Some of you may end up processing credit card donations for your donors tomorrow. Please DO NOT just go to your donation page on our website and enter them in there, especially if you have several to enter in a row. This can often cause your donations to be flagged as fraud! Instead, please visit your Click & Pledge “Virtual Terminal” by logging into your account and processing them there.

To learn more about how to do this, visit the “How to process a credit card payment for a donor” topic on this reference page. This page also includes information on other issues you may run into with your Click & Pledge account: http://www.seattlefoundation.org/nonprofits/GiveBIG/Pages/GiveBIGandClickPledgeresources.aspx

Go to your organization’s profile on our website, mouse over the “Donate Now” button, and then mouse over the “Make a credit card donation” link. A URL will appear in the lower part of your screen, and the 5-digit account number follows the “ID=” text in the URL. This is the Click & Pledge account that we will track on GiveBIG day, May 15.

If you have the optional second Click & Pledge account for use on your own website, then you will need the correct account number to run your GiveBIG reports to get donor information and track donation totals.

6 more days!

Without their help, we wouldn’t be able to provide the $800,000 Stretch Pool (that’s right, we said $800K!) to boost your donations on May 15. And that doesn’t even include the 10 Golden Tickets we plan to give away throughout the day!

So please don’t forget to thank your sponsors in communications leading up to and on May 15—they play a huge part in making GiveBIG our community’s biggest day of giving!

INSTAGRAM

Show us the people in your life that are making our community and our world a little better. Post a picture on Instagram of your hero and rally your friends to support a cause you care about (including your own nonprofit, of course!). Here are some simple things you can do:

• Encourage supporters to download the free Instagram app and register (http://instagram.com).
• Get supporters familiar with using the hashtag #GiveBIG on Instagram too, for any images they snap that are related to GiveBIG inspirations.
• Use the Amaro filter for any #GiveBIG Instagram posts – for a look and feel consistent with other GiveBIG materials.
• Start posting and sharing with your networks.

Examples:

• <picture of your mother> Helen is giving to Great Grannies Network on May 15. She’s my hero. #GiveBIG
• <picture of kids> Mountaintop Mentors helps kids flex their genius. Donate on GiveBIG day, May 15. #GiveBIG

VIDEO

Several nonprofits have already made great videos and we would love to encourage you make a short video (shorter is usually better) about:

• A specific nonprofit organization (if it’s not your own nonprofit, please contact them first!).
• A type of nonprofit or issue (food banks, homelessness, healthcare, the arts, etc.).
• The event itself—one day of giving with all organizations that receive donations getting a portion of a stretch pool to make gifts go even further.

We’ll will feature some of the best YouTube videos on our Facebook page and website that are tagged #GiveBIG.

SOCIAL MEDIA VISUALIZATION

Our Facebook page will feature a live stream of content from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine (must be public and hash-tagged #GiveBIG).

We’d love to see your creative content appear—whether it’s text, video or images!

https://forums.clickandpledge.com/content.php?r=146-How-to-Credit-a-Transaction

Please note: before you back out a donation, you should probably check with the donor first to make sure they are OK with backing out the donation and making it again on May 15. We have actually heard of some donors in the past who have let the nonprofit keep the donation, but still make another donation on GiveBIG day, too!

If you are planning events on May 15 specifically pertaining to GiveBIG, please email us at givebig@seattlefoundation.org by May 6 with the following information:

• Your name/title
• Your contact information
• Your organization’s name
• A brief description of the event
• Event time
• Event location

We can’t guarantee that your organization will be profiled in a news story, but we encourage you to tell us what you’re doing so we can share your stories with our media partners!

We will “stretch” all donations up to $25,000 per donor, per organization. This is the first year that we are setting a limit on the amount that qualifies for funds from the GiveBIG Stretch Pool. 

This change in policy affects a very small number of donations that were made last year, and we have contacted the nonprofit organizations directly to let them know. We are hoping that with this small amendment, we will help level the playing field for smaller nonprofits and help the Stretch Pool go further for organizations that rely on smaller donations.

