GiveForward is looking for bright, enthusiastic, highly-motivated rising juniors, seniors, new graduates and grad students who want to really sink their teeth into a project and run with it.  You must have excellent writing and communication skills, and a sense of humor is a REQUIREMENT. Additionally, the ability to finish a two pound burrito from Chipotle in one sitting is viewed favorably (see below).

If you are interested in applying, please send a resume and a short cover letter explaining why you want to work with us to jobs@giveforward.org.

Please include which position you are applying for in the subject line. We are currently hiring for the following positions:

This could be you...

Fundraising Coach Extraordinaire: Are you a fundraising king or queen? Do you enjoy helping people and coming up with creative ways to raise money for good causes? If so, you could be perfect for this position.

We need someone who is an excellent communicator both with emails and on the phone.

Responsibilities will include:

* Working closely with individuals and organizations to help them better understand the ins and outs of online fundraising  (don’t worry, if you don’t know the ins and outs, we’ll teach you)

* Reaching out to new users to help them do a better job of fundraising

* Serving as the “face” of GiveForward to the Giveforward community and the outside world

read more…

Alright so the bad news is that GiveForward fell to Imerman Angels in yesterday’s intern-on-intern burrito-eating contest by 12 ounces. 12 measly ounces. The good news is that everyone survived, AND we raised money to help people with cancer!

Both organizations went all out for this competition, and we want to thank everyone who made it possible (including the many Chipotle employees who posed for pictures with us). This event was a ton of fun, and as soon as we finish digesting, we will begin to plot and scheme for our next shindig. In the meantime, check out our Facebook page for some awesome, mildly disturbing snapshots from the action!

This week’s featured fundraiser on GiveForward is Valerie Sun, who is raising money for her friend’s daughter with Neuroblastoma. Valerie is the true true definition of the word trooper.   As a child, Valerie suffered from Apastic anemia and had multiple blood transfusions, a bone marrow transplant and multiple orthopedic surgeries.  Now she is better and has decided to give back.

This Sunday Valerie is taking on a two-mile swim in the Pacific Ocean with the hopes of raising $5000 for Mikayla. So far, Valerie has already raised $2500. We recently caught up with her and asked her to share her experience and some of her successful fundraising tips with our readers.  Check it out!

GiveForward: You’ve already raised over $2500.  Have you been surprised at the generosity you’ve seen?

Valerie Sun: Yes and no. Yes, because most everyone has had to scale back on charity giving due to the difficult economic times, and for folks to donate out of scarcity just goes to show the true depths of generosity present in people. No, because I am incredibly blessed to know so many of these type of people. I knew they would rally to support this cause – many are those who have helped me in various ways over the years when I had struggles with my illness.

GF: What has been your most successful fundraising tip so far that you’d recommend to others?

VS: I think the best tip was sending my request for help out initially to a small group of friends and family and asking for large dollar donations. I think that really set the tone so that most of the other donations ended up following suit.

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As many of you faithful readers already know, the GiveForward interns are preparing to face off against the Imerman Angels interns in an epic burrito eating contest.

In an effort to strengthen the weakest member of the team (me), GiveForward brought in a world-class competitive eating coach. Watch what happened, show it to all your friends and family, and (if you’re in the Chicago area) come out to see if it paid off tomorrow!

Who: GiveForward interns vs. Imerman Angels interns
What: First Annual Burrito Battle Royale
When: 1:00 p.m. on July 28, 2010
Where: Chipotle (6 W Grand Ave, Chicago, IL)

Those in the Chicago area are strongly encouraged to come cheer us on. Those who just want to help a good cause, regardless of geographic location, can make a donation here and get one of our team jerseys (aka a Giveasaurus T-shirt) in return. All of the money raised will be donated to Imerman Angels, a non-profit cancer support organization that cannot beat us in an eating competition but has proven to be amazing at helping people beat cancer.

Finding out that a close friend or family member has been diagnosed with cancer is one of the hardest things a person can go through…it can be harder at times than being the person battling cancer.  Fortunately there are resources available to teach us how to help a friend with cancer.

In his book Life Over Cancer, Keith Block talks about building an A-Team to help a friend beat cancer.  The A-Team should provide a cancer patient with five basic areas of support–emotional, practical, informational, coaching, and decision-making.  Each of these roles should be taken by a different person.  And here are the questions you should ask when you’re figuring out who should play which role:*

The Comforter: Will this person be able to support our friend’s emotional ups and downs? Can they listen without feeling compelled to resolve or purge our friend of all distress?

The Go-Getter: Are they comfortable with being asked to perform various tasks even if they seem repetitive or mundane?  Will they admit when they feel overloaded?

The Researcher: Are they willing to spend at least a couple of hours per week digging through the internet for tips, news, and information?  Are they confident that they can translate and explain their research to your friend?

