MNHQ calling: Giving Week (our recent match-funding drive) - your thoughts please!

[KateHMumsnet]

Afternoon folks,

As you may remember, back in June we hosted our first ever Mumsnet Giving Week to shine a light on some brilliant causes nominated by Mumsnetters. Thanks to you, we were able to raise £11,302.43, which when we matched, rose to a whopping £22,604.86!

Woolly Hugs, Women’s Aid, Haven House, the PDA Society and Free Cakes for Kids are all overcome with warm-fuzzy feelings, as are we. This will make such a difference to all the people out there supported by these incredible charities and causes, and we hope will have a really positive impact on what they can achieve this year, so hats off to all of you!

We’ll be back with an update from the charities later in the year, so that you can hear firsthand from them about how your donations have made a difference. But in the meantime, we wanted to to ask you what you thought of our first ever Giving Week.

What do you think worked well, and what didn’t?
What compelled you to give, if you donated?
If you didn’t get involved in nominating or donating, was there anything in particular that stopped you?
What would you like to see as part of future giving weeks?

Giving back to the organisations who support Mumsnetters is important to us, and we’d like to make this a more regular feature so all feedback very welcome.

MNHQ

Yes, we all know what Woolly Hugs do now and how much they are appreciated. How about ignoring higgle and answering OP?

Oh I am so sorry for answering a point raised on this thread, Cate. I shall go away and flagellate myself whilst repeating "Cate is in charge of the MN Giving thread" a hundred times.

The problem Cate is that Iggle has upset so many folk who either contribute or have been recipients by dismissing WH. As long as new people keep reading this thread, of course it will keep flaring up.

To be fair though, there have been lots of interesting comments re the OP, looking forward to MNHQ coming back on the points.

And actually, CateBlanket (an unfortunate choice of name, seeing as you clearly don't want us to talk about them any more ), lots of us have actually bothered to answer the OP.

Or do you just not like to read about the good work of one of MN's charitable causes?

I didn't know that

I didn't know that only charities raising more than £5000 could register for gift aid. I donated to WA as I see it recommended a lot here and also it was gift aid registered.

I rarely come back on MN due to the often unbridled nastiness on threads such as these, and the way some people just spout ignorance and bile without looking into the facts. Higgle (for one eg) has really niggled at me, and her unrelenting inability to learn and understand more about WH has shocked me enough to pop by.

It all makes for a nasty taste in the mouth really....so many more vocalised bullies really, wading in where they ought not to tread, through ignorance and plain old petty mindedness.

I have to say, I hope Higgle's mother would be ashamed that Higgle has such a poor view of the elderly, and of raising a daughter who spouts such ignorant bile.

I admit I had a poor view of blankets previously due to being draped in them from an early age by MY mother, but that was (I am sure) mixed in with my feelings towards my mother. What Woolly Hugs do is a whole other level, and they are simply filled with so much love I don;t GET how they can't be adored on sight, and how anyone can belittle them so vehemently. Besides, does she REALLY think they would have got so far if they weren't truly HUGS??

In my head, for any charity to take hold in people hearts, people have to care and have compassion and empathy. She clearly lacks those emotions which is why she comes across as she does, and I feel sorry for her. She must live a very sad life.

It is like that age old saying.....'You can take a horse to water, but you can;t make it drink'......she is like that, and she will never understand and absorb the whole ethos behind it all, nor the wonderful women who make it possible. And that goes for all the charities......we might find some of the pointless, but they are no less worthy.

As for the OP.....I wasn;t actually on MN during the giving week, but I did know about it.

I didn;t contribute as that particular week I was lacking decent funds.....I do however contribute when I can and when Woolly Hugs puts a shout out for yet another family needing some Hugs (sadly too often ).

I make a monthly DD to two other charities of my choice anyway, so I feel I help the ones close to my heart..

In the main, I do think choosing a different week might well have made more difference, altho quite when I don;t know..

However, I do think this was a FABULOUS idea and one I hope is repeated.

Cate - Unfortunately, that's typical of the criticisms mean-minded people raise against all organised charities to justify their refusal to give.

If Women's Aid half-funds the helpline with Refuge, this doesn't devalue any contribution to that half. Tight people say "they only fund half", as if the helpline would be just the same without that half. It wouldn't, it's only be half as good! How many times is the Women's Aid website quoted on here? That takes funding. Women's Aid lobbies parliament successfully and mounts campaigns.

Similarly, "the federation doesn't directly fund refuges". It depends entirely on your definition of 'directly'. Without Women's Aid, women wouldn't be able to find a refuge place, wouldn't be able to access the many support services & fast-tracks made available to them while there, and refuges wouldn't have access to government funding or even be able to let women in need know they exist ... and so on.

Miserable people like to act as though a national charity's somehow corrupt because it is national. Which is bollocks, naturally

There's a mountain of detailed information on the Women's Aid website if anybody wants to check.

