This is the first year that The Arc of Volusia has partnered with Firstgiving for online fundraising for the Buddy Walk. Simply put, it is the most efficient, cost-effective way for us to raise funds for this event. Many organizations have seen a substantial increase in donations and in new donors (those we would not have reached by traditional fundraising measures) from the years of simply collecting pledges.

Go to www.firstgiving.com/arcvolusia to create your own fundraising page or to sponsor a friend, relative or co-worker's personal fundraising page by making an online donation! Below are some important points about on-line, personal fundraising pages and Firstgiving. We hope you find this information useful in your fundraising efforts.

What are the benefits to The Arc of Volusia?

More gifts & larger gifts. Using a personal fundraising page can help you get more donations and larger average gifts so it’s an effective way to help The Arc of Volusia improve the lives of individuals with Down syndrome.

Funds raised are received quickly and efficiently and added to The Arc of Volusia's bank account automatically.

Simple to administer. Online donations from personal fundraising pages are far easier to collect and process than off line donations. This helps to keep the effort and costs low.

FAQs

What is Firstgiving? Firstgiving is a private company that has been bringing the benefits of new technology to charitable fundraising for over four years. They are focused on making fundraisers more effective while helping charities reduce fundraising costs and efforts to raise more money. They do this by providing powerful tools and support services. Most recently they helped over 3,000 runners of the London Marathon raise more than $2 million dollars for charity using their tools. Firstgiving has offices in London, England and outside of Boston, Massachusetts.  

What is the advantage to using a personal fundraising page? Raising funds with your personal fundraising page helps you reach more people more easily and enables them to donate more easily from anywhere in the world using a credit card. This helps you get more donations with less work. The donations are automatically processed for The Arc of Volusia and are deposited in our bank account electronically. This saves you the effort of collecting checks manually and gets the funds to us quickly and efficiently. Additionally, thank you notes and tax acknowledgements are sent to each donor automatically via email. This saves you and The Arc of Volusia the effort and cost of doing this manually. The pages are also a very personal and fun way to connect with your friends, family and colleagues to tell them about your efforts and it can serve as a hub for your supporters to monitor your efforts online.

Does this service cost anything? Setting up the page is free and there are never any costs to you, the fundraiser. Firstgiving takes a small percentage of each donation as agreed to by The Arc of Volusia in addition to standard credit card processing fees. The costs of this service are geared to fall inside the cost guidelines for charities. The service helps us efficiently raise more money with less effort. Any credit card transaction costs The Arc of Volusia a processing fee. The small percentage Firstgiving receives is actually less than the cost of us manually processing each paper (check) donation ourselves.

How long does it take to set up a page? Setting up a page is simple, requires no technical skills and typically takes less than five minutes.  

Can I change my page? Absolutely, your Account will enable you to personalize and update your page quickly and simply.

Is this a secure service? Yes. All transactions and data are captured and stored in a secure environment. Firstgiving uses industry standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption certificates from VeriSign, the leading provider of digital trust services.

Can I also take off-line donations? Definitely! Your personal page is intended to be one part of your fundraising approach versus your entire fundraising approach. You can still solicit donations via mail, phone or in person (Hint: Grandma would love to check out your page but still wants the phone call!). We even provide an area on your page for you to record your offline donations and add them to your total.

Can people donate anonymously? Yes. Individuals can donate anonymously and their name will appear on your fundraising page as 'Anonymous'. Please note: their identity will still be passed on to you and to The Arc of Volusia.