Just Giving 
When in London recently, I visited the HQ of the excellent internet fundraising group called "Just Giving" (JG). Over a mug of tea, two of the staff explained about Just Giving and I was able to share my link with Global Hand and my interest in seeing funds generated for quality sustainable projects overseas. Having seen most of these projects at first hand or knowing their founders well, I have much confidence in recommending others to become involved.
As a direct result of the visit, I set up a page on the Just Giving site for a special agricultural project in Malawi. http://www.justgiving.com/Generosity-Alive Am interested to see how this develops over the coming months. At the moment interest is slow. The JG concept is very good and the back-up service they give is excellent but I sense one needs to do a fair amount of marketing one's self through personal relationships and contacts.
Some friends have used the services of JG and to good effect, one generating some £600 for the Red Cross and the other encouraging folk to give to Starfish Asia also exeeding £600. So the system works. As a result of all the sponsored individuals and groups in the 2010 London Marathon some £18 million pounds were donated to charities. Quite a mega achievement.
A quote from the Just Giving website:
<<<We exist to help you raise more money than you ever thought possible for the causes you care about. When we created the company in 1999, our dream was to enable any charity, however small, to use the web to raise money at very low cost. Almost no one believed it could be done. Nearly ten years later, we are proud to have become the leading online platform for charity giving, helping over 8,000 member charities raise more than £450 million.>>>
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