Raise Funds Faster with Freeople

Since very early in the 2008 campaign, I have been impressed by how much has been accomplished with ChipIn. The small widget has been a great success in helping people raise funds for everything from television advertising to envelopes and stationary.

As successful as ChipIn has been, it also has its limitations. I have read of many ChipIn success stories, but I've also seen just as many really great ideas never become fully-funded because of lack of exposure. I remember months ago looking at RonPaulGraphs.com and seeing numerous ChipIns which were never going to meet their goals. The ChipIns were unsuccessful not because the concepts lacked value, but because not enough people knew about them.

Another limtation I've noticed with ChipIn is the per transaction fee. Use Donation Events to Quickly Collect Funds. When a donor decides to contribute via ChipIn, they are contributing to only one fund raising opportunity at a time. The problem with this is credit card companies charge consumers each time a transaction is made. For example, if I was to donate $5.00 to Candidate A, or five separate $1.00 contributions to Candidate A, the single $5.00 donation is going to result in more money being sent to Candidate A. The credit card company is going to deduct a fee for each of the five $1.00 donations, but only one fee for the $5.00 donation.

On the Freeople website, we're attempting to address both of these issues for both Candidates and Supporter Groups. All candidates accepting donations are listed on the Donation page. Supporters can donate to more than one candidate at a time, which will ultimately result in more money being delivered to the candidates in total.

The same is true for groups. Much like Meetup.com, Freeople members can create public and private groups to organize and plan activities. The major differences between Freeople and Meetup are (1) Freeople is FREE and (2) Freeople uses the power of community for fund raising.

To see how easy it is, all you need to do is:

1. Become a registered Freeople member,
2. Create a group by clicking Groups > Create Group from the top menu,
3. Create a fund raising activity by clicking Create Donation event in the Actions area or the right sidebar of the Group home page.

After the donation event has been saved, it will be advertised throughout the site, including the Home Page, Group & Events Map, Calendar, and Causes List. Site visitors will be able to immediately donate to multiple items a time by clicking the Donate to Causes page. More donations per transaction results in more funds being delivered to the groups.

In the future, we will add functionality to Freeople to more fully match the capabilities provided by sites such as Meetup and ChipIn. We also believe our current functionality offers some unique capabilities not available with Meetup and ChipIn, and provides a more cost effective solution than what is available on other websites. Give it a try and let us know your thoughts!

For more information, watch this video we've put together discussing making contributions through the Freeople website: