FirstGiving is a popular charitable website which encourages people to donate to worthy charities. The idea behind the site is to make it as easy as possible to donate to charities; it’s possible for anyone to use this site wherever they are in the country. If you are passionate about anything then you will be able to use FirstGiving to help support your non-profit organization. It’s a very friendly tool which is particularly easy to use. The community is very friendly and this makes it really easy to find out how to do everything. FirstGiving can be used by any US based non-profit organization which is registered with Glide Star. Any of these non-profit organist ions can create their own page to promote their charity and encourage donations. FirstGiving was founded in 2002 and has become one of the most popular fundraising sites for nonprofit organizations. FirstGiving claims to have almost 2 million users who have helped to raise $103,506,287 for thousands of non-profit organizations. It’s one of the most successful ways of creating charitable websites. Unlike other charitable websites not all of the money goes to the charity. The site charges a 7.5% commission and processing fee. This isn’t really good sportsmanship and this is a little disappointing. This means that this website was set up as more of a business than just a charitable organization. Although the site helps non-profit organizations it’s not certain whether or not this website actually makes a profit. Unlike other charitable websites this site is set up to support any non-profit organization in America, it’s not just designed to support people in developing countries. The site has a nice look and feel to it. It’s a very attractive and simply designed website which makes using it very pleasurable. Anyone is free to start fundraising by simply creating their own fundraising page. This shows potential donators why they should support your cause. You can then easily send this page to your friends and family and encourage them to donate to your worthy cause. There is also a really nice help section on the site. This provides very useful how to instructions in case you have trouble doing anything. This help section walks you through donating money and fundraising. If you just want to donate to the worthy causes on FirstGiving then there is no need to register. The only time that you actually need to register is if you want to fundraise as a non-profit organization. Registering for an account on FirstGiving won’t take more than a couple of minutes. This signup process is slightly more detailed than many other websites but this is because of the nature of the site. You will first have to try and track down your nonprofit organization. To do this it must be registered with guide star. If you’re not registered then you will need to do something about this, there is a handy link at the side explaining what to do in this case. You will then need to choose your account type. There is a free basic account or a more advanced account which costs $300 per year. You do not actually purchase any services. However when you donate money to a charitable cause you will have to pay a processing fee. This is probably to cover the card processing fees and also support the website. The fee is quite high at 7.5% and this means that not all the money you donate will actually go to the charity. If you were to donate $25 then the charity would get $23.12. There are two different types of non-profit account available, there are free basic accounts. There are also premium accounts which cost $300 per year. Again for a charitable website this is a bit of a shock. The premium accounts have benefits of personalized branding, and creating teams of fundraisers. The fees however remain exactly the same. FirstGiving is aimed at non-profit organizations all around the world looking to raise funds for a variety of different causes. It’s also aimed at people who have a charitable nature and want to support these worthy causes.

• FirstGiving is a useful charitable platform which can be used to promote your charity internationally
• It’s then possible for people to donate to your cause and start supporting it
• Email your charity to numerous people to spread the world and encourage support of it
• All of the payments are processed securely and this gives your users some piece of mind

http://www.firstgiving.com/