GiveForward - Fundraising Made Simple

"GiveForward is a game changer for those battling cancer and facing mounting medical expenses. I definitely recommend GiveForward to anyone wondering what they can do to help out when a friend or loved one is diagnosed." - Ethan Zohn, Cancer Survivor

A while back I had the chance to attend the OMG Cancer Summit for young adults in New York presented by I2Y and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

While there were a ton of really great speakers at the Summit like Adam Ostrow, Brad Ludden, Tamika Felder, Jonny Imerman and Matthew Zachary, for me, the best was keynote speaker and former Survivor winner, Ethan Zohn.  Maybe it’s because Ethan and I both share the same name, a love of soccer and had fathers pass away from colon cancer at an early age.  Or maybe it’s simply because we both happen to rock the jew-fro, but something about his speech really hit home with me. read more…

This week’s featured fundraiser on GiveForward is Valerie Sun, who is raising money for her friend’s daughter with Neuroblastoma. Valerie is the true true definition of the word trooper.   As a child, Valerie suffered from Apastic anemia and had multiple blood transfusions, a bone marrow transplant and multiple orthopedic surgeries.  Now she is better and has decided to give back.

This Sunday Valerie is taking on a two-mile swim in the Pacific Ocean with the hopes of raising $5000 for Mikayla. So far, Valerie has already raised $2500. We recently caught up with her and asked her to share her experience and some of her successful fundraising tips with our readers.  Check it out!

GiveForward: You’ve already raised over $2500.  Have you been surprised at the generosity you’ve seen?

Valerie Sun: Yes and no. Yes, because most everyone has had to scale back on charity giving due to the difficult economic times, and for folks to donate out of scarcity just goes to show the true depths of generosity present in people. No, because I am incredibly blessed to know so many of these type of people. I knew they would rally to support this cause – many are those who have helped me in various ways over the years when I had struggles with my illness.

GF: What has been your most successful fundraising tip so far that you’d recommend to others?

VS: I think the best tip was sending my request for help out initially to a small group of friends and family and asking for large dollar donations. I think that really set the tone so that most of the other donations ended up following suit.

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Every day at GiveForward I think to myself that I have the best job on the planet, and it’s because we have the greatest community of users in the entire universe. Yesterday I got an incredibly warm email from one of our favorite users Loree Frazitta who is fundraising for her sister’s breast cancer treatment.  Like many of our users, Loree has become almost like a family member to us at GiveForward.  She had written the following email to a magazine editor yesterday in hopes of spreading the word about GiveForward and was kind enough to send me a copy.  With her permission, we thought we would share this wonderful email on our blog:

When my younger sister Nicole, 28, mother of two girls, found out she had breast cancer we were all in shock. Not only was breast cancer not in our family, but my sister and her husband did not have health insurance at the time of her diagnosis.  My sister learned she would need a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.

Our family wanted her to concentrate on fighting this fight with cancer and getting better- not how much it would cost to do so.  Giveforward.org gave us the tool to do that. It created one place for family, friends and even complete strangers to come together to make a difference. In two weeks using Giveforward we raised over 25K!!!! AMAZING

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GiveForward happily announces another medical fundraising success story!  This time, Lori Hope, a cancer survivor herself, started a fundraising page for her friend Ann-Ellice and raised over $10,000! 

With well over 25 years of experience as a communications professional, Lori Hope is a leading authority on cancer support and the author of “Help Me Live: 20 Things People With Cancer Want You to Know.”  Her book has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and on NBC’s Today Show among other places.  In addition to her book, Lori writes a blog and speaks publically about cancer and how to support and communicate with cancer patients. 

We are incredibly excited that Lori featured GiveForward recently on her blog.  In her post, she chronicles her journey in helping her friend Ann-Ellice by setting up a GiveForward page.  Ann-Ellice is a dear friend to Lori, one who helped her during her own battle with cancer by cooking for her and completing other helpful tasks.  When Ann-Ellice confided to Lori that she was having some financial problems after losing her job in the recession, Lori asked if it would be okay if she set up a GiveForward fundraising page for Ann-Ellice.  After some hesitation, Ann-Ellice finally agreed.  Lori details the outpouring of support, whether monetary or emotional, given to her friend Ann-Ellice.

“My life has been largely about supporting people with cancer for the past seven years,” says Lori, adding that she is “thrilled” to learn about GiveForward, as another tool of support.

