Yesterday, our very own co-founder and second banana Ethan Austin was interviewed on Blog Business World by blogger Wayne Hurlbert. Blog Business World focuses on business, marketing, public relations, and SEO search engine optimization for successful entrepreneurs, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it! Check out the interview below or at the original site to find out Ethan’s thoughts on GiveForward’s philosophy and future!

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Ethan Austin: GiveForward.org – Interview

Co-founder and Second Banana of the personal and community fundraising site www.GiveForward.org, Ethan Austin, who along with colleague Desiree Vargas, was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions about their grassroots organization.

Thanks to Ethan Austin, Desiree Vargas, GiveFoward.org, and their representatives for their assistance and their time.

What is the mission of GiveForward, and how does the organization help fundraising efforts?

Ethan Austin: Our goal is to provide a simple and effective way for people over the world to contribute financially to a loved one’s recovery from illnesses like cancer. We do this by giving users free, personal fundraising pages where friends and family can donate online with their credit cards to help defray loved ones’ medical, living and travel expenses not covered by insurance.

What sort of help does GiveForward provide for fundraisers large or small?

Ethan Austin: Whether we’re helping a large non-profit organization or a first-time fundraiser raising money for her sister’s chemo treatments, we try to inject as much humanity and compassion as possible into each user’s experience. Sometimes that may mean writing a press release or calling up a local newspaper to help a fundraiser get some media attention. Other times it may mean recommending a cancer support organization to an individual to help with the emotional aspects of cancer entirely outside of the fundraising realm.

Can GiveForward assist someone creating a page for one person even if that person is not part of a larger organization?

Ethan Austin: Definitely. In fact, more than 80% of the fundraisers on the site are for individuals battling illnesses like cancer.

Ethan Austin (photo left)

What other types of online support is provided by GiveForward when a site is created to ensure its success, especially if the person has no previous fundraising experience?

Ethan Austin: We take great pride in being very hands on about teaching people how to fundraise effectively. We send out an email to each new user when they sign up for the site that directs them to our fundraising blog with lots of tip and strategies. We also have two fundraising coaches on staff whose primary responsibilities are to help teach our users how to be more successful fundraisers. Fundraising isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but when people use our tips, they generally succeed.

Could you provide some examples of successful fundraising efforts that has the assistance and guidance of GiveForward?

Ethan Austin: Last year a young woman was raising money for her sister’s kidney transplant and asked for our help. We came up with the idea to do a 24-hour Facebook Awareness campaign for them where people “donated” their Facebook status message for a day. Thousands of people ended up visiting their fundraising page, making it go “viral”. In the end, the sisters ended up raising over $31,000 and were able to get a life saving kidney transplant. www.giveforward.org/jess

More recently, the organizer of a fundraiser for a young father with renal cancer emailed us because they had reached their $10,000 target so quickly and asked if it was appropriate to increase their goal. We told them it was definitely appropriate and drafted the language they used to email their friends and family notifying them of the change. Just five days after they increased the goal, they had raised an additional $15,000 for his treatment! www.giveforward.org/johan

It appears from the GiveForward website that even one person can make an important contribution toward creating a better world and helping others. Is that a core belief that is held by GiveForward?

Ethan Austin: Definitely. Our whole philosophy is that one person may not be able to change the world all by herself. But each person does have the ability to change someone’s world. For instance, we had a user who once received a $3 donation and a $1000 donation in the same day for her multiple sclerosis treatment. She later told us that the $3 donation meant more to her than the $1000 donation because the woman it came from was actually in worse financial shape than she was. To be sure, the generosity of our community never ceases to amaze us!

What is the first step a person should take toward setting up a fundraising site with GiveForward?

Ethan Austin: Go to www.GiveForward.org and click the green button that says “start fundraising”. It’s a pretty simple process. We like to say that if you can send an email, you can set up a fundraising page.

What is next for GiveForward and what does the future hold for the organization?