So, what does that mean for your donors? If a donor gives your organization $35,000 through GiveBIG, we will stretch the first $25,000. You will still receive the full $35,000 donation but only the first $25,000 will qualify for stretch funds.

Another example: Let’s say one donor gives you two donations at some point during the day: one for $20,000 and one for $30,000. Same deal: you will receive the full $50,000, but only the first $25,000 will qualify for stretch funds.

Keep in mind that the majority of donations made last year on GiveBIG day were $50 or less (with an average gift size of $190), yet we still raised a total of $8.6 million, including donations, Stretch Pool funds, Challenge Grants, and Golden Tickets!

Thank you for your understanding and as always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions on how to make this event an even stronger success for our community, nonprofit organizations and the generous “Everyday Heroes” who contribute through GiveBIG!

• Smaller file sizes for JPG/PNG logo files. This will help those of you with limited image editing capability who need smaller file sizes for uploading to email programs, websites, etc.
• Updated EPS files with all text converted to outlines. This will ensure that the fonts used in the logo files stay consistent.
• New images for use in social media (profile image, Facebook cover image).

Please visit the GiveBIG resources page for these and other tools to help you prepare for May 15.

Did we miss something? Let us know!

Also, just a word of caution: if you are signed up to receive email alerts when we post messages to this blog and you reply directly to those emails, the blog wants us to post them as comments. Don’t worry, we haven’t been, especially since they sometimes contain contact and other sensitive information. If you want to get in touch with us without the rest of the followers of this blog knowing, then the best way is to email givebig@seattlefoundation.org. Cheers!

Also, this is just a friendly reminder to make sure to test the “Donate Now” link on your organization’s profile as soon as possible. Please, please don’t put this off until the day before the event—in fact, do it before May 1! With more than 1,400 organizations listed on our site and tens of thousands of individual donations expected to be made on May 15, it will be extremely difficult for us to fix Click & Pledge account problems at the last minute.

To test your account, you can:

• Go to your organization’s profile on our website (searchable at www.seattlefoundation.org/npos/Pages/FindANonprofit.aspx).
• Mouse over Donate Now and select Make a credit card donation.
• Fill out the form and press Submit. (You can make a donation of any size, even $1.) Be sure to use an email address that you have easy access to, as the confirmation/receipt will be sent to that address.
• Within minutes, you should receive an email receipt. You should also receive a copy of the receipt to the mailbox specified in your Click & Pledge account.
• Within three days, the donation should show up in your organization’s bank account that is linked to your Click & Pledge account.
• You can run a report by logging into your Click & Pledge account to see if the transaction shows up. (This is also how you do it on GiveBIG day.) After logging into your account, choose Account Info > Reports > Search and Download. Enter the date range at the bottom of the screen and choose Search Transactions, and click Export. You can open or save the file and access the data using Microsoft Excel.

If you have any questions or want to learn more about your Click & Pledge account, we also encourage you to participate in the free informational webinar Click & Pledge is offering. They will present the same material two more times—April 24 and May 8, both at 1pm—and will leave plenty of time to answer questions. (If you can’t make either of the above times, you can also view the presented material from the April 8 webinar here.)

Now that you’re all signed up (check out our cool new infographic, Can my nonprofit participate in GiveBIG? if you’re not sure), there are a lot of things you can do to get ready for May 15. First of all, if you haven’t checked out the nonprofit toolkit yet to help you with your promotion and social media efforts, make sure you do. You can also download it here.

But, that’s not all! We want to make sure you’re ready to get the most out of your Click & Pledge account on GiveBIG day. One of the benefits of signing up for Click & Pledge is that you’ll be able to track your donations and have access to donor contact information in real time, so you can easily keep your followers and supporters updated on your progress throughout the day. Our friends at Click & Pledge have generously offered to host three webinars to make sure you get the most out of your account, answer your questions, and provide additional resources and support. Each webinar will cover the same content, so you can choose the one that works best for you. Use the links below to register:

Wednesday, April 10, 1 to 2 p.m.

Wednesday, April 24, 1 to 2 p.m.

Wednesday, May 8, 1 to 2 p.m.

Especially if you’re new to your Click & Pledge account, please join us for one of these sessions!