Innotribe, SWIFT’s initiative to foster collaborative innovation in financial services and a panel of industry experts selected 15 semi-finalists from hundreds of applications to enter the Challenge. Nadanu will pitch our solution to a panel of the financial industry’s leading angels, VC’s and decision makers.

Matteo Rizzi, Innovation Manager, Innotribe, says “I’m delighted to announce Nadanu as a semi-finalist. This year’s semi-finalists have assessed the developments and trends in the region and have identified opportunities in the market. The entrants have each demonstrated a forward-thinking and innovative approach to the financial sector and have developed start-up businesses which could have profound impacts on the future of the industry”.

For further information about the Innotribe Startup Challenge, please visit: innotribestartup.com or follow @innotribe on Twitter.

About Innotribe

Launched in 2009, Innotribe is SWIFT’s initiative to enable collaborative innovation in financial services.  Innotribe presents an energising mix of education, new perspectives, collaboration, facilitation and incubation to professionals and entrepreneurs who are willing to drive change within their industry. It fosters creative thinking in financial services, through debating the options (at Innotribe events) and supporting the creation of innovative new solutions (through the Incubator, Startup Challenge and Proof of Concepts (POCs). It is through this approach, the Innotribe team at SWIFT is able to generate a platform that enables innovation across SWIFT and the financial community. For more information, please visit www.innotribe.com.

About SWIFT

SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,000 financial institutions and corporations in 210 countries. SWIFT enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. SWIFT also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.
For more information, please refer to www.swift.com

Face it: Nonprofits often struggle to attract the funds they need. MyCharityBox is here to help. As giving becomes more and more digital, the customizable service provides a much-needed online platform for charities to fundraise and attract and keep donors.
Offering an affordable way to access donors across multiple platforms, MyCharityBox makes giving easy.

“It offers a full suite of features that not only allow the organizations to collect donations, but actually helps them raise awareness and build their brand,” Getzy Fellig, creator of MyCharityBox, said. “We put tools out there that will get donors in front of a screen (mobile or computer) to learn about your organization and have the opportunity to give. At the same time, what’s more important is nonprofits need to get something going period. They need to be online. They need to have ways for people to give to them electronically. So, frankly, I don’t care what you use, just use something!”

The platform already reaches more than 1,200 of the 1.5 million charities in the United States, counting among its clients prestigious nonprofits such as the Jewish National Fund, March of Dimes and Chabad.org.

The site is simple, accessible and easy to manage. Organizations can safely process and store data in a cloud system rather than buying costly hardware and software. Donors may charge their card through the system or the organization can charge it on the backend.

“Fundraising is never easy. The whole process is a challenge,” Fellig asserted. “The economy is currently the hardest hurdle to overcome. Yet it’s not the amount, it’s the gift. So people should just give whatever they can. And with MyCharityBox, donors can give when the inspiration arrives. They don’t have to find their check book, find a stamp and put the envelope in the mail. With our lives being as busy as they are, giving needs to be easily accessible, quick and simple. MyCharityBox does that.”

Online management tools make everything a whiz to monitor. The service is customized, creating drives that reflect a brand’s unique vibe. Funds are collected in the same manner as real life using a dynamic and interactive strategy.

The platform combines marketing and accounting functionality. Using the Constant Contact tool, the charity can send email marketing messages, and accounting tools track activity specific to the organization.

With a Jewish background, Fellig grew up with charity in his blood and a charity can in his home, office and synagogue. One year during Passover, he and his rabbi brother-in-law discussed how the charity box is dying out as giving moves online. Instead of the clink of a coin, it has become the click of a mouse as a credit card number is entered. This realization gave birth to the giving platform, which is designed to allow consumers to donate via smartphone or computer instead of sending a check.

“We bring life to giving. Our process is very interactive and engaging. We make giving fun! You don’t need to fill out some boring form to give, you can actually drop virtual coins into a can,” Fellig said.

MyCharityBox levels the playing field when it comes to accessible payment technology. A nonprofit of any size has similar opportunities, whether it is a behemoth organization pulling in $100 million a year or a fledgling start-up.

“Technology is accessible and out there for everyone who doesn’t have a huge budget, or a budget period, to access it,” Fellig maintained. “This may sound like a common theme of technology companies, but let’s face it, charities are the last on the list when it comes to what innovative companies are thinking about for problems to solve.”

Pricing is competitive, from free to $50, with reasonable transaction fees.

For more information, visit mycharitybox.com.

The new Plus Package will give your organization a suite of customized marketing tools to continue to attract new donors and supporters.

Go Mobile
In addition to all the Pro features listed below, Plus package subscribers will be able to get donations from mobile devices.

Custom Designed Graphics for your organization.
Banner ads, images for newsletters and print ready materials all available and all custom designed for your organization. Print a poster for the community room or send a graphically rich email for your donors and members.

