Archive for the 'Support for Charities' Category

How to make the most of our new mobile optimised fundraising website

Published April 15, 2013 Fundraising Tips , Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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QR CodeWe’ve enhanced the Virgin Money Giving website so it’s super easy and fast to make donations from your smartphone. Here’s a simple way you can use it to boost your fundraising by promoting your fundraising or charity page with QR Codes

If you’re making leaflets or putting up posters you could include a QR (Quick Response Code). It can be scanned on a Smartphone and takes the holder of the phone straight to your page – with no need to type your page address.

You might have seen them on billboards, leaflets, or business cards.

All you need to do is generate one with your fundraising or charity Virgin Money Giving page address (which you can do at http://goqr.me/ or http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ and many link shortening tools such as http://goo.gl or http://bit.ly) and add the image of the QR code to all of your promotional materials.

To scan the QR code you friends will need one of the many free barcode scanning apps on their phone such as Red Laser for Android and iPhone

Your friends will now have no excuse – It only takes a couple of minutes to make a donation using a smartphone so if you bump into a friend in the street or down the pub they can do it there and then.

We’d love to see what you do with QR codes and using our new mobile friendly website to collect donations, Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Entering into a Wonderland for ‘Read for RNIB Day’

Published October 12, 2012 Events , Press Releases , Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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A three day literary wonderland will descend on the banks of the River Thames from 18 October, where some of the nation’s best-loved authors will transport families to a magical world of stories to mark Read for RNIB Day.

Decorated with imagery from Alice in Wonderland, the area will be divided into five sections, each designed for families to get stuck in, have fun and learn about Read for RNIB Day.

Starting with ‘falling’ through the rabbit hole just like Alice, guests will be able to sit in the enchanting Mad Hatter’s story corner and listen to well-known children’s tales or visit the forest of talking mushrooms to hear quotes from familiar novels. 

Authors and celebrities including TV presenter and children’s author Jason Bradbury, children’s author Sally Gardner, author of the Monstrous Maud books A. B. Saddlewick and CBBC presenter Ben Hanlin will be joining activities throughout the three days.

Actor Michael Sheen OBE has recorded quotes from well known children’s books which will be played at the event. He said: “Reading and stories are such an important part of childhood; they’re what inspired me to write. It’s terrible to think that some people are denied this because they can’t see.

“I heard about RNIB’s work and wanted to get involved in Read for RNIB Day. We hope to inspire and encourage people to read and get involved in the campaign which raises funds for services such as RNIB’s National Library Service which offers books in alternative formats to blind and partially sighted people.”

RNIB’s literary wonderland is free. Open 18-20 October 2012, 9-6pm. Cathedral Square, Hibernia Wharf, London Bridge, London SE1 9DA. For more information visit www.readforrnib.org.uk or call 0845 345 0054.

Information for charities – your fundraisers could win you a £2,012 donation

Published September 13, 2012 Charity Story , Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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2012 has seen some truly inspirational sporting stories, from David Weir to Andy Murray, Richard Whitehead to Ben Ainslie.

But with all the excitement the downside we’ve all seen is that charities are really feeling the pinch. As people focus on other things charities have been missing out on essential funding.

To help with this Virgin Money Giving is offering three lots of £2,012 donation to charity. Any fundraiser on Virgin Money Giving taking part in an event or fundraising activity between October and December this year is eligible for the prize. They just have to have a Virgin Money Giving page, and have at least one donation on their page.

And it doesn’t have to be an organised event. We’ve seen fantastic stories of fundraisers abseiling, setting up cake sales in their offices and shaving their head to raise money for causes close to their heart. Any fundraiser raising money for charity in an event between October and December this year on Virgin Money Giving, and with a donation on their page will be entered into the draw.

Why not let your fundraisers know on facebook and twitter about the competition? Here’s the link; http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/giving/make-your-mark-in-2012/

 

And we can even send out fundraiser flyers to you that you can send to your supporters. Just email us at help@virginmoneygiving,com with the volume and delivery address.

Free Charity workshops. We’re coming to Birmingham, London and Bristol

Published August 17, 2012 Support for Charities 1 Comment
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Over the next few months we’re hosting some free Virgin Money Giving workshops for charities in Birmingham, London and Bristol.

