Poken has just released a version for the iPhone that can be downloaded free from the App Store. It only works on OS 4 plus. I tested it on iPhone 3GS OS 4.0.2 and it works fine. Here are some screenshots of the beta version of the Poken Application.

Geo-Located Poken Contacts

“Get up to speed on Social Media for Fundraising”

2nd March 2010

Open University in Milton Keynes.

http://ow.ly/19WBG Click on this link to see details of the event

WHAT IS COVERED

• Why is social networking important to fundraisers?
• Why internet social networking is a challenge and an opportunity
• Why and how to use video within your online marketing to raise awareness and deliver revenue
• Why Google AdWords are a critical component of your social plan and how to get Google grants of $10,000 per month
• How to create sustainable revenue streams from people that are not your supporters by monetising the social network

If Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs are all a mystery to you then this two part event is a must. To attend you can be a charity, fundraiser, social enterprise, trust, NGO, NFP, Government or any organisation that works with these organisations. The event is in two parts. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/574534448 is an introduction to social media and cost £25.

The afternoon is for organisations that want to develop a social media strategy and push their existing efforts into revenue generation.

You don’t need to know anything about social media to attend any of these events, and you can attend both parts or pick the one that suits you. Payment can be accepted as invoice and cheque, credit card, paypal and Bartercard. Payment for the morning can be accepted on the door if your organisation has booked and requested to be invoiced.

Pass the word on to others that might be interested if you can’t make the event

It didn’t take long for Social Media to pass from simply connecting people to inspiring use for business purposes. Since Social Media business use took off, companies have been cashing in on the opportunities that it presents to further their marketing and reach a whole new audience. For this reason, it’s important for charities and fundraisers to make the most of social media in the same way.

Social Media is a highly effective way for charities to connect with potential donors. Here are just 4 ways that charities can make the most of Social Media.

BLOGGING
 Blogging is an easy way to attract attention. It’s the perfect way to let people know what you do and why you do it. It’s important to blog frequently and about things that will interest people. You don’t need to plug or sell yourself on the blog, just provide people with interesting information in short readable blogs. The more frequently you blog, the greater the number of potential readers.

Because of the way that blogging works, you may find that your blogs have been published on other sites too, which means that people will be helping you to spread positive news about your charity, without you having to do any work!

SOCIAL NETWORKS
By placing yourself on Social Networking sites such as MySpace   , Facebook   and BEBO   you can massively increase the number of people that are aware of what you do and why you do it. Setting up a group on Facebook  is simple and people will begin to join your group almost immediately. As they enjoy what they find there, they’ll begin to ‘Like’ or ‘Link’, thereby increasing the geographic spread of your message for you. And this is the heart of social media, if people like what they find; they will do some of your marketing for you.

SOCIAL VIDEO
Social Video is a powerful, free way to get your message across visually to potentially millions of people. Using sites such as YouTube   , you can easily upload a video and tell the world about your charity, what you do, and why you are asking for their help. If you can make it funny or unusual, you might find that it goes viral, meaning people start spreading the video to one another, further promoting your cause   without any cost.

SOCIAL MESSAGING
Recently, the Australian actor Hugh Jackman   used Twitter to announce that he wouldgive $100,000 AUD   to the charity that could convince him that they needed his money the most. Twitter is a very powerful medium, it requires little effort to send tiny messages and gaining followers is immediate. You can instantly update all your followers on urgent appeals, competitions, events and news – just by sending one message. Again, all this great instant marketing is completely free and only requires your time.

Does your charity need help reaching new donors and bigger audiences? Click4Causes  can help! Get in touch today, on twitter , facebook  or directly  we’ll show you how.

Click4Causes held the first half day seminar last Thursday on Social Media and how fundraisers can use the power of this to build awareness and interest in their cause.

There was a wide diversity of attendees from local government, community interest companies, banking, fundraisers, charities, trusts and the Open University Enterprise Hub representative.

Ian Mckendrick’s presentation was designed to enable even the most non-technical people to use Social Networks like twitter and facebook to get more business, more fans, more funds or more awareness for their company, group or organisation. The section on how to Listen, Fish and Establish Trust prompted the most questions and quickly explained how a huge number of people all over the world can be engaged in conversations and subtly led to take action in a very short period of time.

Lincoln Bedeau of ASKMK.net who gave an excellent talk about the recent development of ASKMK.net, a YouTube style website for promoting products, businesses and events. Lincoln highlighted one recent event for Willen Hospice that had raised over £100,000 and how with facebook fan pages and AskMK.net publishing the video of the event there was over 560 unique views in the first month. For fun I used my twitter account for Click4Causes to send “if I was a girl I could have attended this http://bit.ly/St0R8” and within 10 minutes another 20 people viewed the video. Its interesting that following my tweets, Ian McKendrick’s blog and tweets and its inclusion on the eSay-uk.com fundraiser links that the video has now being viewed over another 600 unique times in 3 days. I will be good to see the impact for Willen Hospice from this increase in viewing in the next few weeks.

Lincoln’s presentation was then followed by Simon Parslow of eSay-uk.com . Simon heads up a new and exciting company with some very cool and fresh ideas. They have their eye firmly on the social networking scene and have developed a unique online shop which takes a portion of the marketing budgets of its suppliers and distributes these to customers, charities and fundraisers to help raise money for their respective causes. The visions that Simon shared with us during his presentation of how his online service is creating new communities through social networking specifically to influence suppliers to deliver the products and services people want is truly amazing.

Thanks to Ian, Lincoln and Simon for coming to present and to all the attendees that took the time to come and participate.