Save Money, Now Featuring Lower Transactions Fees.
Our Plus Package includes a reduced transaction fee on ALL transactions posted to your Plus account, 2.79% + $0.15 flat per transaction, a considerable savings from the standard MyCharityBox pricing.

Online and Telephone Support 24/7

Go Plus or Upgrade to Plus Right Now!  Info –> mycharitybox.com/pricing

However, with that said I am going to focus in on what else this research shows. “89% of all donors heard about it on TV”. So that means that pretty much 9 out of 10 donors saw it on their TV’s. So if a nonprofit or cause has access to TV or other large means of communicating their cause and donation drive, they should be ok. The other side of that is what about all the other 1.7 million nonprofits that don’t have access to national Television? How can they achieve success with mobile fundraising? How can a small nonprofit effectively reach donors in the mobile space?

At MyCharityBox (www.mycharitybox.com) we have been able to learn and would like to share with you some very interesting facts.

Mobile giving can work but like anything else it needs some love and thought out planning to make it work. Here are a few tips that we think can help make the difference.

1. Mobile Donations come with NO guarantee.
If you are a small nonprofit or Synagogue or Church signing up for a Mobile Giving tool or Text Donation service doesn’t guarantee anything. In case you were sleeping on the fundraising job, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MAGIC PILL IN FUNDRAISING! Mobile Giving is a good idea for one simple reason, accessibility, nothing else. The bottom line is people use their mobile phones a lot. I don’t need to quote statistics just walk outside and take a look around you. Therefore there is a pretty good chance that one of your current or future donors probably have a cell phone and one of them will probably want to make a donation from that phone, so you better be ready to be there for them. Case in point, in December 2010 a donor donated $1,800 to a charity from our  MyCharityBox iPhone optimized application while having lunch with his partner. Why? He felt the moment of inspiration and was able to easily access a tool to give right on his phone. We have seen this over an over again with contributions reaching as highs $25,000 FROM A MOBILE PHONE!!!! The flip side of that are organizations that pull in less than $100 a month through the channel.

2. Make some noise.
Now that we have established that the tool itself is a necessity to ensure you can give your donors a way to give from their phone, lets move to step 2. Make sure your donors know about it. Seems simple enough but funny thing is a lot of organization completely miss this fact. Get a QR code so tech savvy folks can show off their cool new smartphone, put it on your mailings, make sure its plastered on your website and you may as well add it to your email signature. Like anything else in marketing, it takes multiple times to get a message across. I know you think every donor is sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for you to tell them about Mobile Giving, but they’re not.

3. Show the love
One of the worst parts of “traditional” (I know seems like an odd choice of words) mobile fundraising is the complete lack of donor love. There are some solutions that will allow the donor to give but not many that integrate donor love for post donation. Of course with donor love I mean tax receipts, future communications and overall donor cultivation. In fact some Text Donation services don’t supply you with the donors address and name. If you are going to use Mobile Giving be sure you can treat those donors with the same love you treat the rest of them, maybe even more after all they are squinting at a 2 inch screen to show you their love.

4. Don’t limit the options
This one really takes the cake. Mobile giving with pre-determined amounts or limits on the amount a donor to give. So in short, spend money on a system,  give it love, promote it, drive a donor to it, get them to pull out their wallet and then….tell them $10 is the max they can give or to make the experience “easier” offer them 4 predetermined dollar amount to choose from. One word, idiotic. If you are going to put int he work and your donor is going to join you in the mobile giving process, let them give what they want. Trust me getting a donor to decide to give on a mobile phone takes more brain power and energy then typing a dollar amount on a screen. Don’t decide what they want to give, they can do it themselves.

In short, Mobile Giving is great, Text Giving is great but there is no general process nor system that works for everyone. If you are the national level and have access to TV then your at one level. If you are a small to medium sized organization your in an entire other world. The good news is your world has mobile giving to, it just takes some reality checks and work.

About Getzy:
Getzy is the founder of Nadanu and CEO of MyCharityBox.com
He can be reached at Getzy@nadanu.com
@Getzy

With this short tutorial you will learn to:

- Customize your message
- Add your contacts
- Review the list of recipients and send the invitations.

Read the full article here.

If you have not done so yet, sign up today for your MyCharityBox account at mycharitybox.com

But some self-described hackers in Central Florida are coming together to do good instead of evil.

They call themselves “hacktivists.” Their event, “Coding for a Cause,” will select two local nonprofit organizations and develop websites and digital tools to help spread their message — a move aimed in part at boosting the charities’ donations in tough economic times.