This thread look like it might have gone a bit odd but can't quite dedicate the time to read it all and be sure.

Did want to reply to the original post though, mainly to say I didn't know anything about it until I read this post! I'm not always in the active threads and most my MNing is on the phone, not computer. Maybe there's some awareness to do there and more work with the app to promote these things.

Also, wondered if there would've any legs to make this kind of fundraising something MN local can do together as well as individual donations. Members from regional areas, hold a small event and raise a bit? Like coffee mornings/cake sales/whatever! Then it's fun, social and charitable! But obviously not that easy...

I rather like that last idea - as an important part of any charity drive, perhaps? (Which might also have spin-off benefits for local Musmnetters themselves.)

I think getting local MN sites involved is a great idea.

I agree. At the risk of incurring CateBlanket's ire again, the Glasgow Woolly Huggers do get together from time to time, and we could definitely make one of those meet-ups a fundraiser of some sort.

That reminds me......

Yes - you could make the week known well in advance and, perhaps, rather than extending it, have a lead up to it with all the central and local MNetters involved. Possibly involving local representatives of charities also.

Not only might that generate the sort of advance publicity that people have been asking for but it could provide a potential short term and long term assist for local Muumsnetters who might be feeling isolated for some reason.

Loads of other possibilities as well - but I'm afraid I've not thought this through fully.

Yay, it does have legs!

And it could activate the local groups themselves, some of the less active ones but with active individuals from those areas.

In some places you could combine local groups that are next door to each other if there was the drive - get neighbouring MNetters to work together.

Here's a Woolly Thug I made today inspired by Cate. He'll be sent off to be part of the WH auction for Mia's Wood (in memory of an MNer's daughter) in September :)

And I love the idea of local fundraising events!

Well done, Dulcet, you've managed to turn this thread into something more constructive. Hope it flies.

PurplePidjin - though I can't take credit for it - it was a typo someone else made on another thread!

I have knitted a whole square today driven on by an up yours frame of mind. Pistey can expect a massive parcel.

What do you think worked well, and what didn’t?
I loved the original idea and contributed to the nominations thread. Most big charity appeals linked to an organisation with a brand are so controlled and MN is usually pretty PR-savvy these days. This felt like the old MN, a touch amateur in the best way, very open, just a thread saying 'tell us about any project locally, we'll look at anything'.

The first slight disappointment was that almost no local projects were nominated - it was mostly established charities (including the one I nominated!) The nomination thread wasn't open for that long (I was shocked it was so short tbh) and to find out about the right sort of project would take a lot of time.

Then the five charities were chosen. Well, I was slightly taken aback at some, but all made sense in a way; however, I was disappointed there were 5. The chance to make a real difference to a single project seemed to be gone, we were just donating. There wasn't going to be a tangible change in anything, it was another charity drive. This was a daft thing to feel, but it was my first reaction.

What compelled you to give, if you donated?
The fact that other donations were so thin on the ground. I did mean to donate, but hadn't realised the week had started (I think it needed a longer buildup). Then I was genuinely shocked to see how low the donations were. I felt the PDA had partly hit its target first because it named a specific project to fund (that 'tangible change' thing again).

What would you like to see as part of future giving weeks?
I think if you're going to do it, it needs to be bigger, or smaller. Either you draw up a shortlist of local charities, a national theme that has local expression (every children's hospice in the country, for example), actual local physical projects, which would need some research, or small charities, and then get us to vote on the shortlist; or you pick a small charity as the MN Charity of the Year, get them to make a project the MN project, and work on raising money through the year. This all sounds a bit vague - you can tell I don't work in any related field but I do know that there's a reason why the big charities raise such enormous amounts - this is a very tricky and skilled thing to get right. Race for Life etc don't become vast national brands of their own because someone thinks 'oh this is a good idea'.

Please don't be offended if I say that I still rather loved the amateur feel of Giving Week; that £22K is a damn fine amount of money to raise; and that I enjoyed learning more about all the charities involved.

Using the local MN pages as part of Giving Week is inspired!
I've tried to organize local meet ups in the past but no-one turned up. I think a Giving Week Coffee Morning or picnic or whatever would be a great way to engage local MNers.

It is a distinctive hallmark of MN that when someone disagrees with a widely held view they are hounded into acceptance, and ridiculed if tehy do not agree. It is clear from comments about my "mother" who is very much alive and who has her own views about style that my comments were not read. My deceased aunt was the blanket victim.

I did see my mother this afternoon, and she is very proud of my role with the community charity for older poele that I work with and the personalised support the other charity I am chair of offers anyone over 55 who qualifies. i have diligently studiend the web page, the bits on MN and the facebook page and I'm still of the same opinion. The very sensible points Ihave made about chairties and qualys have gone uncommented on.