Creating an online charity site

Live forum: http://forum.freeipodguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=73986

Powerbook

22-02-2008 18:02:13

So, I just registered a domain. This was really a spur of the moment type of thing. I am thinking about making a charity site that helps a different cause out each year. Perhaps have some ads to raise revenue. All of this would be non-profit of course. Anyone familiar with any of this? I was told it would extremely hard to be successful. I would to raise at least $10,000 for a cause. I'm still debating what cause I would support. The biggest problem is I have a very small budget, barely any money at all for this. Tuition is raping me right now. Anyone have any suggestions about forming a site, design, and so on? Thanks guys.

J4320

22-02-2008 19:15:15

Mmmmm "charity" eh? Riiiiiiiiiiight. lol

Twon

22-02-2008 19:17:21

[quote1874cedb2e="J4320"]Mmmmm "charity" eh? Riiiiiiiiiiight. lol[/quote1874cedb2e]

not everyone is an A-hole like you... ;-)

J4320

22-02-2008 19:20:40

The bottom line is, it's going to be hard to prove you're legit - especially on startup.

theysayjump

22-02-2008 19:20:53

I'm currently in the process of starting my own site and with some very good help from hehehhehe it's pretty much up and running for nothing.

I got a years worth of hosting for free with LunarPages with a free domain and he helped me get Joomla! installed. It's a Content Management System (CMS) that's free and ridiculously powerful. There are tons of templates to make the site purty as well as almost 3,000 extensions to expand the usability of Joomla! I knew absolutely nothing about CMSs until hehehhehe told me about them but Joomla! isn't too difficult to learn. I'm still learning but I'd definitely recommend it.

But please don't start PMing hehehhehe for help or asking him questions.

http//joomla.org/[]http//joomla.org/

DRay9911

22-02-2008 19:29:58

thehumanfund.com

http//www.msgr.ca/msgr-2/festivus%20human%20fund%20resized%2003.jpg[" alt=""/imgb062cfe7f3]

-dan

Powerbook

22-02-2008 19:35:59

[quote854afc31ea="theysayjump"]I'm currently in the process of starting my own site and with some very good help from hehehhehe it's pretty much up and running for nothing.

I got a years worth of hosting for free with LunarPages with a free domain and he helped me get Joomla! installed. It's a Content Management System (CMS) that's free and ridiculously powerful. There are tons of templates to make the site purty as well as almost 3,000 extensions to expand the usability of Joomla! I knew absolutely nothing about CMSs until hehehhehe told me about them but Joomla! isn't too difficult to learn. I'm still learning but I'd definitely recommend it.

But please don't start PMing hehehhehe for help or asking him questions.

http//joomla.org/[]http//joomla.org/[/quote854afc31ea]




TOO late! j/k hmm that looks interesting indeed. How the hell do I prove that I am legit(

hehehhehe

22-02-2008 20:14:32

http//www.improvetheweb.com/charity-web-sites-creating-optimizing-promoting[]http//www.improvetheweb.com/charity-web-sites-creating-optimizing-promoting

Googling goes a long way on this stuff, as there are many resources specific to charity/non-profit websites.

I think you might have a hard time raising $10k unless you know a bunch of people that will help you out. If you think you'll get money from strangers, think about all of the competition you have out there, and as of now you don't even know what you're raising money for (not that I don't appreciate the thought).

I also don't think you'll get $10k just by sitting on your ass and making a website. If the site looks sketchy, most people will write it off a scam and not give you anything so if you're serious, you should try to make the use of infrastructure that's already out there. Maybe find a cause first, and then see what kind of resources are out there to help you raise money for them. e.g. Have a site dedicated to breast cancer and have links on your site to enable them to donate to the American Cancer Society or similar.

I certainly would not donate to some guy who creates a site and takes paypal, saying it's for charity (not saying that's what you were going to do). Have you also looked into exactly what will be required of you to run some kind of charity? You'd have to take care of sending tax receipts for the tax deductible donations and probably learn how to declare the income for the non-profit and so on. Have you thought this through?

I've seen people raise $3-4k for various causes pretty quickly doing marathons and triathlons with 'team in training.' They (as in various charities, not team in training) have smaller runs (5k) for charity all the time, why don't you try those? Make a site outlining your efforts every year for a different cause or something like that. If you know enough people, you might be able to raise at least a couple of thousand every year.

And yeah, don't PM me lol, you'll have to find another website mentor.

Daggoth

22-02-2008 21:05:31

You're going to need to convince people to give to your charity instead of other ones. How do you plan on doing that?

Twon

22-02-2008 21:22:09

You almost need to come up with a full business plan...

Powerbook

22-02-2008 22:45:00

[quote9c299951fa="hehehhehe"]http//www.improvetheweb.com/charity-web-sites-creating-optimizing-promoting[]http//www.improvetheweb.com/charity-web-sites-creating-optimizing-promoting

Googling goes a long way on this stuff, as there are many resources specific to charity/non-profit websites.

I think you might have a hard time raising $10k unless you know a bunch of people that will help you out. If you think you'll get money from strangers, think about all of the competition you have out there, and as of now you don't even know what you're raising money for (not that I don't appreciate the thought).

I also don't think you'll get $10k just by sitting on your ass and making a website. If the site looks sketchy, most people will write it off a scam and not give you anything so if you're serious, you should try to make the use of infrastructure that's already out there. Maybe find a cause first, and then see what kind of resources are out there to help you raise money for them. e.g. Have a site dedicated to breast cancer and have links on your site to enable them to donate to the American Cancer Society or similar.

I certainly would not donate to some guy who creates a site and takes paypal, saying it's for charity (not saying that's what you were going to do). Have you also looked into exactly what will be required of you to run some kind of charity? You'd have to take care of sending tax receipts for the tax deductible donations and probably learn how to declare the income for the non-profit and so on. Have you thought this through?

I've seen people raise $3-4k for various causes pretty quickly doing marathons and triathlons with 'team in training.' They (as in various charities, not team in training) have smaller runs (5k) for charity all the time, why don't you try those? Make a site outlining your efforts every year for a different cause or something like that. If you know enough people, you might be able to raise at least a couple of thousand every year.

And yeah, don't PM me lol, you'll have to find another website mentor.[/quote9c299951fa]

Don't worry, I wasn't planning on PMing you. I know it will be tough. Yes, I know about the taxes involved with it. The part that I am having trouble with is finding a way to make the site and such. I think using the internet is a good means of reaching out to many people, that's why I want to make a website to go along with what I'm doing. As for getting people to donate to mine instead of others, I would not know that right now since I did not start making concrete plans yet. That's something to think about when you are fully ready to start the project. I'm at what you call the brainstorm stage. I just bought a good domain that can be used for various things. I didn't anything else yet. Thanks for the advice guys.

KnightTrader

22-02-2008 23:49:22

I prefer Wordpress over Joomla for CMS. Joomla has more bells and whistles, but Wordpress is much simpler and easier to customize in my opinion. Both are great CMSs though.