ChipIn

I wrote this article for The Case Foundation -- as part of their "Make It Your Own" Contest. The article focuses on five tools that allow anyone in the U.S. to raise money for an independent project.

Have you ever received a fundraising letter in the mail and thought to yourself, "I love this organization, but I hate the way they ask for money. Next time, they should ask me to write the letter."

If so, then you'll welcome the arrival of new tools for connecting with others and raising money online. This article profiles five innovative websites that put you in control of your own fundraising campaign. Use these sites to craft an appeal letter, a thank-you note, and everything in between.

The tools outlined below are not difficult to use. Some of them, however, benefit from greater familiarity with blogs and social networks. Individuals who are new to the Internet should start at the top of the list. More tech-savvy readers can skip to the bottom.

1. Create a fundraising page...

Fundable provides a simple way to create a fundraising page in support of your project. In 15 minutes or less, you can customize a page with an appeal letter, your fundraising goal, and a supporting image.

As part of your campaign planning, you should include a strategy for directing people to your new webpage.

Here are a few suggestions:

• E-mail the Web address for the fundraising page to your friends, family, and neighbors along with an introduction that explains why you are raising funds and what the funds will be used for.
• Ask your friends, family, and neighbors to forward the e-mail to their contacts.
• Post the Web address for the fundraising page on your Facebook or MySpace profile.
• If you don't have your own social networking account, ask your friends who do to link to your fundraising page from their profiles.
• Ask your contacts who have personal blogs to post an entry about your fundraising campaign.

2. Use pledges to build support...

PledgeBank is a tool for building support around certain actions through individual pledges. As part of your effort to solicit donations, you can post pledges on PledgeBank and encourage others to follow your lead.

For example, you or your supporters can post a pledge that reads, "I will donate $100 to this Fundable page if 10 other people donate $25." After you mail this pledge to your contacts, they can take the action necessary to trigger your pledged donation.

PledgeBank can be used throughout your fundraising campaign. You can even encourage supporters to make conditional pledges similar to the one mentioned above in order to raise more support and money.

3. Build your campaign around a fundraising widget...

Like Fundable, ChipIn can be used to receive donations toward a specific fundraising goal. Instead of providing a single fundraising page, ChipIn offers a fundraising "widget" that can be used to display a "donate now" button on several webpages at the same time, as well as the latest statistics on the success of your fundraising campaign.

The advantage to a widget-based fundraising campaign is that people can begin the donation process before clicking through to the donation page.

Once you have created your ChipIn fundraising widget, you should e-mail your friends, family, and neighbors and encourage them to post the widget on their own websites and blogs. Republishing the widget is as simple as cutting and pasting a few lines of HTML code.

The ChipIn fundraising widget can also be posted on Facebook with a single click. If your contacts do not have blogs and are not members of Facebook, you can simply direct them to the webpage that contains the initial copy of the widget.

4. Raise money for your project on Facebook...

Change.org is a social networking site that offers a fundraising application that integrates with Facebook. As a member of Change.org's fundraising application, you can post a "change" that corresponds with your project. Use the space that Change.org provides to describe your project and upload related links, images, and videos.

After you have set up your change, you can add a prominent link to your Fundable page or ChipIn widget. At that point, you are ready to invite your friends on Facebook to join the change.

5. Launch an online store in support of your project...

CafePress offers a simple tool for raising money by selling merchandise that relates to your project. Without much work, you can start selling T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, and other items that bear the message or logo of your project.

All of the items on CafePress are assigned a base price. To earn money, you determine a markup price. Once an order is processed, the base price goes to CafePress and you receive the markup. CafePress will send you a check by mail within 45 days of any merchandise purchase.

The CafePress solution is an ideal way to reach people who won't donate unless they receive something in return.

Now that you're familiar with these five innovative tools for making connections and raising money online, there's no reason to delay. Get started today!

The islands of Hawaii are not usually thought of as a hotbed for innovation in the high tech and philanthropic sectors. And yet, over the weekend, a Honolulu-based company called ChipIn, Inc. launched the second generation of its unique social e-commerce website.

Olin Lagon, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, defines social e-commerce as a "many-to-many" process, in which "communication and dialogue are layered onto the money side of making payments." ChipIn version 2.0 builds on the company's original concept of using the internet and social networks to raise money.

In March 2006, the company launched the first version of its website. Within a few weeks, it was clear that internet users would quickly adopt a robust platform for collecting money from friends, family and activists. In the weeks following the initial launch, hundreds of internet users created accounts on ChipIn and raised thousands of dollars.

ChipIn enthusiasts also sent more than a few suggestions to the company for added features and flexibility. During the hot summer months in Hawaii, the company's founders decided to rebuild their platform from scratch in order to incorporate the valuable feedback from users. In a recent interview, Lagon highlighted several new features of ChipIn 2.0.

With the relaunch of the website, fundraisers now have the option to set a fundraising goal up to 12 months in advance. The older version of ChipIn required that all group fundraising campaigns expire within 30 days. The new ChipIn also expands the number of payment options. Previously, the company depended on PayPal for processing all fundraising campaigns.

Despite Paypal’s dominance of the market for online payments, ChipIn users wanted an option for bypassing PayPal (and the corresponding fees) and depositing money directly into a checking account or mailing a check directly to the recipient's address. ChipIn 2.0 provides all three options to the organizer of a fundraising campaign: (1) realtime money transfers into a paypal account, (2) direct deposit into a checking account, and (3) snail mail delivery of a conventional check.

The new platform allows donors to contribute without creating a ChipIn account. The company had received requests to lift the mandatory registration of donors. To accommodate this suggestion, the company had to significantly upgrade its fraud protection system. ChipIn's new and improved technology for processing payments can now authenticate donor identities and credit cards without requiring a time consuming registration process.

"Chipping in" with the new platform is as easy and fast as throwing change into a hat. Moreover, donors can give to a ChipIn campaign using internationally recognized credits cards from over 60 countries. In addition the streamlined donation and payment process, ChipIn 2.0 comes with advanced tools for personal blogging and a snazzy "web widget." Campaign organizers are able upload text, pictures, and video clips to the homepage of their ChipIn campaign.

Anyone is free to download these materials as well as a web widget that displays a Flash barometer of progress made toward a fundraising goal. The widget can then be placed on other websites and blogs. Wikipedia defines a web widget as a small piece of code that can be easily embedded on any website or blog in order to deliver interactive features without advanced technical knowledge.

The features in ChipIn’s web widget are so unique that the company’s founders have applied for a U.S. patent. With all these features, the new ChipIn offers a low cost and very powerful tool for non-profit fundraisers and individual activists. The boost to online grassroots fundraising is not difficult to imagine. Individuals and organizations can now launch sophisticated campaigns using web 2.0 technologies in a matter of minutes.

Although ChipIn is helping good people raise money for important causes, the firm makes no claim to doing so for purely altruistic reasons. The fact is that ChipIn’s founders are pioneering the field of collaborative payments. Issue-based fundraising networks represent one niche community among many that ChipIn is aiming to break into.

In a recent Hawaii Business article, Lagon says, "Our vision is to be like a Visa or Master Card or Paypal—it’s just another type of payment option. So if you go online to buy anything, one of your choices could be, 'Do you want to chip in with more than one person to buy this product?' We want to be the standard. So if someone's doing collaborative transactions, they're going to be using our engine."

The market for online collaborate payments could easily become a billion dollar industry, with ChipIn leading the way. In the coming months, non-profit organizations, individuals, and activists will benefit tremendously from ChipIn 2.0. Looking ahead five years, huge financial benefits may also extend to the investors who backed this unlikely start-up from Hawaii.