Saturday 18 September 2010

Online charity sponsorship sites

I've been using a well known charity sponsorship website for a couple of years now - it's made fundraising so much easier and painless for me and my generous sponsors. But there are more available so I've been doing a little digging into the alternatives, comparing Everyclick, Virgin Money Giving, Bmycharity and Just Giving.

I'm not a fan of Everyclick's fundraiser web pages - very basic and I find it tricky to navigate - but it it is unique in not charging any setup or monthly fees to charities for being able to receive funds through their site. £10 donated with a visa debit card & with standard rate gift aid gives your chosen charity £12.23. There's also the USP of additional funds that can be raised by using Yahoo via the site.Probably a good choice for fund raising for a small charity.

Bmycharity is new to me - the fund raiser web pages look fine and it gives the highest sum to your chosen charity of the four I've looked at: £12.63 on the same basis as I've shown above. However, it charges £150 plus VAT setup to charities for being able to receive funds through their site. If you are raising money for a big charity where this may be a comparatively trivial expense, this site could be a good option.

Virgin Money Giving's USP is that they are set up as a not for profit company. £12.47 is the sum your charity will get for £10 donated as specified above. They charge £100 plus VAT setup to charities for being able to receive funds through their site. I like the idea that fund raisers have a "permanent" web page where they simply add campaigns - if you regularly raise money (e.g. I do one run for charity every year), this could appeal.

Just Giving charges charities £15 per month for being able to receive funds through their site. £10 results in £11.92 being given to the charity - the lowest of the 4. So apart from being very used to using the site and finding setting up fund raising pages quite easy, I think I now have compelling reasons to go elsewhere!