online giving – Craig Connects

Folks, I believe that it’s really important to give back to our communities. One way to do that is to participate in CrowdRise’s #GivingTuesday Holiday Challenge for nonprofits. I’m giving $50K to go toward the winner of the Challenge, and together, with the other donors, there will be $250K in prize money.

CrowdRise has been working hard to make this Challenge and #GivingTuesday bigger then past years. One way they’re doing that is by creating a Giving Tower. It’s going to be a hologram tower. Each time someone donates, a brick is added to the tower. You can actually download an app and point it at a dollar bill to see how the tower’s growing. Here’s a little more about it:

The Giving Tower Holiday Challenge is a great way for organizations to rally their supporters, raise money for their cause, drive engagement, get lots of exposure and, most importantly, raise money for their cause (note intentional repetition). The Challenge is friendly fundraising competition launched by craigconnects, Fred and Joanne Wilson, and MacAndrews & Forbes. It’s designed to help you raise awareness and lots of money for your year end fundraising.

Here’s more about the Challenge this year:

The Challenge starts on November 25th and there are going to be huge grand prizes, plus lots of Bonus Challenges. The campaign is always amazing and last year, charities rallied to raise over $2.3m for their causes.

There will be $250,000 in prizes this year. The organization that raises the most will receive a $100,000 donation to their cause. Second place will win $50,000, third $25,000, fourth $10,000 and fifth place will receive a $5,000 donation to their cause.

There will also be multiple opportunities along the way to get extra cash donations in the form of Bonus Challenges. Folks, we’re talking an extra $60,000 in Bonus Challenges.

The good folks over at CrowdRise are hosting a webinar on November 20th at 3pm ET to walk you through everything about the Challenge, please Click Here to register.

So far, there’s more than 500 charities signed up, and plenty of time for you to sign up, too.

The Toolkit will tell you everything else you need to know that I may have forgotten.

Use the hashtag #GivingTower to continue the conversation.

Looking forward to getting this Challenge started, more to come…

Hey, there’s a lot coming up in terms of conferences this year. A lot of social change events, innovation get togethers, and ways for groups to get together and really make a difference.

Here are some conferences that are coming up this year, with an excerpt of their description. You should check them out, if you’re able:

Nonprofit 2.0 – June 26 in Washington, DC.

Nonprofit 2.0’s more than just a conference on the next generation web. It’s a next generation conference in format. NonProfit 2.0 features sessions led by the most innovative nonprofit campaigners, thought leaders, and strategists in the space.

It’ll be done in an unconference way with no PowerPoint, 15 minute leads for keynotes (folks, I’ll be keynoting this with Majora Carter and Michael Smith), and open questions and dialogue for fantastic conversations. Then from mid-morning forward, NonProfit 2.0 shifts into a full-on Unconference with DC’s brightest minds strategizing for social good.

Summit on Social Media and Online Giving – July 1-2 in New Delhi, India.

This Summit is GlobalGiving’s first two-day, in-person event designed to equip organizations with knowledge, skills and resources to engage supporters and raise funds online. This Summit’s produced in partnership with Social Media for Nonprofits, the premiere global event series on social media for social good.

The 2014 Summit on Social Media & Online Giving will bring together fundraising practitioners from India and South Asia to learn how other organizations are using online tools and social media like email, Facebook, and GlobalGiving to tackle their funding needs and collaborate to find ways to further their causes online.

Through panel discussions and hands-on workshops, organizations will explore:

The latest trends in online giving;

The future of corporate social responsibility in India;

Best practices in storytelling, donor engagement, campaign planning;

Valuable techniques for online measurement and analysis;

and more…

Silicon Valley Innovation Summit – July 29-30 in Mountain View, CA.

The Silicon Valley Innovation Summit is an annual gathering of the brightest minds and top entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate players in the Global Silicon Valley.

The Innovation Summit has featured dozens of break-out companies before they became household names, including Pixar, Google, Salesforce.com, Skype, MySQL, YouTube, Tesla, Facebook, and Twitter.

This two-day exclusive event treats attendees to a high-level debate and discourse on top trends and opportunities in the booming digital media, entertainment, on-demand and cloud computing sectors. The Innovation Summit is produced in an intimate and social setting, where participants can easily meet up, socially network, and make deals happen.

Leading Change Summit – September 3-6 in San Francisco, CA.

Join NTEN for the inaugural Leading Change Summit in San Francisco. Exclusively for nonprofit leaders, this event offers three tracks to accelerate your career development: Impact Leadership, Digital Strategy, and the Future of Technology.

Engage with diverse voices to ignite new ideas, activate your strategies with expert advice and planning tools, and change the way you create impact.

What conferences will you be attending this year, folks?

Tag: online giving

Tis the Season to Give Back