Ethan Austin: 2010 is all about partnerships for us. Since the new year, we’ve partnered with a lot of great cancer organizations like the Colon Cancer Alliance, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. Our goal is to continue partnering with non-profit health organizations and hospitals to spread word to patients and families who could benefit from our services.

Tags: GiveForward.org, Ethan Austin, Desiree Vargas, fundraising, interviews.

Labels: interviews

Check out this article on GiveForward user Adam Chowski! He’s currently raising money on our site to get to Haiti and work in Haitian hospitals as a surgical technician. You can read the article below or on the original site. Don’t forget to check out Adam’s GiveForward page too—his fundraiser ends TOMORROW!!

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Adam Chowski: Haiti Update

Oh yeah, it’s my birthday today too!

February 11, 2010, 8:20 PM

By: Cody York

Cody York

Adam Chowski

Adam Chowski checked in with me today with an update about his upcoming trip to Haiti. Since I had originally posted about Chowski trying to raise money for Haiti, he’s received a bunch of attention and extended help from others. Ethan from www.youthnoise.com did a 10 question interview with Chowski, about his Haiti efforts and interest as a surgical technician; you can check it out in full here.

Adam Chowski: Youth Noise Interview

Chowski also setup a fundraising page at Give Forward.com, as an easy way for people to donate towards his cause. The page states that the fundraiser ends this Saturday but Chowski said a lot of riders on BMX Board have asked him to extend that date. So Chowski is extending it until the end of next month. As you’ll notice on his page, Chowski is way short of reaching his goal and still needs a lot of help. Right now, he has sadly resorted to putting the expenses on his credit card for the time being. Chowski said he is leaving this Saturday morning for Haiti, regardless of how much it puts him in debt. If you would like to help a good cause and a fellow BMXer, go donate here.

Adam Chowski’s Haiti Fund

On a side note: It’s my birthday today and I can’t believe I’m 27-years-old! I found this old Polaroid of myself today, posted on my Dad’s bulletin board above his desk. I guess technically this was my first BMX bike, I was 3-years-old in this picture, so that means I’ve been riding BMX for 24 years?! Cheers!

Me at 3-years-old, Superman outfit and my new BMX bike for Christmas.

Last week, GiveForward was lucky enough to be featured on Nebraska Radio Network, 4imprint.com’s Fundraising Basics Part II “Blue Papers”—a collection of guides to help “improve the effectiveness of your marketing and promotion initiatives,” AND in ChicagoNOW for our Haiti fundraising efforts! Read the Nebraska Radio Network article and ChicagoNOW articles below (or on their original sites) and download the 4imprint Blue Paper PDF here.

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There is a new, easy way for Nebraskans to fund raise for a family member or friend who may be suffering from an illness and can not afford the high medical bills. Desiree Vargas is the Co-Founder and President of the website “GiveForward.com. Vargas says this is a very easy way to use social networking sites help get the word out that a friend of family member is ill and others can help.

“So, you create a free fundraising page on our site and from then you spread the word using our e-mail so it will pull in the e-mail addresses that you want and you can shoot out an e-mail that way. There is also a tele-friend button that brings in all the social media sites and you can post directly to Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. But the other thing we recommend is creating a Facebook group for your campaign so a lot of people will use Facebook to connect their friends from all over the world and they put the links to the “Give Forward” page within that group.”

Vargas says it doesn’t matter if a person has health insurance or not however they to check each page created to make sure the fundraising effort is legitimate.

“Shelly from Cincinnati was just diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer and they have insurance. They are a middle class family working hard but they 10-thousand dollar deductible. Her friends started a site for her and in 10 days they raised three-thousand dollars so it is a great way to help those you love. One other thing we hear from our users is that it is great that the money does come in but one of the best things we help people do is not to feel so helpless when a loved one does get sick.”

Vargas says everyone has seen the collection jars at check-out counters or dinners sponsored to fund raise for a person who is ill. This is basically the same thing but many more people can be reached via the internet.

