A new Irish start up called www.PledgUp.com is offering community groups the opportunity to get €1,000 of funding for their cause by signing up for the service before the end of March. The free service enables community groups of all sizes to ask for and process online donations from supporters any where in the world. The competition for a pool of €1,000 is looking for the most innovative fundraising ideas and most deserving causes.
The service works by generating a link to a personalised fundraising page which can then be emailed, posted to social media sites or sent by SMS with a call for donations. Groups can ask for straight forward donations or ask people to sponsor individuals taking part in events they are organising like 10K road races. Once people click on the links they are brought to a personalised page where they get details of the fundraiser and can donate via credit card.
Commenting cofounder Eoin Kennedy, PledgUp.com said “Organising fundraising events involves a lot of manpower and we want to help community groups to generate more income than just the entry amount for these events. We are seeing individual fundraisers generate over €700 in sponsorship by simply emailing their friends, family and contacts. Local groups are seeing diminishing returns from targeting the same people for every event and our system makes it simple for them to spread the net wider to the diaspora community who would be willing to help if it was simple and fast for them to donate.”
Groups can also get all their members involved by inviting them to join. Once they do they also receive a personalised page and the amount raised by each person is shown to the entire group.
Speaking about the competition Mr Kennedy added “Signing up is free and we are looking for community groups of all sizes from those looking to fundraise for local amenities, sports clubs looking for new equipment to schools trying to build extensions. Local groups are very innovative in generating ideas about things they are passionate about. However they can be limited by time and technical expertise. Through PledgUp.com they can set up in minutes by simply entering the details of the fundraiser and leverage their much wider network.”
Details of the competition winners will be posted on www.PledgUp.com/blog. Three prizes will be awarded – €500 for 1st place, €300 for 2nd place and €200 for third. The competition runs until March 31st 2013.
Source: HortiTrends News Room
