up a first name, last name and date of birth and you are now asking people to be your ‘friend’, stop right there!  You need to create a Facebook Page and delete the Personal Profile.  If you already have ‘friends’, let them you will be deleting the account and where they can find your new page.

Facebook Brand Pages:

Pages allow businesses, organisations, bands etc to have a Facebook presence.  These were once referred to as Fan Pages and individuals became ‘fans’.  Now these are called Brand Pages and individuals simply ‘like’ your page.

A key difference of engagement with a Personal Profile and a Brand Page is privacy.  When you become ‘friends’ with a Personal Profile you give the other profile access to your information (limited to your privacy settings).  When you ‘like’ a Brand Page you are not providing access to your information, however you can interact with the Brand Page in a similar way that you would with a ‘friends’ Personal Profile.

Facebook Pages can have multiple administrators and it is smart to have more than one administrator, even if they are not very active, to ensure your page access is not lost if someone moves on.

Facebook Community Pages:

A new addition to the Facebook family, Community Pages have been created to cater for non-organisations.  Pages had been created for things such as sports and these will be replaced with Community Pages.  They will look very similar but over time will allow contributions by a wide range of people, a little bit like Wikipedia.

Facebook Privacy:

It pays to check out the default privacy settings on your personal Facebook account from time to time,  you’ll find these under the Profile Setting menu.

Have you connected with Givealittle on Facebook?

From the PublicACTA site:
“ACTA is a controversial international treaty that impacts digital rights and is being negotiated in secret meetings. PublicACTA has been organised by InternetNZ so that the public can critique the known and likely content of ACTA proposals ahead of the next round in Wellington.”

You can watch the podcasts of the conference held at the weekend here

You can proceed to sign the petition here.

Do it, do it

Celebrate, reward and recognise your fantastic volunteers by nominating them in the Intrepid Travel National Volunteer Awards.  One lucky volunteer will be off an adventure of a lifetime with Intrepid Travel.

Last year Good Magazine launched a National Volunteer Award with lead partner Intrepid Travel and in 2010 we’re stoked to be involved.

So what’s it all about?

Quick smart head over to Good Magazine and get all the details.

Nominate your super star volunteers and forward the information to your industry colleagues.  The more organisations and volunteers involved means more spotlights will shine on volunteering.

Don’t delay – get the details and get nominating!

There a number of parallels here with our findings at Givealittle. Particularly in relation to the traffic sources to causes and barriers to donating on charity websites.  Time to draft a future post to share some of our observations.

I am popping my head out from the web development trenches to give you an update on what the troops have been working tirelessly on in recent weeks.

Givealittle Platform
An addition to the Givealittle suite and the result of a whole lot of collaboration with some fantastic users – the Givealittle Platform is a super cool software-as-a-service (SaaS) application to organise causes, events and fundraising pages in your very own branded website. This is a very exciting solution that offers a wide range of uses. Over the coming weeks we will be highlighting great examples of the Givealittle Platform and opening up the product for all.

Givealittle Payroll
Again another SaaS offering – Givealittle Payroll is a great online service to support payroll giving. Givealittle Payroll (Beta) will be launched in the next couple of months and we will be posting more information here over the next few days!

More information to come – please feel free to contact support@givealittle.com in the meantime.

Fair maidens tackle 100km over 36 hours for Oxfam, there’s shaving hair or growing body hair and stepping into the boxing ring to support youth to list just a few.

However, there is a new challenge in town….  Inking your cause of choice onto your body.

This week Geoff Livingston raised the bar by challenging his friends and foes to donate US$5,000 to Livestrong. In return he’d have Livestrong permantly inked into his body. And that he did, check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoliv/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Geoff also has a great post about when organisation brands evolve (the way we marketers dream of) to become a movement in their own right – driven by the people who care.

What would you do to support a cause that resonates with you?