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

[Nerf]

I don't know, I feel like mumsnetters see themselves as a community so things like the Xmas Santa thread are nice because it's about us and the members, and woolly hugs feels personal to mumsnet - selecting charities to donate to is a bit random maybe.
How about mumsnet has a charity of the year and we all donate if we want to in return for a little pin saying mumsnet 2014 or something? People are always looking for a secret sign so that would meet that need.

[TheFairyCaravan]

I was a bit at first and then thought about it and gave, despite having direct debits set up to charities that we might need in the future, or ones who have helped us in the past. I think, maybe, next year it might be better to be "giving month" because a week is a short window and not everyone has a spare few quid every week, or they might miss it.

WRT the charities chosen, I think it is a good thing that some of it went to charities like the birthday cake one. I'd never heard of it, when I spoke to my DC about what having a birthday cake meant to them when they were small it really pulled at my heart strings to think lots of children are going without this, hence I donated to it.

More mainstream charities fund raise all the time. I am very glad smaller ones got a look in for a change.

[wyrdyBird]

I thought it was a great idea.

Some choice of charity is good, because there will always be someone who doesn't like your favourite cause/organisation, for one reason or another.

I was planning on donating to one of them anyway, so knowing that MN would double it was an incentive. I like the target- reaching aspect of it: it's artificial, but you can't help wanting to see if you're any closer to reaching the target :)

What might help things along even more next time:

• a little more publicity - guest posts, perhaps
  

• daily updates in one place. How much raised so far? Anything newsworthy the charities concerned would like to share? Can they share the occasional story about how their work makes a difference, on here?
  

• make it longer, say, a month
  

• choose fewer good causes
  

Someone did do a reminder thread, and hats off to them, because I really think it helped. So that's something to consider for next time.

All in all I think it was a very good idea, and hope it is repeated successfully next year.

[ouryve]

I thought it was a good idea. I gave because I knew there would be matched funding for the charities I wanted to support, which made it feel a little more worthwhile than usual.

Unlike some other, I didn't feel that it twisted my arm to give, though. Had I not supported the aims of any of the charities, I might not have been as tempted to donate this time.

[ouryve]

And quint - PDA often is the beginnings of mental health issues for children. It's an autism spectrum disorder in which challenging behaviour is usually an expression of anxiety. DCs expressing challenging behaviour happens to be a biggie for quite a lot of MNers. The PDA society were raising money to provide training sessions for parents in how to deal with these issues. Pretty important, I think.

[QuintessentiallyQS]

Yes, another good cause - I am sure many mumsnetters have a special cause near their heart, and all major ones should perhaps be included in the selection.

[springbabydays]

Reasons I didn't give: just returned to work part time so my own funds are low. I also missed the reminder thread, and I agree a week is maybe too short. A month allows people to manage their finances better.

It was a great idea! A few grumps on here I have to say. So it's a forum, it doesn't mean it can't do other things too - it campaigns as well but does anyone complain about that?

Suggestions for the future: more publicity! Not annoying banners but maybe different coloured thread titles? Really drive home the match funding aspect. Some people may not have realised their donations would be doubled by MN. Also agree some sort of voting system to really get MN'ers on board. The suggestions thread was an interesting read and educated me to a lot of new charities. Keep with the small charity theme too.

Don't be downbeat about the amount raised guys. It was your first try, and 22k is an amazing total to distribute amongst those charities. Well done!

[hatchypomagain]

I think a proper pitch from the charities would have been great - that way people can understand exactly where the money will go, rather than into a general pot.

[AllotmentQueen]

I think you're getting some very odd criticisms MNHQ!

Loads of companies encourage charitable giving nowadays and I think MN being involved in this too is a good thing.

I have my own "pet" charities, as I'm sure most people do, but didn't feel guilty or pressured to give to this so no harm done I don't think.

Some people could take offence in an empty room!

I like the idea of voting for the charities, but then the smaller ones may get overlooked as the big names are more recognisable?

[Baddderz]

I applaud the sentiment but agree with pp.
Not long enough time window to donate
Also it would be a good idea to time it for payday/end of month!
Also I think there needs to be more transparency on how the charities were chosen...what % of votes they got etc.
Hope MNHQ do another one...maybe near xmas?

[wantacatplease]

I loved the cake charity! Why was it criticised?

I have to be honest though, Giving Week came and went and I just completely forgot.