“We have helped people raise three-quarters of a million dollars in the last year. The average fundraiser in medical raises about four-thousand dollars on the site. The top fundraiser has raised 32-thousand dollars.”

Vargas says there is also a “wish page” on the website where people can ask for certain requests.

“People can ask for anything… a night in a hotel or airline miles or a place to stay on their journey.”

Again, the website is GiveForward.com and there is no cost to create page.

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Not Just for Haiti: Online Fundraising Helps Your Friends, Too

Barry Moltz on 01.18.10 at 7:36 AM | no comments Share

The eyes and emotions of the world are deservedly focused on Haiti now. But American business has always been good at raising money for charities and a variety of causes. With $6M being donated along through text emails to the Red Cross for Haiti, the infrastructure of the Internet certainly has made it easier. But what about raising money for more personal causes like your family’s or friends medical bills?

Desiree Vargas founded Give Forward in 2009 to provide a free online fundraising page  so anyone could raise money to help their family or friends pay expensive medical expenses. In 2009, the organization helped raise over $600,000.

Desiree says she has learned a lot in the past two years:

1. Customer service is key to growing your business. They found this early on when the site did not work well and lost many potentially good customers. Today, over 1/3 of users comes from referrals.

2. Ignore all the things you can’t control. Competition is out there. Focus on doing what you do well and build your business.

3. Adapt your business. Desiree thought that people would use the site to establish non for profit organizations. 80% of site users use it as a medical fundraiser to directly pay family and friends bills.

4. Hire interns to do the stuff you shouldn’t be doing. They are especially good a social media and marketing relations.

I will publicly admit here that I am not a “kids person.” I think children are cute. I think they’re cuter when I can hand them back to someone when they need a diaper changed or are covered in whatever they were supposed to be ingesting for lunch. As such, I tend to not be too fond of parenting blogs as they tend to dote on their children, strollers, placentas, etc. “Aunt” Becky of Mommy Wants Vodka-fame is the exception. If the title of her blog wasn’t enough to pique your interest, just read one post. You’ll be hooked.

She doesn’t write in a blind “my-children-can-do-no-wrong” daze (she affectionately has referred to her children as crotch parasites) AND her posts aren’t always about parenting or children at all. She clearly adores her children, however, as is evident by her unwavering support for March of Dimes. Being the mother of a daughter who survived a neural tube defect, she understands the pain birth defects can cause and how lucky she is to have a child survive one. You can read her post on why she’s a March of Dimes mothers and tons of other ways to get involved here.

As such, Mommy Wants Vodka is this week’s recipient of the coveted GiveForward Totally Awesome Blog Award!

Word on her blog is she’s shopping around a book deal so hopefully we’ll see some Mommy Wants Vodka in print some day soon! Congrats, Becky!

Ethan and Desiree are signed up to do quite a few radio interviews over the next couple of weeks—we’ll try to keep you posted so you can listen in and put up the audio files whenever possible.

Here’s our first one. Special thanks to Chris Oaks and 1330 WFIN for taking the time to talk with Desiree!

Press the play button to listen or click here

Recently, our wonderful co-founder, Desiree Vargas, was interviewed by Olivia Khalili of CauseCapitalism.com. Olivia started CauseCapitalism.com to “give companies the resources, evidence and inspiration they need to use social responsibility to grow their business.” Thanks for noting us as socially responsible, Olivia! You can hear the audio from their conversation here or on the original post or just check out the key points below!

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In March 2009 Amy Cowin raised $32,000 through a personal fundraising page to pay for an operation to remove one of her kidneys and donate it to her sister Jessica. This is not Amy and Jessica’s story. It’s the story of GiveForward.org–the idea and technology that enabled this operation and hundreds of others like it.

I spoke with Desiree Vargas, co-founder and president of GiveForward, an online platform that provides free fundraising pages to individuals and non-profits to raise money for loved ones’ medical treatments, volunteer service projects, community initiatives or charitable sporting events. Vargas runs GiveForward with her co-founder Ethan Austin and crew of interns.

