Raising funds and awareness for your third sector organisation can rely heavily on networking, and the internet is a marvellous and often under utilised tool for charities to keep in touch with people, to raise money and to let new people find them. At PLS we offer a free web consultation service for charities, we can answer questions on web design, technologies, hosting options and traffic generation using new media. Our information is entirely free and unbiased. After a consultation, if you require additional work we can undertake this work at a greatly reduced price , or point you in the direction of people can do it for pro-bono. We also undertake a number of fully free charity projects each year, designing websites and social networking applications. Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for further information or to be considered for the next round of free sites.

But first, here some free tips on turning the internet into a valuable tool for your charity:

The Website:

A website is a primary tool for letting people know information about your charity, get them integrated and involved with it, and hopefully donating money to the charity. To this end, a charity website is different to a non-charitable website. It is important to engage your visitors, and to get your message across. Some key tips to a site designed for fundraising are:

Keep it simple and clear - have a clear mission statement, coupled with a short, clear description if exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Have a prominent and clear button for donations

this is more important if your charity has wider appeal and relies more heavily on smaller donations, but is generally a good idea. Make it easy for people to donate. Make sure there are easy ways to pay. Adding a paypal donate button to your website takes 30 seconds for a web programmer. JustGiving have equivalents which integrate seamlessly into facebook pages. They are expensive though, other options are available. Here are some suppliers with costs for comparison, although bare in mind that the best for you is measureed in return, not in cost. Spending £100 to generate £1000 is much better than spending £50 to generate £300.

JustGiving - 5%, plus credit card charge, plus £15/month

Paypal - 1.4% plus 20p, doesn't collect gift aid.

CharityGiving - 3.99%, no credit card charge, no sign up fee

BMYcharity - 4.7%, no credit card charge, £150 start up fee. Also charges to collect gift aid

VirginMoneyGiving - £100 start up fee, 2% (note - we do not consider a corporate branded site as "not-for-profit")

GlobalGiving - 10%, no credit card charge, no sign up fee

SponsorMe -

EveryClick - 4.8%, no credit card charge, no sign up fee.

Hosting notes - websites are hosted by a hosting company. Your choice of host is important. Cheap ones have more downtime - although you may save a lot of money by taking a budget option and accepting the service is poorer. Before you choose, look into the pricing options for more advanced packages. Many of the cheaper base packages are much more expensive for advanced packages, leading to more cost overall if you want to improve your site. If in doubt, ask us and we'll explain.

Interact with your visitors - people like to feel involved, they like to help you and they like to see progress. Adding a dynamic feel to the site, like donations to date, current issues you are working on, events you are running and a well written newsletter are good tools. Blogs, and new media like Twitter are great if you have time to donate to keeping them up to date. It doesn't have to take long.

Assist your networking - the internet is a very powerful tool for making contacts and staying in touch. Harness it for the good of your charity. Keeping a Twitter account or running a small forum or shoutbox might be appropriate. Again, newsletters can help for those who don't use more modern networking tools.

Blogs

If you don't read or write one already, a blog is a special kind of webpage which lists short posts in a reverse chronological order. This is a great way of letting people know what you are doing, of generating traffic and interest to your site, and to get your message across to people. They are not difficult to add to your website, or there are many free providers who let you set one up. You can allow for people to comment on a post, to increase interaction, or leave it comment disabled, to leave a cleaner feel to your information. An easy way to start is to set up a google alert to inform you of breaking news relating to your field of interest, then copy the most interesting articles of the week into your blog and comment briefly on them. Written blogs are great for indexing purposes. Newer, and perhaps more personal are video blogs. You can add video to text blogs via embedded youtube clips. This is easy once you know how. Remember, web consultation is free at Purple Lemur for registered charities.

Social Networking Sites

Have you considered the demographic of the people you are trying to reach. Who you target depends on the cause you are supporting, but while it is an attractive idea to target older, higher net worth individuals, it may be prudent to keep in mind a younger, wider reaching audience too. This provides additional benefits, while they may not donate as much in cash, an enthusiastic younger support base can offer aid and assistance, as well as getting people on board your support much younger. Luckily, social networking sites offer an incredible potential to target a younger group. Twitter, MySpace and Facebook are free to run, and take minimal time to maintain. Donations from people like JustGiving can be integrated into them, and 'applications' and advertising options can be distributed through them. All offer a big boost to your networking potential.

Forums

Running a good forum takes some knowledge and can be time consuming, but can be a very useful tool. They can be free, and encourage discussion between staff and supporters, and related charities. Two major problems to getting one running is getting people t join and start posting, and to manage it. Here are some tips to get you running.

Moderation - forums have administration staff, and moderators. The moderators have control over the content, and can refactor posts, step in if things get out of hand, or delete unwanted spam or inappropriate posts.

Initial conversations - Before you get the traffic up, the moderators need to get the topics started. Add topics that are thought provoking. Make sure the moderators discuss them, but ensure the threads are open ended, this is where you can convert people watching to contributing members.

Rewarding traffic - Never let a new member's posts go unanswered, you will never get them back. A big part of the moderator's jobs is to make people feel welcome and encourage them to stay.

Shops

Shops can be free, low maintenance and an easy way to raise money and awareness. A web based shopping cart can be integrated into your site for no cost, and payment options like paypal or googlepay require no outlay and take minutes to set up. It might be worth considering a small shop to sell bands, ribbons or branded items, or integrate your donation schedule into it.