[mrscog]

I think the problem with voting for charities would be that the smaller ones just wouldn't generate enough votes to get in. I liked the fact that some of the charities were tiny (such as the PDA charity). I think you could have an online vote for 1-2 larger charities, and then I'd be happy for MNHQ to sift through nominations for smaller charities which are doing excellent work in local communities.

[BettyBolognese]

Do you really think it's odd - I thought it was a good thing? I wanted MN to contribute to something good (as a company), give something back etc - this seemed a good way of doing it - raising awareness of good causes, contributing to something close to MNetters' hearts etc

I see your point MN... But ultimately it was 5 very specific charities and I did not want to donate to them as others are a bit more personal to me. The cakes one annoyed me, I will admit, because the money wasn't to make cakes, the money was to fund a meeting so people could get together to discuss how to make the cakes and expand the charity.

[MrsHathaway]

I agree with pps that you simply didn't publicise it enough. It was possible to completely overlook it.

I have some additional thoughts I'd rather share off the board. Justine could you possibly suggest the right email address to do so? I have some experience in this area.

[AnimalsAreMyFriends]

I think Woolly Hugs deserve every penny. I am often saddened by the fact that I am perpetually skint and can not dig deep for every good cause.

However, I can crochet - so the lovely Woolly Hugs ladies send out wool & I & other volunteers crochet or knit it into squares / panels for projects.

These projects are for bereaved parents / children, poorly children, deprived children and many others.

Through them I can do my bit.

Anyone who is unsure that Woolly Hugs is not a 'real' charity should look at their FB page - in particular the photos of the Children of Chernobyl who each received a blanket on their recent visit to the UK - the looks on their faces tells just how much those blankets meant to them and I for one will defend Woolly Hugs to the last.

[Ragwort]

Can I put in a vote for doing a Christmas appeal instead of the 'Secret Santa' - although that might not be popular

[PorridgeParty]

I stand with animals. Woolly hugs are amazing and deserve every penny. I gave to three of the charities and the others I didn't.

I think there is some odd criticism on here, well done mnhq, I thought it was fab and as a previous poster stated £22k is awesome v

[PittTheYounger]

Yup. Ragwort and I agree

[BettyBolognese]

Ragwort has a point... Maybe have it at Christmas instead of the awful MN appeal secret Santa thing. Maybe have more charities so there will be more choice for people. Publicise it well. And if you're going to have a vote for which charities to support publicise that well as well.

Maybe have an ebay style auction thing where MNers could maybe donate an item they've made (there's some very talented MNers about).

Engage MNers more! We can all and do all donate on websites for events our family and friends are being sponsored for. Donating to 5 charities MN has chosen in the same vain doesn't have the personal touch IYSWIM?

[cozietoesie]

I think it was an excellent and heart-warming idea but the publicity given to it and the timescale allocated didn't match up to the original thought. There were so many people who came on to threads towards the end of the week who hadn't really clocked it; and a week is a pretty short timescale for many people. (There must be a good few who only come onto MN at the weekend for instance.)

Still - first time around and maybe some lessons, as always, to be learned? This thread may give you all some ideas for any future campaign.

[ICanSeeTheSun]

I didn't donate because I donate to a friends charity.

[gordyslovesheep]

I didn't donate because I didn't know about it! It didn't seem well advertised on the site or by email

I do agree the charities were a bit odd ! I would donate to charities that I know a bit more about - and I do donate already off site

[tiredandsadmum]

Hi, I really liked the idea that it was 5 good causes supported by mumsnetters, that were not necessarily charities. I read the initial post and then came back to it later. A week sounds a focussed timeslot but actually flies past very quickly. In june many families will have other pressures, exams, end of term etc.

I would have happily given to a number of charities but chose PDA as that resonates very closely with my family. I have Woolly Hugs on my next list and hope to support them via the sept auction. The matching element was an incentive (as my old financial services firms used to match).

I thought your partner - cant remember the name - where only whole projects would be funded - seemed a really good idea.

The charity that was not of interest to me was the cake one and I realised that I didn't know how the charities had been chosen.

[OvertiredandConfused]

I work for a charity and I visit mumsnet most days but this genuinely passed me by. I guess I have links direct the the parts of the site I visit and so didn't see it.

I'm surprised it didn't register with me as that's my job and I would've dug deeper to see how we could get involved next time