I'll make this short and sweet. A good friend runs a top-notch non-profit treatment center that provides much-needed substance abuse treatment and family counseling to some of the Los Angeles county's most vulnerable citizens. Sadly, like so many other groups who provide crucial social services, the center has been hit hard by the recession and state/county budget cuts and its very future is in jeopardy. No, this isn't an "ask" for donations; I need help from the community here with how to set them up with an online fundraising network.
I'm coming to this cold. While I do the 'Net for a living, and have applauded and contributed to the political online fundraising revolution that is the cornerstone of the Netroots, I've never actually looked into the nuts and bolts of what it takes to do wired fundraising.
We've got a lot of smart people here with tons of experience on this specific topic so I thought I'd ask before needlessly re-inventing the wheel. There's a lot I don't know (including the things that I don't know that I don't know) but here are a few initial questions to get the ball rolling:
- Is there an existing network for raising funds for social service non-profits? Something that does for treatment/counseling centers what Donors Choose does for underfunded schools?
- If you've done online non-profit fundraising, what were the biggest "gotchas"? What were your biggest successes?
- Any self-help tips you might have in the form of links to existing networks, detailed how-tos for setting up a funding network, etc.
I realize this is all sort of vague, but that's precisely the point. I know very little about what it takes to bootstrap an online fundraising program. All I know is that good people who do great work are in danger of having to close their doors and I can't (and won't) stand idly by while their vision is nuked by a lack of funds. So, I'm asking, can you help me to help good people?