Event for Charities held at the Open University

Click 4 Causes is holding an event for Charities at 9.30am for half a day on the 20th August to help them benefit from social media in the marketing mix to maximise funds raised.

Click 4 Causes is a dedicated organisation established to help fundraisers maximise the potential and integrate social media into a charities marketing strategy. We have a half day seminar held at the Enterprise Hub at the Open University, Milton Keynes where you can make new contacts and get new ideas for promoting your cause to a wider audience.

YOU WILL LEARN
• Why is social networking important to fundraisers?
• Why internet social networking is a challenge and an opportunity
• Why and how to use video within your online marketing
• How to create sustainable revenue streams from people that are not your supporters

TO BOOK GOTO: http://tickets.eSay-uk.com

SPEAKERS

Ian McKendrick
“Ian McKendrick is a genius at combining traditional marketing techniques with the latest social networking developments and helping businesses produce strategic marketing plans that really work. He is a thought-leader at the forefront of SEO techniques and is transforming the Social Networking SEO market place”
- Dain Internet Marketing
“Ian gave us a passionate presentation, packed to the brim with everything I need¬ed to get going. As an IT Director myself, his delivery was non condescending, and was a lesson in itself on how I should be com¬municating technology to my board.”
- www.speakingup.org

Lincoln Bedeau
Lincoln Bedeau saw the use of video for communication on the web back in 2001;
He is now Managing Director of askMK.TV (the internet television site for Milton
Keynes) and most recently has developed askBrango.com, a safe and sound social
network video platform for the educational sector.

Lincoln has done numerous projects using video to improve traffic to websites and
create short films for voluntary organisations to publicise their community based
work. www.askMK.TV

Simon Parslow
Simon Parslow is a visionary entrepreneur. Not content with the status quo of the
retail sector he has used influences from a variety of business models and created
an e-tail mash up which looks set to raise a few eyebrows in 2009. He wishes to educate fundraisers of all shapes and sizes that they too can benefit from a shift in consumer buying habits. The ever changing cycle of money in circulation means that to survive fundraisers must be aware of the opportunities that exist and be willing to embrace new technology and what it can bring. www.eSay-uk.com

YOUR HOST
Paul Sage – Click4Causes
“I want to welcome fundraisers of all sizes of organisation to our half day event at the Open University. I believe that the information will be of real value in these challenging times for charities, with income dropping because of a low return on capital investments and lower donations”

TO BOOK GOTO: http://tickets.eSay-uk.com

If you are a fundraiser, trustee, charity, or know someone who is then have a look at this please…and feel free to feedback and comment as well.

‘eSay-uk.com’ is an online shop where customers can simultaneously help their favourite brands grow and also support the causes they feel most passionate about.   

• Your fundraising organisation must register to enable it to access funding, I will contact each new fundraiser to certify your fundraising status.

So I am entering the Third Sector properly, by heading up Click4Causes a social enterprise. I have volenteered my time as a trustee to three charities for a while now, but I am taking the next step and going full time! Well almost full time.

The UK Govenment defines Social enterprises as “businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners”. Thats what Click4Causes is.

My aim at Click4Causes is to provide monatary and marketing development resources to fundraiseing and charity organisations.

The UK has an extraordinarily diverse and vibrant charitable sector which engages, supports and enhances the lives of people throughout this and many other countries. In England and Wales charities with annual incomes over £5,000 are required to register with the Charity Commission. Since April 2008 charities have had to prove ‘public benefit’ to the Charity Commission. ‘Public benefit’ is the legal requirement that every organisation set up for one or more charitable aims must be able to demonstrate that its aims are for the public benefit if it is to be recognised, and registered, as a charity in England and Wales.

Small charities and some religious organisations do not have to register and are called “excepted charities”. Some specific types of larger charities are also not required to register because they are regulated by agencies other than the Charity Commission. These charities include universities and are called “exempt charities”.
(Charities that were ‘excepted’, and some that were ‘exempt’ from registration before the Charities Act 2006 – will have to register if their gross annual income exceeds £100,000 starting in January 2009.) Other types of organisation also undertake activities that contribute to society. These include voluntary and community organisations and social and community enterprises.

At Click4Causes we want to engage with as many of these fundraising organisations as possible and develop free and susidised resources to the people volenteering their time to raise funds for their organisations. I believe that peoples individual stories resonate much better than the generalmarketing messages I currently recieve from many charities.

The origin of charities in England and Wales can be traced back to Elizabethan times. In 1601 three specific categories of charitable activities were identified: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education and the advancement of religion. Over the past 400 years the scope of activities recognised as charitable has expanded and have been recently defined in the Charities Act 2006 to include the prevention or relief of poverty; the advancement of education; the advancement of religion; the advancement of health or the saving of lives; the advancement of citizenship or community development; the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science; the advancement of amateur sport; the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity; the advancement of environmental protection or improvement; the relief of those in need, by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage; the advancement of animal welfare; the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services; other purposes currently recognised as charitable and any new charitable purposes which are similar to another charitable purpose.

In addition to these charity categories charities perform three services: they provide help; they represent or campaign they provide resources such as grants or volunteer help.

Charities have three main types of beneficiary groups: individuals – including the elderly, children etc; 
institutions – including hospitals, schools etc; the environment – including the conservation of land, animals etc. The area of benefit of charities extends from individual local communities to regions, countries, continents and, in some cases, worldwide.

With a 169,000 charities in the UK I will have a big job to contact them all but I am confident that Click4Causes will provide a new way for charities to generate funds and engage with their supporters.