“Sometimes ‘hacking’ gets misconstrued as being something bad,” said Ryan Price, a 29-year-old consultant and trainer for Drupal, a content-management system that can be used to build websites and blogs. “But it literally means tinkering, and there are all sorts of different hacking events. … We wanted to set aside a day and work with nonprofits.”

Fueled by caffeine, fast food and a ridiculous number of surge protectors, the volunteer hackers will gather Feb. 11 and 12 at the Florida Drupal Camp at Rollins College in Winter Park. But nonprofits need to apply by Sunday to be considered. (See fldrupalcamp.org for details.)

For charities — and particularly small ones that lack technical expertise — the opportunity could be lucrative. Online fundraising grew 35 percent in 2010, and that rate is likely to continue or accelerate, according to Blackbaud, the leading global provider of software and services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations.

“Anymore, nonprofits are invisible if they’re not on the Web,” said Margaret Linnane, executive director of the Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership Center at Rollins College. “Potential donors can’t find you, and they can’t research your organization or make a donation.”

The Rollins center is helping to choose the nonprofits that will benefit. Though more-traditional “snail-mail” letters and brochures still appeal to older baby boomers and their elders, Linnane said, younger donors prefer electronic communications.

Other experts agree.

“Writing a check and mailing it in is really not the way people are giving anymore,” said Tyger Danger, an Orlando spokeswoman for MyCharityBox.com — a service that uses mobile technology and Facebook to boost digital giving while charging a small percentage of donations. Younger people tend to give when they are sitting down, with laptops or cellphones, and something inspires them — whether a YouTube video, Facebook post or even a TV commercial.

The beauty of the process, Danger said, is that it allows consumers to donate in the moment they feel most passionate about a cause. Let some time go by, inject a few interruptions, add some costly reality of daily life — like a new credit-card statement — and would-be donors might have second thoughts.

The average increase in donations for nonprofits that sign up for MyCharityBox.com, she said, is 45 percent.

But the Drupal community — united by the idea of sharing computer code for free — believes in helping people to help themselves, rather than charging even a small fee.

“All you have to do is show up and put on your thinking cap. You have to want to be there,” Price said. “The No. 1 thing for us is actually to be able to get inexperienced people in an environment where they can sit down and work next to someone who is very experienced and work on the same project.”

It’s not just knowledge for knowledge’s sake either. Mike Anello, principal partner at Anello Consulting and one of the camp organizers, said he hopes volunteers who want to learn how to use Drupal — employed on websites from WhiteHouse.gov to Sony — might be able to pick up job skills from it. Already, the Merritt Island resident has trained laid-off aerospace workers looking for a new career path. So far, 14 of the 18 students in his recently completed 10-week course have landed internships.

“With unemployment so high,” Price said, “we’re just trying to create opportunities for people.”

See article

New features, more tools and lower transaction fees for Pro Fundraising.

The New Pro Package will give your organization a suite of customized marketing tools to continue to attract new donors and supporters. In addition, Pro Package customers will enjoy a lower transaction fee of 2.99% +$0.15 flat per transaction. This considerable savings will add up for organizations raising more than $1,000.00 per month.

Lower cost per Transaction
Sign up for a Pro account, to enjoy considerable savings from the standard MyCharityBox pricing.

Custom Promotional Materials
Banner ads, newsletters and print ready designs, all custom designed for your organization.

Go Pro or Upgrade to Pro right now! More info: MyCharityBox.com

With the holiday season in full-swing, many of you may be buying gifts for friends and family, but what about giving to non-profit organizations?

We’ve all been out and have been approached to give to a charity at one time or another but didn’t have any cash or our checkbook on us. Sometimes you just don’t know who or what organization to give to. An online fundraising service is answering all of these questions. It’s www.nadanu.com.

Friendship Miami was the first non-profit organization to sign up for this service three years ago and since then, they say their donations have increased 50 percent.

The daycare and preschool for special needs children is a non-profit organization. For them, money is always tight having to rely on donations, which turn into care for kids like 5-year-old Noah Fix.

“I love it because I meet new friends here,” Noah said. “I play with them.”

When Director Chanale Fellig heard about Nadanu, she thought she hit the jackpot.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Fellig said.

Nadanu is an on line fundraising service that helps non-profit organizations and charities. All you have to do is log on, pick who or where you want to donate, and decide how much. It just takes a couple of clicks and you can do it on your computer, Facebook, or smart phone.

Like Friendship Miami, the service is free.

“It’s a no brainer,” Fellig said about using the website.

If you have not done so yet, sign up today for your Free MyCharityBox account for online donations at mycharitybox.com

Choose the one you like and follow 4 easy steps to add it to your website.
These promotion materials will link back to your MyCharityBox’s giving page and will help you reach more donors.

Read the full article here

If you have not done so yet, sign up today for your Free MyCharityBox account for online donations at mycharitybox.com