The Birmingham workshops are taking place between 5-7 September, with the Bristol workshops taking place from 10-12 October.

The London workshops in September have already reached capacity, but we are already planning some more dates and will let charities know once these are confirmed.

The workshops last 2 and a half hours and you can choose either a morning or afternoon slot.

Each session will include information on customising your charity page, reporting, events, promoting VMG and also best practice on using the site. Charities will also get the chance to ask our team any questions they may have.

To find out more and to book your place, email us at help@virginmoneygiving.com.

Helping charities get the most out of Virgin Money Giving

Published August 3, 2012 Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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If you weren’t already aware we’ve been offering web based training to help charities get the most out of Virgin Money Giving – and we’re hosting some more sessions.

If your charity has recently registered with us, these web training sessions can help to get you started, or if you’ve been using charity reporting for some time, we’ll share our top tips.

The sessions can be tailored to your needs and they’re free to all our charities.

The training is delivered through Webex, an online tool that allows you to see our computer screen. Webex will run on most PCs and Macs (read the full system requirements).

We recommend that you’re somewhere quiet, free from office distractions and with a mug of tea or coffee. You’ll get the chance to ask us any questions you have as part of the session.

We hold these Webinars on weekdays. To book a place, contact us at help@virginmoneygiving.com or call 08456 10 10 45. We’ll arrange a date with you and send you all the details. Spaces are limited so please book a slot soon to avoid disappointment.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Free reporting webinars for our member charities

Published June 7, 2012 Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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If you weren’t already aware we’ve been offering free tailored, web based training to help you get the most out of Virgin Money Giving – and we’re hosting some more sessions.

If you’ve recently registered with us, these web based training can help to get you started, or if you’ve been using charity reporting for some time, we’ll share our top tips.

The sessions can be tailored to your needs and they’re free to all our Charities.

We hold these Webinars each weekday at 10:30 and again at 2:30.

The training is delivered through Webex, an online meeting tool from CISCO that allows you to see our computer screen. Webex will run on most PC’s and Macs (for full details of system requirements please click here)

We recommend that you’re somewhere quiet, free from office distractions and with a mug of tea or coffee. You’ll get the chance to ask us any questions you have as part of the session.

To book a place contact us at help@virginmoneygiving.com or call 08456 10 10 45. We’ll arrange a date with you and send you details of the free phone number to dial and how to connect to the training session.

Spaces are limited so please book a slot soon to avoid disappointment. We look forward to hearing from you.

Making more from Reporting

Published May 29, 2012 Fundraising Tips , Support for Charities 1 Comment
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Throughout May the Virgin Money Giving charity support team have been catching up with our member charities. We’ve already held a few sessions in London and Manchester and we’ll be making our way to Newcastle very soon.

We’ve been talking reporting, events, best practice and sharing insight and knowledge from the Virgin Money Giving website.

From speaking with various charities – large and small – we received a fair few questions about reporting, so here are some hints that we hope will help.

Fundraisers and events

To manage fundraisers and events, sign into your reporting and use Reporting > Flexible Reports > Fundraising Pages. This report will show you a full list of all fundraising pages, any contact details, the event the fundraisers are undertaking, and how much the event has raised. The report also shows you how they are doing against any target you’ve set.

Reconciling donations

To check what have we paid into your bank account go to Reporting > Standard Reporting > Payments. The report is filed under Statement Summary and shows you the payments you have received and gives a breakdown on donation, Gift Aid or both.

Once you know what has been paid you can see the detail making up the payment for your finance reconciliation. Have a look in Reporting > Flexible Reporting > Payments. There are two reports, one for donations and one for Gift Aid (depending on which you have received you will use one or both of these reports). This will show you who made the donations, whose page it was made to and how much it was for.

Standard Reports

We also got asked about Standard Reports. These are fixed in place and are available for quick reference. They can be printed out but can’t be exported as spreadsheets.

For a more detailed picture the flexible reports hold much more information and they can be edited to suit your needs or used as a spreadsheet. You can also edit any flexible report to only include the information you are interested in.

