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.