Since its launch in August 2008, GiveForward has helped more than 5,000 individuals raise more than $660,000 and has earned praise from the Chicago Tribune as ”the future of medical fundraising in the Internet Age.”

In our conversation Vargas talks about the voice that woke her up at 1 a.m. telling her to “Get Started,” inexpensive resources for getting your startup off the ground and what she does with failure. 

Key points from our conversation:

• After Hurricane Katrina Vargas wanted to directly donate to affected individuals. She was frustrated that instead, her donation needed to be processed through a larger organization where overhead and administrative costs would dilute it. A year later, she was thinking about how she could raise the money for a different business idea, when the thought of raising capital from friends and family came to her. She conceptualized this as an online platform that would enable people to connect on a individual basis to raise and donate money.
• Vargas threw a handful of mini-launch parties around the country to raise money from friends, usually in $10-$20 increments, to seed GiveForward. Each party raised $1,000-$1,500.
• Many universities have resource centers in their law or business schools that offer free or low-cost legal and business advice to entrepreneurs. Vargas used Northwestern University’s Small Business Opportunity Center to solicit feedback on her business plan and to legally establish the company.
• GiveForward charges a 3% transaction fee, which doesn’t cover Vargas or Austin’s salaries (like most entrepreneurs with young businesses, they pick up additional work) but does cover the company’s minimal operating expenses. 3% is lower than the 5-15% charged by similar sites.
• After the success of people like Amy and Jessica Cowin, medical fundraising on GiveForward has grown exponentially. It now comprises 70% of the site’s fundraising pages, and medical fundraising drives 80% of new users and donations.
• From a mentor, Vargas learned to talk about her idea as much as possible. By doing so, you’ll glean feedback, ideas, contacts and publicity for your business. Outside of high-tech, stealth-mode is overrated.
• Look at failure as an opportunity to learn. In GiveForward’s first months, some donations took too long to go out and sometimes the donate button wouldn’t work. Austin in particular was passionate about seeing these snafus as a means to engage and win-over the customer.
• Be flexible. GiveForward’s original mission had nothing to do with medical fundraising, but this is what people came for and needed. Now, GiveForward can target this sector.
• Give-Forward aims to be ‘the eBay of giving’–the preeminent destination to fundraise for–and fund–personal and non-personal causes.

Please enjoy some of the nice things GiveForward users have said about us lately—we’re so happy to have helped these fundraisers work towards their goals!

“Thank you so, so much! I don’t know what I would have done without you guys and your website.”
-Amy Cowin raised $31,000 for her sister’s kidney transplant

Thanks so much for the opportunity to use your site. It helped tremendously! Between the Fundraiser and GiveForward, I reached my goal.
-Beth Dahlke Kiens raised $3900 for a brain surgery to prevent paralysis

“Thanks to Giveforward.org we were able to surpass our goal and raise over $3,000 that Liana’s family can use towards her chemotherapy treatments. Thank you so much for providing this tremendous service! It made it so easy to raise money for a great cause.”
-Katherine Deurloo raised $3300 for her neighbors daughter battling leukemia

“You guys are wonderful. It’s people like YOU who are making the dreams come true for people like me! or at least enabling us to make our own dreams come true.”
-Michelle Brovitz has raised [ongoing] $10,000 to purchase medical equipment for her Multiple Sclerosis treatment

“You guys have been marvelous…Can’t even tell you what a wonderful job you have done with the site and the whole Give Forward mission. I’m impressed with all you guys do……Much love and gratitude.”
-Brandi Fischer has raised $22,000 to help pay for her friend’s liver transplant

“It’s been a crazy day, I never in my wildest dreams thought that things would move as quickly as they did. I am shocked, and entirely humbled by the generosity of the community that I am beyond fortunate enough to be part of…I know I said it already… but let me say it again : THANK YOU! Big up’s to you and your team.”
-Jeff Mueller raised $15989 in a single day to help his friend pay for his cancer treatments.

