Rocking the Online Fundraising World
The Founding Story
The business world is changing! E-commerce is overtaking brick and mortar and fundraising is following the same trends by going online. Along with these dramatic shifts are equally dichotomous business buzz words. The old school emphasis on “financial success,” “think and grow rich,” “making millions,” and “crush the competition” have been sidelined by a new movement that adopts a new paradigm centered on altruism and sustainability. This movement has adopted new words including: “trans-organizational collaboration,” “cause-marketing,” “social impact,” and “social media influence for good.” These changes are breathtaking and opportunities to make significant differences via new technologies are wonderful and offer new avenues for creating abundance in a collaborative and “sharing and caring” way. The ultimate goal of the “social impact business” is to solve environmental and humanitarian problems.
Fund Duel is capturing the new wave of social consciousness and the shift to online/mobile optimized engagement. What does this mean for you? It means that there is a new gamified-competitive online fundraising site (http://www.fundduel.com) that you can use to raise money for your favorite cause, or grassroots organization, or use as a kick-starter for your own business. It also means that you can join this revolutionary movement and make a powerful difference for good!
How did this online fundraising site come about? I will now tell you our story and what was the inspiration behind the creation of Fund Duel. My thirty year old daughter, Jasmine and I have both been deeply concerned about marginalized populations but have felt somewhat powerless to do anything about it. In the fall of 2017 Jasmine and I had a long conversation about what we could do to make a change. We asked ourselves four questions: “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could create an online fundraising site where people would be rewarded for thinking about someone else (altruism) when they posted a photo or video?;” “Wouldn’t it be great if we could create a site that used competition and photo and video challenges (shared on social media) to raise more money and awareness for important charitable causes?:” “Wouldn’t it be amazing if this site was a place where celebrities, corporations, media, and the masses could converge onto a simplified mobile optimized fund duel page to amplify fundraising efforts and highlight the importance of good causes?;” and “Wouldn’t it be excellent if there was a “thank you” video that was required of each campaign to demonstrate to donors how monies raised was spent (creating accountability)?”
We got so excited about the idea that we shifted from musing about it to actually making our idea a reality! This was a bold move for us both. I gave up my notions of teaching at a university and we both made dramatic physical moves. We found two excellent programmers to be our co-founders. My husband, Dana quit a life-long career in retail development to join us as our COO and a year later in December 2018 Fund Duel was soft-launched.
How is it working? Fund Duel is making a huge splash onto the online fundraising scene. We are now working with dozens of major non-profit organization including Rotary Club International with a global competitive “read-a-thon.” We now raise money at events in just moments when attendees join a competitive campaign on their phones (join a team, take a selfie, and share of social media). We have raised money in a fun and competitive way at the Lady in Red Gala dinner, an Oscar Party, USA Sumo event (5,000 fans), and coming soon Toronto Youth Day with an expected 40,000 attendees. We are talking to executive producers about a Fund Duel Live Show and we just awarded a trophy to the Pennsylvania school for the deaf for winning a 10 school competition. The beautiful thing about this last competition was that all the elements came together in one “Fund Duel.” We had major deaf celebrities join the campaign by tweeting about it and sharing it on Facebook and actually coming to the winning school to inspire the students at a school wide assembly. The videos (“signing” and dancing to a popular song) created by each school demonstrated the wonderful talents of precious students and staff. These videos are heart-warming and brought my daughter and me to tears when we first watched these amazing videos. We had a vision of using technology and video sharing to make a difference, and it has now become a reality. Join us in this amazing revolution for good and contact us if you want to do a Fund Duel. You can contact me directly at [email protected] or visit our site at www.fundduel.com. Cheers!
By Linda Hansen
CEO and Co-Founder of Fund Duel Inc.