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]

Yes that's why I added 'doing a nice thing' - ie not restricted to poor people or people having a shit time. But the last two aren't mutually exclusive and pp seemed to be saying only poor people should benefit.

[MollyHooper]

The Christmas Appeal lets people nominate members to receive a nice gift.

People usually nominate those who have been going through a tough time financially or emotionally or sometimes just because someone has been a nice/kind/funny poster.

After the nominations, people sign up and volunteer to donate gifts. Toys, vouchers, treats etc... MNHQ then match nominees to those who have donated and we send off the gifts to the address given.

We are all given different names by HQ so it's all anonymous and there is a 'Thank You' thread started for everyone say thanks, check people received their gifts and have a laugh.

There are always a few people who are unhappy that they haven't been nominated but that's the norm for things like this. It is in no way a popularity contest, it's actually really lovely and I would hate to see it stop.

[springbabydays]

Thanks for explaining Molly

[BettyBolognese]

noteaforme
The link doesn't really show why people objected to the cakes charity.

The objections were because of...

HOW WILL THE MONEY BE SPENT?

The annual Network Day is a chance for coordinators to share information on how to successfully run their groups. Each Network Day costs £1000 to run. We want to revamp our website, to include information for families requesting cakes, partner organisations and volunteers. This would include an online area with resources and training materials for group coordinators and their volunteers and an online forum for groups to discuss any questions or points of interest. This will cost £3000.

People didn't like the idea of supporting a meeting and a website. People were happy about the cakes aspect to a certain extent.

[Nerf]

I think the cake one brought out the same feelings some people have about free breakfast clubs maybe. There's often posts on here saying people should manage their budgets and prioritise breakfast - I suspect lots of people might feel the same way about a cake, especially as you can get really cheap cakes in supermarkets?

[AnneEyhtMeyer]

It wasn't about the cake, Nerf, it was about them wanting to spend the money on a meeting and a website.

[MollyHooper]

I don't know why people got so annoyed with the whole networking day stuff. From what I read on the thread at the time, networking days are really important for charities to run properly and the website is an essential part of how things work

Going by peoples reactions you would think they were going to use the money raised to buy booze and make gift bags. :o

It was a silly reaction to something perfectly reasonable.

[ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy]

Agree, Molly.

[Nerf]

Agree about the day. Don't have an issue with that at all as part of developing the charity. I just remember some of the comments about the cake giving.

[parakeet]

But WHY?

Why is it up to MN, a private company, to pressure private individuals into donating money to various random charities?

MN is not my mum, or my vicar, or teacher, that it can lecture me about my moral duty to give away my income?

If the owners of MN wish to give away some of their own income that is of course up to them. But please keep your beak out of how I spend my own money.

[ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy]

Mn pressured no one.

Some posters gently exhorted others to give.

[CateBlanket]

I didn't take part because I don't need MNHQ to suggest random charities I should donate to. If they want to donate £25,000 of their income, they could ask MNetters to vote for, say, 5 charities and then HQ could give them £5k each.

[acsec]

I didn't donate, but I have become a volunteer for Free Cakes for kids and have already made a couple of cakes for them. It's a lovely charity and I'm glad MN drew my attention to it.

[MollyHooper]

You were pressured parakeet?

How?

[BIWI]

"I didn't take part because I don't need MNHQ to suggest random charities I should donate to. If they want to donate £25,000 of their income, they could ask MNetters to vote for, say, 5 charities and then HQ could give them £5k each."

MNHQ didn't suggest random charities. They asked MNetters to nominate charities that we would like to support.

Then they said that they would match every £ that we donated. In the end, they donated over £11K of their money.

They don't have to do this. We don't have to donate.

But isn't it a lovely thing that they offered to do this? £11K is a significant amount for them to donate. Why the bloody hell are people so mealy mouthed and mean about this?

[CateBlanket]

BIWI - will you stop being so rude. I know exactly what happened and am giving them a response to the question posed in their OP "If you didn’t get involved in nominating or donating, was there anything in particular that stopped you?"

MN asked for nominations and then selected 5 charities/causes i.e. random charities to me as they're not ones I've donated to before. I didn't donate this time because, like a lot of MNetters, I have direct debits to the causes I feel passionate about.

It was generous of MNHQ to offer to match donations but Justine has said she was disappointed - she wanted to give £25,000 of her profits away and I am suggesting how they can do that. Thus answering their question "What would you like to see as part of future giving weeks?"

It's called giving feedback, BIWI, which is what this thread is for.

[ghostisonthecanvas]

Congratulations. Thats a fantastic amount of money. I don't come on MN so much any more so missed an opportunity to nominate AHAR, an animal rescue centre I came across after the wonderful 'Today I found a dog' thread. It will always be associated with MN in my mind. My children followed that thread and are enthusiastic supporters of the charity and have learned so much about caring and helping. Maybe I missed an email about this fundraiser? If there wasn't one, might there be if you do another fundraiser? I would like to nominate and donate next time.

[BIWI]

I wasn't being rude to you CateBlanket - I was pointing out the error in your post.

Which is important because it's obvious lots of MNetters didn't know about the Giving Week and have got it wrong, and MNHQ's intentions wrong.

[Ragwort]

Of course no one was being 'pressurised' into giving or not - it's a bit like all those threads where people say they are pressurised into buying end of term presents for teachers or expensive gifts for their children. You can say you feel 'pressurised' rather than admitting you have no back bone to just say 'no'.

[Heebiejeebie]

I'm on here a lot and didn't particularly notice what was going on until I was amazed by how little had been donated at the final reminder. I never go to front page, though. Blue peter style running total on chat and AIBU?

[goshhhhhh]

I didn't contribute & I didn't feel guilted into it. However, The reasons I didn't contribute is - I already do a monthly direct debit & where I live (poorly funded - lowest funded educationally - but not affluent part of the country) the school, church, sports club, & scouts / guides are all fund raising at the same time. Definitely giving fatigue around here.

[EveDallasRetd]

Agree that a month would be better, and it needs more advertising. I didn't donate until the reminder thread, but I am glad I did.

I think it was a great idea. I have a regular donation set aside for a couple of charities of my choice, but it didn't hurt me to do something extra that week. I donated to two charities that, although I knew about them, didn't really cross my radar. Seeing other MNers donating and giving their reasons why gave me a 'real' reason to do so. It makes me feel more a part of the MN 'community' and I like that feeling.

One thing I did completely miss though was the thread asking for suggestions for the charities? How well publicised was that? Would people feel more likely to donate if they had more input into the decision?

The bitching about the Secret Santa is very sad. I thought we'd moved on from that. I was nominated last year. I felt embarassed, undeserving and touched all that the same time. That was then ruined by people moaning, bitching and complaining all over the shop. I threw my teddy in the corner last year and very nearly deregged over it. I took a break instead and was able to distance myself from all the shit. It spoiled what was a lovely and humbling gesture.

[CateBlanket]

There was no error in my post, BIWI, but you can carry on being the Only Person Who Understands Things Properly ...

If MNHQ ask for suggestions they will receive nominations from people for causes close to their hearts. HQ chose some of them but clearly they didn't resonate with majority of MNetters - hence the low number of donors. So I'm suggesting that if Justine wants to donate £25,000 of her profits (which I agree is very generous) then she puts it to the vote and then distributes it accordingly. As MNetters are unlikely to vote for my nominations which would be anti-vivisection, local animal rescue and the hospice that cared for my darling cousin then I'll just carry on quietly supporting them in terms of money and hands on help.

I agree with others, there was no pressure (other than time) and perhaps it could have been publicised better.