Tuesday 14 September 2010

Why family focused functionality could create more supporters

I’m a big fan of micro-finance sites and more recently Lendwithcare has captured my imagination.

However, while on my ‘family is important in fundraising' crusade - it made me think about the functionality on such sites and why currently they don’t allow for a family to sign up i.e. Family Fortunes style 'The Santer Family' with each individual member then having their own portfolio of lending.

I am not sure what technically would be required to see this (and it may be financially prohibitive) - but I think it would be a lovely thing to have a family record of the contribution, while offering a great way to promote individual giving to younger family members - even if it is them just being initially motivated to donate their pocket money to one of these wonderful entrepreneurs, and seeing the impact being made.

Obviously some causes and products offer more of an educational element than others in terms of a family context - Child Sponsorship is a great example - but then maybe that is another area of development for charities to build on so that their cause or products will appeal family wide and sites like lendwithcare and other such models could be a perfect mechanism and platform.

4 comments:

  1. Family involvement is a great idea and kind of reminds me of the 1000's of small trusts in the UK - that kind of work on this principle.

    An ex-collegue of mine set up a family trust to train Kenyan fundraisers - she was one herself!

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  2. Thanks for reading, Des. Absolutely, it is like the principle of a family trust - and we can do more to harness this with functionality that better facilitates.

    Will be interesting to see what sites will introduce what I am suggesting just because I struggled to find any. Not that my research was that far reaching.

    A

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  3. This is absolutely right....its an approach that we often misunderstand and with technology as it is we can harness a 21st century version of an age old approach....

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  4. Thanks for dropping by Stephen and for the positive comment. Look forward to seeing the approach in action some time soon. :o)

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