To read the entire post, please click here. 

For more about Lori Hope, please visit her blog.  For information on her book, please click here.

There’s little we love more than helping people fundraise for medical expenses, but if I had to choose a close second favorite, hearing people’s success stories would definitely be it! 

Recently, Kim R. told us about her positive experience with GiveForward and I’m honored to share it with you guys. 
 
Kim came to GiveForward to help raise money for her friend Chris’s medical expenses.  She credits a lot of her success to the fundraising tips and tricks that we offer to our users: “Once my page for my friend Chris was posted, Ethan sent me a very nice e-mail of encouragement. He offered my friend some very valuable resources, gave us fundraising tips and put our page as a featured fundraiser. It was most definitely the personal touch.”
 
Kim also told us of the multiple ways in which people reached out to help: “Some people donated online at GiveForward, some paid utility bills directly and others sent cash and checks. We were all so struck by the generosity. It is so touching when utter strangers reach out and give to someone they don’t know.” 
 
Kim admits that had she not discovered GiveForward, she does not know where she would have started in her attempts to help her friend.  She stresses that GiveForward “legitimatized” her fundraiser, that it was easy to spread the word about it through email and on sites such as Facebook, and that taking credit card donations furthered the ways in which she could help her friend.
 
We are so glad that Kim had a positive experience and was able to help her friend Chris.  Hopefully there will be many more of these stories to come, and we can’t wait to hear them!

We see a lot of fundraisers on GiveForward to pay for pet medical expenses and we’re always thrilled when they do well.

Recently, we received a “virtual high five” from one of our users, Courtney Pierce, a veterinarian who was raising money to cover the costs of surgery for Surfer, a wounded dog that got hit by a car in Nicaragua.  She gave us permission to reprint her email, so we thought we’d share it with you all:

Sarah,

I just received the proceeds from Surfer’s fundraiser and was so touched at the personal note included with his check. It brought a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. I have been so pleased with the GiveForward.org site, it has made our fund raising easy, efficient and effective! I will most certainly share my positive experience with others. Keep up the good work!
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Please enjoy some of the nice things GiveForward users have said about us lately—we’re so happy to have helped these fundraisers work towards their goals!

“Thank you so, so much! I don’t know what I would have done without you guys and your website.”
-Amy Cowin raised $31,000 for her sister’s kidney transplant

Thanks so much for the opportunity to use your site. It helped tremendously! Between the Fundraiser and GiveForward, I reached my goal.
-Beth Dahlke Kiens raised $3900 for a brain surgery to prevent paralysis

“Thanks to Giveforward.org we were able to surpass our goal and raise over $3,000 that Liana’s family can use towards her chemotherapy treatments. Thank you so much for providing this tremendous service! It made it so easy to raise money for a great cause.”
-Katherine Deurloo raised $3300 for her neighbors daughter battling leukemia

“You guys are wonderful. It’s people like YOU who are making the dreams come true for people like me! or at least enabling us to make our own dreams come true.”
-Michelle Brovitz has raised [ongoing] $10,000 to purchase medical equipment for her Multiple Sclerosis treatment

“You guys have been marvelous…Can’t even tell you what a wonderful job you have done with the site and the whole Give Forward mission. I’m impressed with all you guys do……Much love and gratitude.”
-Brandi Fischer has raised $22,000 to help pay for her friend’s liver transplant

“It’s been a crazy day, I never in my wildest dreams thought that things would move as quickly as they did. I am shocked, and entirely humbled by the generosity of the community that I am beyond fortunate enough to be part of…I know I said it already… but let me say it again : THANK YOU! Big up’s to you and your team.”
-Jeff Mueller raised $15989 in a single day to help his friend pay for his cancer treatments.

“Thank you so very much again for taking the time to contact me, and for founding GiveForward so that people like us could have an easy way to raise money for our loved ones medical expenses.”
-Sarah Griffin raised $7000 for her uncle’s stroke recovery fund

“I would recommend this website to anyone who needs to do a fundraising event and take advantage of their tips/suggestions to make it successful. If I ever have to do another fund raiser, I would not hesitate to use GiveForward site again—they are wonderful!”
-Carmen B. raised $1700 to help her nephew pay for his kidney dialysis treatment.