Looking up Fundraiser details

If you want to quickly find the details of a fundraiser, you can sign into your charity account and click on Reporting and Manually Allocate Report Codes. Using this screen you can search for a fundraiser, get their contact details and view their page in just a few clicks.

If you missed out on our workshops we can set up a Webex sessions so that you can see our screen as we go through your questions and get you set up for using the site. If you would be interested in one of these sessions contact help@virginmoneygiving.com or contact us on 08456 10 10 45.

Four tips from our charity workshops

Published May 22, 2012 Support for Charities 1 Comment
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Over the past few weeks the Virgin Money Giving charity support team have been out and about meeting up with some of our member charities.

We’ve held a series of free workshops in London and Manchester, with Newcastle next on our tour.

Chatting with some of the charities we wanted to highlight some of the features of Virgin Money Giving that can help charities make more from their fundraisers and events.

  • Using a fundraising page as an appeal page -  You can create specific event and then fundraising page to support any appeals your charity runs. Encourage your charity supporters to donate through this page, instead of directly and you can easily tell how much money you’ve raised through the appeal your reports.
  • Event Deep links are special web addresses that you can use to send to your fundraisers or add to your website. They link directly to a specific event (e.g. the Virgin London Marathon) and pre-populate the fundraising page with your charity, making it even easier for them to get started and ensures they select your charity for ‘open events’.
  • Quickly look up fundraiser details – If you want to quickly find the details of someone raising money for your charity, simply sign into your charity account and click on ‘reporting’ and ‘manually allocate report codes’. From here you can search for a fundraiser get their contact details and view their page in just a few a clicks.
  • The thank you message - is a great way to contact your fundraisers and donors. These messages can be tailored to say what’s important to you – either about your cause or to promote events you have. Someone sponsoring their friend could be inspired to do something similar.

We also got asked a lot about the charity reporting on Virgin Money Giving, and we’ll be covering some of the top tips on how to make the most of your data in a future blog post.

Further help and tips can be found in on line our help guides, or get in touch with our charity help desk – they’re here if you need them.

If you think you’d be interested in attending future workshops please email us at help@virginmoneygiving.com with your Charity Name and location. We can then let you know of any future workshops happening in your area.

Get involved with Small Charity Week

Published May 11, 2012 Events , Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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In just under a month Small Charity Week will be launched giving charities the chance to raise their profile, gain knowledge, fundraise and celebrate their successes.

Taking place on 11-15 June the week is split into five themes:

  • I Love Small Charities Day.
  • Big Advice Day.
  • Policy Day.
  • Fundraising Day.
  • Celebration Day.

Each of these days and events have been arranged to give small charities free help and advice. Policy Day on 13 June also sees the launch of the Small Charity Policy Forum and Small Charity Localism research.

The week culminates with ‘Celebration Day’ which will include a mini charity festival in central London and small charities having their films profiled on the Community Channel.

You can find out more about being a part of the event by checking out the Small Charity Week website. To book any of the free initiatives email info@smallcharityweek.com

Virgin Money Giving charity team goes on Tour

Published April 27, 2012 Support for Charities 1 Comment
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Here’s one for our member charities.

Over the next few weeks the Virgin Money Giving charity team will be out and about hosting a series of road show events on how to make the most of online fundraising. They’ll be talking reporting, events, best practice, and sharing insight and knowledge from the Virgin Money Giving website. Our sessions in London are already full, but we’re heading to Manchester and Newcastle too.

We’re currently booking in for Manchester – and will be holding them in the fabulous Virgin Money Lounge on King Street. If you’re Charity is registered on Virgin Money Giving and would like to come along please pick a slot below and email us on help@virginmoneygiving.com to secure your place.

  • 21 May 10.00 – 12.30
  • 21 May 14:00 – 16:30
  • 22 May 10.00 – 12.30
  • 22 May 14:00 – 16:30
  • 23 May 10.00 – 12.30
  • 23 May 14:00 – 16:30

Places are limited so make sure you get booked in quickly! We look forward to seeing you there.

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Earlier at the Virgin Money Giving Mini Marathon start kaavmw 90b3nf 1qdxbi ^AS

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