MicroGiving’s August News
Hello MicroGivers,
Welcome to the August edition of MicroGiving’s smashing newsletter delivered fresh and piping hot monthly. Here’s a quick update to keep you posted on some exciting highlights:
- MicroGiving Welcomes New Members
- Newest Addition To The MicroGiving Team
- Stories In The News
- Member Concerns
- Tips For Success
1. MicroGiving Welcomes New Members
This month MicroGiving experienced an influx of new members joining our community. We’ve noticed a lot of friendly chatter and warm welcomes buzzing around. The MicroGiving Team would like to thank our community members for your kind and friendly involvement in our community. During these hard economic times, a few words of encouragement towards someone hurting can go a long way!
2. Newest Addition To The MicroGiving Team
MicroGiving is proud to introduce our Official Community Leader. Congratulations to Becky Raymond (aka. Rayhawk), as she will be joining the MicroGiving Team moving forward! We decided to bring Becky on board with us for several reasons. Firstly, Becky has been the backbone behind many of the communications with our Recipients. She’s incredibly informational and resourceful, and has kept our community together in that capacity. Moreover, Becky is an exceedingly hard worker, quickly responsive to communications, efficient in her work and has a heart the size of MicroGiving! If you have any questions or concerns, Becky is the go to gal!
3. Stories In The News
For your entertainment, we thought we’d share a cool story we came across in the news:
Larry “Curly” Haubner, a 107 year old man nearly lost his home until the kindness of strangers came to his rescue. Larry has lived through many exciting times, however on his 107th birthday he outlived his savings and could no longer afford to continue paying for his assisted living facility. If not for the kindness of caring people, Larry would have been homeless. A local campaign came to Haubner’s aid and raised over $56,000 in donations. Contributions ranged from as little as $2 to over $1,200. Mark Ellmore, a candidate running for U.S. Congressman in Virginia’s 8th District stated praised the generosity of people who came to Haubner’s rescue despite present economic difficulties. To read the full story click here.
4. Member Concerns
Many of you have voiced concerns regarding your Supporting Documents. Why is it that MicroGiving requires all Recipients to mail in their Support Docs, rather than email or fax? Isn’t email or fax quicker and more efficient for all of us?
This is something we have struggled with for some time now. Obviously, scanning and faxing the documents is a lot easier than mail them for both the recipient and the MicroGiving Team. The problem was many recipients were having trouble scanning them, posting too much information as well, and sending us illegible and blurry documents that we could not read. In short, they made the site look bad and only hurt recipients.
As far as faxing documents to the team – while it seems convenient for everyone, it caused more problems than solutions. Again we ran into the problem of illegible documents. Recipients were faxing blurry docs that we could not identify properly. Moreover, many Recipients claimed they were sending more than we received and blaming us for “losing” their documents where we never received them in the first place.
In short, all of the above caused many headaches for the team, didn’t help verify anyone’s cause and took up way too much time. We were spending so much time on documents that we weren’t able to focus on what was important – promoting MicroGiving and reaching out to more donors!
5. Tips For Success
Over the years, we’ve found that many new members who join the community are a bit lost when it comes to ”packaging” their profile into an award-winning promotional piece! So we put together a list of tips and advice to help you improve your profile and increase your chances of reaching your fundraising goal.
The most common mistake that many make is simply failing to upload a nice photograph. Pictures really are worth a thousand words! We’ve found that Recipients who have a nice picture of themself and/or their family are generally more successful. The fact is, you only have a few seconds to capture a Donors attention on the internet so its important that you put your best foot forward! This starts with a great picture. Make sure the picture you post is a clear and visible shot of yourself and/or your family. The best profile pictures are heartfelt and communicate the personal side of you. Remember, first impressions are imperative to success!
Tags: august newsletter
5. August 2009 at 11:20 pm :
While I’m not fond of the mail in system, I do have to agree that people were uploading documents that were either illegible, or that simply were so edited you had no clue what it was suppose to prove. People were putting up fakes that I guess they thought would pass, but many of us know what official documents look like and we knew they were faked or edited.
Personally I would reject any request that had illegible or heavily edited or questionable documents and ask them to mail in originals, but allow those who actually take the time to have good scans done the opportunity to scan and upload documents.
Faxing and Email though…I can completely see the Team’s point on that issue and don’t think that is a very good method.
As for profiles. Not only a good photo which I totally agree with but since you only that few seconds…please don’t beg. That will cause almost anyone to click off your profile or not even bother to click onto it in the search. You are on MicroGiving because you find your situation to be urgent. You are however no more urgent than any other member and that is exactly what someone is thinking when they see “please help me”….”desperate mom of two” Uh…there are many desperate moms of two, four, six on MG and every where in the world. There are desperate pregnant women, sick and disabled too. You don’t need to try to stand out from the crowd by stating the obvious. Everyone knows you are on MicroGiving because you need help. What people need to know is how you got in this situation, what you are doing on your own (not through donations) to get out of it, what lessons you have learned, and how you are making sure you won’t get into this situation again.
Please don’t say Help I’m going to be evicted in 28 days because I’m $900 behind.
And have a bio that reads:
I don’t know where I will go, I have no family or friends to help me! Please donate so I don’t become homeless! I am a single mom with kids and one has disabilities. When I’m back on my feet I promise to pay it forward.
What is better is:
A headline that reads:
I got behind in my rent because my child was sick. I have documents to prove lost time and wages.
And a bio that reads:
I had to stay out of work and the copy of my paystub will reflect that as well as the lost wages. This put me behind. I have a letter from my landlord with dates that match up to the short paystub. I tried to offer to pay back a bit at a time but he refused. I am including all my landlords information if you wish to contact him to verify that he is refusing partial payments. I am back to work now, but due to my other bills I can’t catch up on the back due rent to stop the eviction. You can see from my bill copies how much I owed and how much I paid during this period. After I get caught up I’ll be doing ok and I learned a lesson from this. I think it’s a good idea to pay $20 extra a month on my rent to build up a future credit in case this ever happens again.
Taking time to make a non-pleading and explanatory statement will take you much farther than a generic plea which only comes across as saying: I WAS IRRESPONSIBLE AND NOW I WANT YOU TO FIX IT.
You must explain past, present and future so people can see you are not just begging for money to spend on Ebay. If you were irresponsible, be honest. It sounds much better than any phony story you come up with. We all make mistakes, a mistake is easier to forgive than the lie you use to cover it up.
5. August 2009 at 11:35 pm :
Has anyone read the story about the 107 year old man? Read the comments too. Let’s bring this topic to the forum to discuss.
10. August 2009 at 8:29 pm :
Congratulations to Rayhawk. She is indeed the most helpful, caring, informative person I could have had the good luck to meet on this site. She has been so encouraging to me as a newcomer. I have continued to make some progress on resolving some of my very serious problems, but each time I get discouraged, I find a message from Rayhawk cheering me on. She will be an asset to the Microgiving team. She is truly gifted in her efforts to encourage and motivate people not to give up or give in to their challenges. I wish her and the Microgiving Team success in all of their endeavors to assist so many in need.
11. August 2009 at 7:11 pm :
Thank you Dorothy
I am glad I was able to give you some encouragement and I hope I will continue to be a good community leader.