“Thank you so very much again for taking the time to contact me, and for founding GiveForward so that people like us could have an easy way to raise money for our loved ones medical expenses.”
-Sarah Griffin raised $7000 for her uncle’s stroke recovery fund

“I would recommend this website to anyone who needs to do a fundraising event and take advantage of their tips/suggestions to make it successful. If I ever have to do another fund raiser, I would not hesitate to use GiveForward site again—they are wonderful!”
-Carmen B. raised $1700 to help her nephew pay for his kidney dialysis treatment.

“Your site, GiveForward, is great. It is professional and extremely easy for people to navigate. If there is anything I can do to help you promote the site or a letter expressing my satisfaction with your site, please let me know. Once again, thanks for your help and support. Don’t forget, if there is anything I can do to help you in your efforts to promote Give Forward, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
-William Loncar ‘s daughter, Shaughna raised $12,770 for his lung cancer treatments.

“Thank you so much for your amazing work, again. You guys are great. I am so happy with the fundraiser results and I know Jeremy and Noah will be so grateful. Sometimes, words just are not enough, I guess “thank you” will do for now, but this fundraiser and the training have given me a focus during a really hard time. For that I am forever grateful. I hope to stop by the next time we are in Chicago, I would love to meet you guys.”
-Meghan Kaplan raised $4100 training for a triathlon in honor of her friend who was battling gastric cancer and passed away during Meghan’s training.

“Thanks to you and the rest of the Give Forward team for providing this service. It made our fundraising efforts much easier.”
-Kellie Sadens, raised $2,330 for her sister-in-law battling Lymphoma

Read more testimonials and success stories from our blog here!

Our fourth GiveForward Blog Award Winner is….Heidi Massey of NonProfit Ingenuity! Heidi has been an outspoken supporter of  many nonprofits in the Chicago area. She’s extremely helpful when it comes to networking and always has something supportive to say! Heidi’s blog “highlights of nonprofit organizations that are innovative, effective and use ingenuity in their mission and their work” and if she writes about your organization, it’s an honor! If you’re looking to connect with nonprofits in the Chicago area, Heidi is a good place to start.

According to her blog, she “has worked in the nonprofit community her entire career, and never wants to leave. She is inspired by all of the nonprofit organizations that are doing extraordinary work. Heidi hopes to become a social entrepreneur herself one day by starting a nonprofit organization that does something no other organization does. As soon as she figures out what that something is, she will start the organization.”

Congrats, Heidi! Keep doing what you do!

You asked, we answered. Based on our user feedback, we’ve rolled out some brand new features for your fundraising pages!

New totally awesome feature #1: Automatic E-mail Summary

At the end of your fundraiser, you’ll now receive an e-mail with a summary including your total raised, list of donors, comments, etc. This way you have the information to keep and can share the comments with whomever you were fundraising for!

Awesome New Feature #2: Donation E-mail Alerts

Instead of refreshing your fundraising page with anticipation every five minutes, go on with your life! We’ll e-mail you as soon as someone donates to your cause.

Awesome New Feature #3: Archived Fundraisers

Missing your old fundraiser? Wishing you could go back to the good ol’ days and relive it? Fear not, from now on GiveForward will keep up an archived version of your fundraising page! People will NOT be able to donate to it, but you can go back and share it with others, contact your donors, etc.—especially helpful if you accidentally delete that summary e-mail!

We made these changes to GiveForward because YOU asked for them—if there are other features you wish you could see on the site, contact us on our twitter page or our facebook fan page. Hope you love the new features!

Yesterday, Sprouter, a site that allows entrepreneurs from all over the world to network and collaborate, posted their interview with our beloved Chipotle-winning, banana-costume-wearing boss, Ethan Austin, on their blog! In it, Ethan reveals the origins of GiveForward, some tips for other entrepreneurs (plus a super secret important tip on how ESSENTIAL interns are for success ), and a look at GiveForward’s future. Thanks for picking Ethan’s brain, Sprouter!

