Every day at GiveForward we come up with new ways that we can help our users. We love bake sales, raffles, and car washes and consider them a right of passage. In addition to these tried and true fundraising methods, GiveForward can be a great tool for parents and students especially when it comes to raising larger amounts of money.

Through Give Forward, parents and students can use their online network of family, friends and colleagues to raise awareness and money for a particular cause. We make it easy for you to provide donors with plenty of information, photos, videos, and links. Generally, the more information a potential donor has about a cause, the greater the amount of money they are willing to give.

In addition, unlike many of the traditional fundraising methods, GiveForward makes it easy for donors to use their credit card, often the preferred method of payment for larger amounts of money. By posting your fundraiser on GiveForward, you open yourself up to receiving funds from strangers, which happens more often than you’d expect!

So next time you buy a cookie at a bake sale, remember check out the latest projects at GiveForward and give a small amount of yourself to a worthy cause.

Dear Friends,

Jane Chen, a new friend of GiveForward.org, has a social venture called Embrace that aims to provide $25 incubators to the more than 20 million premature babies born each year around the globe that do not have access to traditional $20K incubators.

Embrace is one of the organizations competing in American Express’ Members Project that will award $1.5 million to the organization that receives the most votes.

If you are an American Express cardholder, please take 2 minutes to vote for Embrace.

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Remember when you were a kid and Mom used to get on your case about writing thank you notes?   Well, Mom was right.  It’s always a good idea to thank the peeple that helped you out along the way.  That’s why we just added a new feature that allows you write personalized thank you emails directly to your donors.

Here’s how:

When you log in and go to “My Fundraisers” click on the “My Donors” tab.  From here you can send an email directly to Aunt Edna, your amigos or even the friend of a friend who sent you $10 to help with your fundraising effort.  So go ahead, be a mensch and give it a try.  We promise you,  Aunt Edna and the rest of your donors will really appreciate it.

GiveForward.org is officially one month into our soft launch, and I must say we’re off to a pretty fantastic start!

So far, we have raised $5,600 on the site and have had nearly 3,000 visitors.  For a new site, with zero marketing budget, that’s pretty darn good!

While we’d love to give ourselves a pat on the back, the congratulations really goes to all of you who have been working so hard to promote your fundraisers.  Thanks to your work, $5,600 is going to great causes that would have never received that money if it weren’t for your efforts. read more…

We have come to the finish line of our week-long fund race, and after counting every last penny, we are happy to Congratulate Priya Patel as our fund race winner!

Priya raised $550 for her fundraiser “Bring Bouba Back” and GiveForward will recognize her impressive efforts with a check for $100.

We also want to congratulate everyone who participated and made GiveForward’s first fund race a success. Collectively, you raised a little over $1400 in seven days, each helping make a difference for the fundraiser of your choice.

If you missed this fund race, Stay tuned to GiveForward for future competitions. Thanks again everyone!

Check out our video for Obama!

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We are starting our first Fund Race next week. For those of you who don’t know, a Fund Race is a little healthy competition to ramp up your fundraising efforts.

Here’s how it works, whichever fundraising project raises the most money between Monday, September 8th at 12:00 am and Sunday, September 14th at 11:59pm will receive a check for $100 smackers.

This money is a prize. That means you can spend it however you like. We’ll make the check out to you!

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Something beautiful happens when one gives. For a brief moment, the recipient and donor share space and time, either real or imagined, where both acknowledge a commonality, a connectedness that is part of our sense of humanity. Something tweaks the heartstrings of the giver, persuading him to part with hard earned dollars for the sake of a stranger. The beneficiary, in the act of asking, humbles herself, admitting an inability to survive without the kindness of strangers.

This act of giving, this connecting of different people across the globe, is what we hope each person who visits GiveForward will experience. Sometimes users will visit the site to raise money for a cause they believe in; sometimes that cause will be their own future. Other times, visitors will come to donate a few dollars here and there to projects they think are making a difference in this world. read more…