National Teacher Day 2012

Today is National Teacher Day and all this week is National Teacher Appreciation Week. Everybody has a favorite teacher. I know I do (my wife). Perhaps your favorite teacher inspired you into your current profession or first taught you how to read. Whoever this person is, this week is great opportunity to tell them thank you. Send them a card or drop a gift to say thank you for their hard work.

Or make an online donation in their honor to a good cause such as Adopt-A-Classroom, Curing Kids Cancer or any local school foundation like the one noted below.

One of our good causes, Montclair Fund for Educational Excellence (MFEE) , is doing their part to appreciate teachers in their community. They have just launched their annual Toast to the Teachers event. Montclair families, friends, and community groups host a lunch, dinner or other type of party to honor a cherished teacher, coach, principal or other member of the school-community. These events not only honor a teacher but also raise money for MFEE educational grants.

Teacher appreciation week resources

National Teacher Day resources

Temporary Emergency Services launches new website with help from 4aGoodCause

Temporary Emergency Services is a small nonprofit in Tuscaloosa, Alabama dedicated to helping individuals and families in crisis situations. They provide services for the homeless, fire or tornado victims, the disabled, the elderly, and anyone else in the community facing hardships.

Temporary Emergency Services contacted us a few weeks ago in hopes we could assist them in building a new website. For many years, their only web presence was a static five page site that could not be updated. They had a very small budget but big hopes for an improved website.

We are happy to announce the fruits of that project. The Temporary Emergency Services website went live this week.

The site was designed to support organizational goals of increasing donations of money and goods, increasing Thrift Store traffic and increasing volunteer participation.

Temporary Emergency Services has a easy-to-use CMS that makes the site easy to maintain going forward. Those browsing on a mobile phone are redirected to a mobile version of the website which holds important information such as phone numbers and directions to their Thirift Store.

Let us know what you think about the new site and please visit Temporary Emergency Services and offer your support of their mission. Be sure to like them on Facebook.

Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities launches 2012 BMW Raffle

I'm excited to announce that it is time for one of our favorite events. It is raffle time again for ARMHC!

One of the first event-based, online fundraising systems we ever built was way back in 2003 for Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities, Inc. (ARMHC). They needed a way to sell tickets for events and their annual car raffle. We set them up with a simple shopping cart and have been helping them successfully raise money online ever since.

This year's giveaway includes:

GRAND PRIZE: 2013 BMW 640i Convertible with Automatic Transmission, Premium Package and Metallic Paint

SECOND PRIZE: Four round-trip tickets aboard Southwest Airlines

THIRD PRIZE: David Yurman Sterling Silver 8-Row Box Chain Bracelet and $500 David Yurman gift card.

Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities, Inc. (ARMHC) is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization dedicated to serving the needs of children, by providing temporary housing and support services to families of ill and injured children being treated at local hospitals.

Raffle tickets are only $100 and you can purchase as many as you like through November 30, 2012.

Purchase your raffle ticket here.

Learn more about ARMHC.

5 reasons your nonprofit needs a mobile-friendly web site

How does your web site look on a mobile device? Scrunched? Distorted? Unreadable? If it is, then your nonprofit is missing a real opportunity to promote your cause and enroll new donors.

5 reasons your nonprofit needs a mobile-friendly web site

1. The mobile Internet is where your donors are.

• More than 50% of Americans browse the Internet with a mobile phone.
• One out of every seven minutes of media consumption takes place on a mobile device 
• By 2015 mobile Internet access will overtake desktop Internet access
• Some nonprofit web sites are already receiving 10-15% of Internet traffic from mobile devices. 

2. Reach your donors on the go, wherever they are.

If you don't have a mobile web site your donors can only learn about your organization at their desk at work or at home. In this fast-paced world, how often are we at our desk or on our laptop? With a mobile web site you give donors a destination they can reach wherever they are.

3. Mobile is a preferred platform for social networking and email

Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have fantastic mobile apps that often come pre-loaded on mobile devices. 33% of overall Facebook traffic comes from mobile devices. Do you send out a regular email newsletter? Did you know 34% of consumers now check email on their mobile device at least once a day? Are the links you place on Facebook and in your email newsletter mobile-friendly?

4.  You can raise money from mobile donors

Donors can and will give via mobile devices. 9 percent of people have already texted a charitable donation from their mobile phone responding to emergencies like the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Having something as simple as a mobile-friendly donation form gives your supporters a quick and easy way to give.

5. A mobile-friendly web site is easy and inexpensive to build.

There are a plethora of tools available for mobile web site building, including ours, that make it easy and affordable to launch your mobile web site.

Have questions about going mobile?

Mobile marketing platform for nonprofits

One of the biggest initiatives for nonprofits in 2012 is to go mobile, to connect and interact with their constituents through their mobile devices. Nonprofits want to use mobile marketing to mobilize volunteers, drive donations, increase social media interactions and much more. I'm happy to announce we'll be able to help our clients accomplish these goals.

4aGoodCause now offers an mobile marketing platform to nonprofits and schools that allows them to easily launch SMS (texting) campaigns, build mobile web sites and accept mobile donations from their donors. It is affordable, easy-to-use and very effective.

Features include...

• Text message marketing (many different types of campaigns)
• Unlimited keywords
• QR code generator
• Mobile web site builder
• Build unlimited mobile web sites
• Facebook and Twitter social media posting tool
• Easy-to-use reporting and administration

Take a test drive

Want to see it in action? Here is a demo based on some recent work with United Methodist Children's Home in Decatur, GA. Text 4AGOODCAUSE to 72727 to see an instant example of a text response, mobile website and mobile-friendly donation form all from the new 4aGoodCause mobile platform.

Visit our site for information on pricing or to schedule a demo.

4aGoodCause marks 14 years of creating web sites for nonprofits and other good causes

This past weekend marked the 14th year we've been in business. That's 14 years of assisting nonprofit and educational organizations in building successful Web sites, online donation and other online payment systems. Here's to 14 more years filled with the good luck we've been blessed to have. Thanks to all the people and companies that we've worked with. Our success is because of you!

4aGoodCause integrates donation forms with MailChimp

When donors give online it is a great opportunity to sign that donor up for a nonprofit's email list. As standard practice, we build our donation and other payment systems with a simple checkbox that allows donors to sign up for future email communications from the nonprofit. We record that donor's email preference in our database and that information is available in the reports we offer to our good causes. Many of our clients then take that new email address and import it into an email marketing service that they use to manage their email lists and send out email newsletters.

While this process is very easy, it is fun when we get an opportunity to remove this step and integrate our e-commerce forms in real-time, directly with the nonprofit's email software. We recently completed a project with our client, WAY-FM, to integrate their donation forms with MailChimp. Now, as online donations happen, the 4aGoodCause donation forms can automatically create new email records in MailChimp for WAY-FM.

We have previously integrated our systems with other email services like Vertical Response and our own email service. What service does your nonprofit use to manage its email marketing? Do you have integration between it and your donation form?