Sprouter Talks…to GiveForward

by Erin Bury

Social media for social good is an emerging trend – using online tools to make a difference for different causes around the world. In our latest edition of Sprouter Talks we interview a Chicago-based startup called GiveForward. GiveForward has the tagline “fundraising made simple” – it’s an online fundraising tool started by Desiree Vargas and Ethan Austin. They had the idea that they could change the world by making it easy for people to raise money online for the things they care about. Individuals and organizations can sign up for their own free fundraising page on the site, and direct people to it to donate. Donors can search for causes they want to support in their community, or can use the Give5 feature – select your interests, projects are suggested, and you choose your top 5 and give $1 to each. We spoke to Ethan Austin, Co-founder & second banana at GiveForward, about why you need to be flexible at your startup, why interns are key, and why weird is good.

Sprouter: Tell us about how you got the idea for GiveForward and how you started it.

Ethan Austin: My partner Desiree Vargas is the one who came up with the concept for GiveForward.  It all started with an idea she had for an adult internship program, where 20-somethings could leave their boring, entry-level jobs to temporarily pursue another field with the hopes of transitioning into that industry.   She was trying to figure out how to fund the program, and having been involved in web design at her former job at the Kauffman Foundation, she instantly thought of doing something online.  Shortly after, she decided to scrap the adult internship program and instead create a site that would let people raise money for anything…charities, new companies, research projects, volunteer travel, even medical expenses.

S: What were your biggest challenges starting GiveForward?

EA: The fact that there never seems to be enough hours in the day. That and a lack of cash.  Our marketing budget pretty much consists of a few t-shirts and some misprinted beer cozies we got for free a few years back.  We’ve been really fortunate to have an awesome community of users who have spread the word for us, but at the same time, it would be nice to have even a modest marketing budget to help spread the word faster.

S: What are the top 3 tips you’d give to early-stage entrepreneurs?

EA: Go the extra mile to be super-nice to your customers.  Think about how much it sucks when you call up your bank or your cable provider and they put you on hold for twenty minutes, transfer you to three different people and then accidentally hang up on you. This is the kind of stuff people love to complain about to their friends. You want your company to be the opposite of this.  If you go out of your way to treat your customers like kings and queens they are going to tell others about your company.  Word will spread and your business will grow.

Weird is good. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. People like authenticity, so let your personality shine through.  If the objective of your communication strategy is to avoid offending people, your company is going to come off as bland and sterile and no one’s going to remember you. Sure, you might succeed in not offending anyone, but you’re not going to win any fans this way, and as a young company that’s what you need to be doing.

Be flexible.   One of the most important things for early-stage entrepreneurs is a willingness to adapt your business to the needs of the market.  Initially, we anticipated that the largest number of our users would start fundraisers for non-profits.  But instead, our users kept using the site to raise money to help their friends pay for medical bills. While we always anticipated that people would use the site for medical expenses, we never realized how just how huge a need it actually is.   Now medical fundraisers are 80% of our business and our primary focus.

I know you asked for three tips, but I’m going to throw in a super-secret bonus fourth tip for free:  Get yourself some interns! Interns = Supreme Awesomeness and will allow you to accomplish way more than you could otherwise.  Plus they make going to work a lot more fun.  I mean, honestly, without interns, how can you have an interns vs. bosses 2 lb burrito eating contest? That was a trick question.  The answer is you can’t.

S: What do you think can be a game-changer for an early-stage startup?

EA: That’s hard to say because we haven’t had a game-changer moment yet.  I suppose creating an iPhone App that lands you on an Apple commercial or getting yourself on that Oprah show could be kind of helpful.

S: What’s coming up at GiveForward?

EA: Partnerships with health-related organizations.  In 2010 we’ll be looking to hook up with hospitals, cancer centers and other health-related non-profits so that we can reach more families who need help paying for their medical expenses.  If you know any hospitals or health-related organizations that could use our services to help the families they serve, give us a holler and we’ll send you a virtual high five! info@giveforward.org

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You can reach Ethan on Sprouter here.