“Your site, GiveForward, is great. It is professional and extremely easy for people to navigate. If there is anything I can do to help you promote the site or a letter expressing my satisfaction with your site, please let me know. Once again, thanks for your help and support. Don’t forget, if there is anything I can do to help you in your efforts to promote Give Forward, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
-William Loncar ‘s daughter, Shaughna raised $12,770 for his lung cancer treatments.

“Thank you so much for your amazing work, again. You guys are great. I am so happy with the fundraiser results and I know Jeremy and Noah will be so grateful. Sometimes, words just are not enough, I guess “thank you” will do for now, but this fundraiser and the training have given me a focus during a really hard time. For that I am forever grateful. I hope to stop by the next time we are in Chicago, I would love to meet you guys.”
-Meghan Kaplan raised $4100 training for a triathlon in honor of her friend who was battling gastric cancer and passed away during Meghan’s training.

“Thanks to you and the rest of the Give Forward team for providing this service. It made our fundraising efforts much easier.”
-Kellie Sadens, raised $2,330 for her sister-in-law battling Lymphoma

Read more testimonials and success stories from our blog here!

Stefanie C., one of our users at GiveForward.org, recently forwarded us this amazingly warm thank you note from her friend Kelli who is battling cancer.  Kelli has graciously allowed us to publish the note on our blog.  To give a little context, Stefanie and her friends raised $11,000 on her Giveforward fundraising page for Kelli’s treatments (and amazingly, did so without telling Kelli about it until they surprised her with the check at the very end).

Dear All,

How do I thank high school friends, strangers, dear colleagues, friends & family of the people I love, the Sisters, my Austin family, fellow teachers and counselors, wonderful people I have not seen in years, eight-year-old pals, cousins, folks I miss chatting with…?  Just to think about it moves my soul and reminds me that we can take care of each other.  If anyone on this Give Forward list needs us – we will help them, love them, and support them with the same generosity of spirit that you all shared with me.

I wish you could have joined me when the site was unveiled by three fantastic friends.  Once I wiped away tears of joy and shock, I thought -  I can now focus on healing; I can now take off work for chemo and not worry about my lack of sick-leave; I can now be assured that for the next five years I can cover my insurance costs.  Then I thought – how did you all pull this off without me knowing?  Very impressive:).

No one is ever ready for a diagnosis of cancer – physically, emotionally, or financially.  Your gift allows me to focus on what is important, my health and well-being.  These words do not seem adequate, but they are all I’ve got — thank you!

One last thing to the strangers in the group – you don’t know me, my work for social justice, my quirks, my love of nature, my delicious oatmeal raisin cookies… yet you reached out to me in my darkest hour.  That is the true reflection of a kind and giving soul.  Thank you for joining my healing journey.

With much love,
Kelli

In September, a group of board members from Chicago Children’s Charities raised money for their organization using GiveForward’s new Group Pages.

Like a lot of small non-profits, Chicago Children’s Charities had relied primarily on gala and bar event fundraisers, as well as on corporate gifts.  With the tightening economy, many of their board members were having difficulty acquiring the funds they were used to receiving.  So, they decided to put together a team of charity runners to supplement their fundraising efforts.

In just a few weeks, and with very little organized effort, they were able to raise $13,000.

Here is what Ashley Dent, the leader of the charity running team, had to say about Chicago Children’s Charities’ experience on GiveForward.org:

I’m on a board that fundraises for a few children’s charities. In the past, we’ve raised most of our funds through corporations, but we needed some new ways to fundraise this year. I discovered GiveForward, and realized that the site could be a powerful fundraising tool for our board members.

As a board, we participated in GiveForward’s 5k Run for a Reason. Not only did we have a fun running for a great cause (our own!), but we raised over $13,000 on the site in just a few weeks! Each board member took just a few minutes to set up their own personalized fundraising page, asked friends and family for support, and our fundraising quickly took off.

This is one of the few times in life when minimal effort translates into a great reward. Collectively, hundreds of people donated to our charity, but this would not have been possible without the online webpages we created. We will definitely fundraise through GiveForward in the future – it was simple, effective, and enabled us to make a difference in the lives of Chicago’s children.

If you would like to learn more about creating a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, Kurt Kittner, El Da’Sheon Nix of Cabrini Connections and the founders of GiveForward will be presenting workshops at the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference Nov 19-20.