The Interactive Coach: Are they willing to push your friend while being sensitive to your friend’s vulnerabilities?  Can they handle it if your friend rejects their help?

The Strategic Planner: (This is typically someone familiar with cancer treatment with medical expertise or personal experience). Are they comfortable dealing with your friend questioning the plan?  Can they support your friend without judgment? Will they agree to follow the plan laid out by the doctor, your friend, and any other advisers?

If you have a friend battling cancer and you want to figure out a way to be involved in their treatment and recovery, start by figuring out which role you would best play.  Then, talk to your friend about finding the other members of the A-Team.

You should also find a person to take the role of updating friends and family about your friend’s progress.  You can use cancer patient blog sites, like our friends at MyLifeline.org, or you can use a caregiver collaboration tool like our friends at Lotsa Helping Hands.

And of course, you can always help them through the financial challenges of cancer by creating a personal fundraising page for their medical expenses on GiveForward.org.

*All is summarized from p. 38 of Life Over Cancer by Keith Block find it here.

We used to tell our members at GiveForward that there are three Ps to successful online fundraising: personalization, promotion, and persistence.  Recently, however, we came to the conclusion that it was time to update this basic strategy for the 21st century.  We now tell our members that if they want to be successful they need to follow the three Ps and an F.

The F, of course, stands for Facebook.  Over the last few years, we’ve seen that almost every medical fundraiser that has raised more than $10,000 on GiveForward has does so because of Facebook – it is simply the most effective tool for getting the word out about a fundraiser and getting it to spread quickly.  Here are four of the best strategies on how to use Facebook to help you reach your goal.

1. Create a Facebook Group.

Creating a Facebook group will allow you to get the word out about your fundraiser and keep your friends and family informed with news and updates.  As the group organizer you can send messages to all group members and use it as your platform to ask for donations.  Make sure to invite a few of your friends to become group admins and encourage their friends to invite their friends as well.  The larger the group, the greater the potential for donations.

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We’ve had a number of fundraisers on GiveForward for people with colon cancer. We’ve obviously enjoyed helping those people, and we’re now very excited to reach out to even more folks with this awful disease by partnering with the Colorectal Cancer Coalition, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that fights colorectal cancer through research, empowerment and access.”

C3 is a great organization that helps a lot people, and we are very proud to have the opportunity to help them help others. Just today, they posted a blog about how the “uninsured with rectal cancer are more likely to die,” and we are really hoping we can change that by helping all those uninsured patients raise the money they need to get proper treatment. For more information on how you can help this cause, check out their website at http://www.fightcolorectalcancer.org.

GiveForward is pleased to announce a new partnership with Century Wellness Clinic, where Dr. James Forsythe combines conventional cancer treatments (such as chemotherapy) with alternative cancer treatments (such as homeopathic remedies).

This relationship came about after Meg Patterson (one of our all-time favorite GiveForward friends) set up a fundraising page on GiveForward and raised $16,000 for her breast cancer treatment at the clinic, none of which was covered by insurance.

Meg was so successful with her first fundraiser that the Clinic started recommending that more of its patients use GiveForward to raise money for their treatments as well. As he writes on his website, Dr. Forsythe believes “that effective cancer care should include many different types of therapeutic support; from the intelligent and safe use of chemotherapy to innovative applications of homeopathic remedies, intravenous delivered nutrients, herbs and dietary measures and immune-stimulating therapies.”

Unfortunately these types of homeopathic therapies are rarely covered by insurance, and that’s where GiveForward comes in. We are happy to say that since Meg Patterson’s successful fundraiser, we have seen many more people successfully raising money for homeopathic treatments through their GiveForward fundraising pages. We certainly believe people should be able to get the treatment they need even if it’s not covered by their insurance policy, so we are especially thrilled to be working with the Century Wellness Clinic to help this happen!

And, if you’d like to help Meg in her journey, you can find her second fundraiser for medical expenses here.

GiveForward co-founder Ethan Austin has yet another fun and insightful guest post up on StepByStepFundraising.com, and this time it’s all about using Facebook to raise money. It turns out the website perhaps most commonly used in direct opposition to productivity can actually be used to great benefit by organizers of medical fundraisers.

In this blog, Ethan suggests four of the best, most simple strategies to apply to your Facebook usage as you work towards achieving your goal. The four things I would like to suggest you do now: read the post, adopt the techniques, raise those funds, and poke us.

Those of you who read the GiveForward blog religiously or pay any attention to our activity on Facebook and/or Twitter are aware of the fact that we just held a contest involving our wonderful interns and a Giveasaurus T-shirt. Well, we have a winner.

Congratulations to Ryan in New York City! Ryan was one of multiple entrants to correctly spot four of the intern’s lies, but his quickness in doing so is what ultimately earned his currently unemployed self a much-appreciated free shirt. Enjoy it, Ryan. And try to wash it once every few months if you can spare the change. read more…