Tonight I have been looking the things I need to do before the site goes live. Here are the most important activities:
1) Determine how charities will be chosen. I had considered setting up my own charity – but then I started to read about how to set up a charity and came across this page: http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/registration/think.asp - which says:
“There are around 190,000 registered charities, and perhaps as many again smaller unregistered ones. One or more of these may very well be doing the kind of charitable work your new charity would do, and in the same area.
Many charities often find it difficult to get access to the limited funding that is available to the charitable sector and this can be a particular problem for new charities. This is because local authorities, the public and organisations who give money to charities often prefer to give to charities that they are already familiar with and which have a proven track record.
Many people, including potential funders and donors, think that there are already too many charities competing for too few funds and that a significant amount of charitable resource could be saved if charities pooled their resources and worked together.”
So it makes sense for me to support existing charities – the only question is which charities?
2) I need to find out more about “Gift Aid” – I found some information on the Government website and ”Just Giving” website. I can collect information, such as Name, Address, Charity, etc. and I assume that I just need to pass these details onto the charity with the donation amount – and then let the charity sort out the “Gift Aid” element of the donation. One thing is for sure, I need to make sure that “Gift Aid” is included – or I believe it will put people off wanting to donate.
3) The Blog Voting System is almost there. I need to add in some extra features, such as add a complain button for inappropriate Blogs and Comments. Also, I only want to promote Blogs in the Blog voting system – hence the “Blog” bit in “BlogRelief.com” so I need to add a confirmation checkbox in the submit form asking the user to confirm they are actually submitting a blog. I will also have a “This is NOT a Blog” button – to allow members to signal that a “non-blog” has been submitted.
4) I really want to add in other features to the site that can also be used to generate revenue. Some of my ideas are:
- Competitions
- Business Sponsorship
- Charging business bloggers to submit their blog (not much though – and the money will go to charity – and this might prevent pointless spamming!) This would probably be accomplished via a subscription feature.
- Engage with lots of charities – I had no idea that there is 190,000 + registered charities – and I also didn’t know that there was such a thing as an “Unregistered charity”. So I would like to add a “Charity Profile” features, probably incorporating “Google Maps” or something similar if there is a geographic element to the charity – and also maybe picture libraries or audio/video.
5) Issue over upkeep, and marketing of the site. I have limited resources (I am paying for the site out of my own pocket), I also want to give as much money as possible to charity. But a little money will need to be spent on the maintenance of the site if it becomes successful – I will probably do some front page support sponsors for this.
6) Sales and Marketing. So far (as of 6/6/2008) I have not really done any marketing – well the site isn’t finished yet. But if you stumbleupon this site and you have sales and marketing skills and you would like to get involved then please give me a shout.
