Charities use Mobile Technology to Boost Donations

It seems at the moment that all roads point to mobile for charities, but not all charities have updated their websites to capitalize on this fact.

Charity website Justgiving.com has announced that it has seen a 26% rise in donations due to a surge in mobile donations.

Justgiving.com partnered with Vodafone almost two years ago to release the JustTextGiving service, simplifying donations by giving charities their own text code to allow people to donate via a quick message.

Virgin Money Giving has also just launched a mobile website to enable fundraisers to invite their contacts to support them with a donation via a mobile device.

They recently completed a survey and found 80% of charities said digital technology is the key to increasing future income, though 86% of charities don’t believe they’re making the most of digital and online fundraising, while 76% of charities don’t have a mobile site.

Relaunching your site on a responsive platform is the recommended route for mobile since it enables the website to automatically re-size to the device screen. It also avoids any problems caused by duplicate content, which is an issue for search engine optimization.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

The Benefits of Charity Walks When the Weather is Colder

Taking a walk in the colder months is a fairly popular pastime – particularly around Christmas and the New Year. In our family it’s a tradition to go for a walk on New Year’s Day, as a bracing and sobering way to counter the festive overindulgence and reflect on the year ahead. Except that we normally go for a meal afterwards, thus undoing the calorie burning! On a fine day though, with cold but sunny weather, this is the perfect way to mark the year just passed and prepare for the year ahead.

Reaching Out to Street Children

As we tuck our children in for bed each evening, we can often feel a sense of peace and gratitude – and I am not just talking about the sense of relief that they have gone to sleep without too much protest that night! No – with our children warm and safe in their beds, we know that they are out of harm’s way and somewhere we can protect them.

Sadly, for millions of children around the world, this idyllic part of family life is not something they get to be a part of.Street children have to fend for themselves, often taking dangerous work to survive or scavenging for food in unsafe places. Without the help of charity, the only family they have is often the other the children they find out there. Even children who are fortunate enough to have their parents are pressed into working on the streets, because their families are not able to provide for them.

Child Workers in Pakistan

In the Service of Others

Serving others through charity has many benefits for the individual. If you dedicate your life and works to charity, you are giving your life a different meaning. Giving to charity can help mental fitness because of the feeling of well-being and sense of purpose it can generate. This feeling of purpose helps to relieve stress and anxiety. When you engage in the service of others you not only give meaning to life, but, you also can extend it.

How to Serve

Serving comes in various ways and there is no one and true method of providing help.   Joining charitable causes is a great way to start serving people. You can either donate money or time to charitable causes. Always remember that doing good for others will definitely allow you to reap good things as well.

Christmas Fundraising Ideas for Charities

Christmas is a time when many charities find that people are more inclined to make donations. This is mainly because at this time of year, we realise that it’s important to share the joy with those less fortunate. Christmas is a time when you are reminded to be good, to show ‘goodwill to all men’. On top of this is the fact that there are so many ways to help others and raise money whilst also having fun. Whether you are looking for some festive fun or have been tasked with organising a fundraiser, here are some suggestions for you.

Safety Nets for Child Runaways

A child runs away from home or care every five minutes and, according to The Children’s Society, one in five young runaway have begged or stolen to survive. These stats are emotionally difficult to read. Children who have become so desperate for help that they escape from the care in their own homes is incredibly sad – what could cause a child to choose a life on the street?

Recent numbers indicate that 70,000 14- and 15-year-olds run away each year, and this figure has remained broadly static over the past decade. A shocking revelation from The Children Society’s study was that a large majority of them are living with families. The quality of the relationships within the family is far and away the most critical reason why children flee home.

How to Make the Most Out of Your Non-Profit Internship

If the thought of working at Wall Street or Main Street simply does not appeal to you, you might consider working at a non-profit. Non-profits, by definition, re-invest whatever they make in profit into the growth of their organization. Examples of non-profits include charities, foundations, social welfare, and religious organizations such as churches. Here are a few tips to help you land your perfect non-profit internship.

Live Below the Line – NZ$2.25 a Day

I took the challenge for quite a few reasons, all of which you need to remember when someone offers you a coffee in the morning or puts grapes in front of you saying they are only small they would be OK to eat on a budget. Temptations are all around and would be so easy to indulge, but the reasons are there and it is a challenge because it is a challenge!

I didn’t take the challenge lightheartedly; my main push was to have a greater understanding of hunger and poverty issues through experience. An encouraging sideline to this is: by participating in the challenge, it is me who experiences it but also everyone I speak to about it or read about it will have an experience with it too. Through experience people have a greater connection to something and I wanted to provide an opportunity for more people to gain understanding about the poverty line and the 1.4 billion people who live under it.

5 days at NZ$2.25 a day totals to NZ$11.25 – just a small sample of the mammoth amount of maths I had to do.

Here is my final shopping list:

My menu for the week, costing a grand total of $10.62.

Crisis in Sudan

Constructions in the desert which are synonymous with Sudanese Culture

South Sudan is the world’s newest country, but at just one year old, it has been through many challenges. In fact, there is a significant crisis in the area which continues to deteriorate.

There are lots of issues affecting the country, from the fact that half of the population are struggling to get enough to eat to lots of people fleeing the border with Sudan due to armed conflict. Added to this is the fact that prices have sky-rocketed, making it much harder for ordinary people to buy things such as fuel and food.

Many people in South Sudan are dependent on food aid for survival, which means the work of international charities is hugely important in the region. Compared with just one year ago, the number of people who require food aid has doubled. The country is also dealing with significant numbers of refugees coming over from South Sudan to the North, because they want to flee the fighting. Many people who have fled the North are currently living in camps.

Charities Working in Africa – Christian Starting Points

It goes without saying: Africa is a large and diverse continent. It is also a poor continent and faces a whole range of struggles, from political issues to health problems, poverty, famine and natural disasters. Tackling these sorts of issues is always challenging, but charities have been dedicatedly working in Africa for many decades.

There is a long history of charities working in specific African countries on many different issues. If we tried to list them all, we’d probably never finish. However, looking at a few examples can give us a better idea of the range of work that goes on and the kinds of organisations that get involved.  This article looks at the charities which all share the starting point of Christian foundations.