This year’s been an incredible experience for everyone in the nonprofit community, so we tried to compile a few snapshots of the greatness that organizations (like yours) brought to different pockets of our nation using Razoo.

Great Fundraisers

This year was never short of eye-catching, heart-moving fundraisers that made a difference for the people (and animals) they served.

• - Sligo Creek Elementary’s Salamander Stride: This PTA group took the initiative to host a fun walk-a-thon to help fundraise for their school’s teachers and academic events. They raised over $15,000! Way to go!
• - The Punish Geoff Fundraiser: Geoff Livingston is no glutton for punishment but when it came to helping InvisiblePeople.tv spread the word about homelessness, he asked his friends to donate towards their favorite quirky penance, which he promised to endure.
• - Big Cat Rescue: These guys did incredible things to save big cats in terrible living conditions. In fact, they were able to pull together an emergency fundraiser to help relocate three cats that were in danger of being euthanized when their shelter was shut down.
• - Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society: This year’s terrible natural disaster in Japan left the country in shambles, but the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society (JEMS) quickly deployed volunteers to help rebuild the country and its people.
• - The Sound of Hope: This power couple has done amazing work fundraising and spreading awareness about the human rights issues in several parts of Asia. Their story is simply amazing.
• - Sloane’s Sweet Sixteen (x2) Birthday Fundraiser: Sloane Berrent wanted to use her birthday as a way to help girls in Guatemala be the first in their families to receive education. In the end, she raised over $5,000 for the cause.

New Razoo Tools

Our platform grew this year when we added new features to help you rock with your fundraising. Here’s a recap:

• - Razoo’s Mobile Optimized Website and iPhone App: Mobile technology is the future, so there’s no reason why your fundraising page shouldn’t be up to par, right? This year we released a mobile-optimized version of the website to help you access all the resources on Razoo in an easy-to-read version of the website for any phone with Internet access. And those of you with iPhones have enjoyed the fun features in the Razoo mobile app.
• - Facebook Donation App: Now you can be ahead of the social media fundraising curve by giving your Facebook fans the ability to donate without ever leaving your page. This easy-to-install widget lives right on your organization’s Facebook page, so your users can donate without registering or going to any other website. Now THAT’S true social fundraising.
• - QR Code: Who doesn’t love a fun QR code? For every fundraising page you create, you have the option to have a QR code automatically generated for you. Stamp that on your flyers, post cards, website—you name it—and let everyone connect with your fundraising page directly on their cell phones.
• - Giving Cards: This is the first year you can generate an electronic giving card. You can choose to email it to a friend or print it out to give to them; whatever you decide, you can give your friends and loved ones the ability to do some good during the holidays.
• - Personalized Messaging: Nonprofits now have the ability to add a personalized message to the automated tax receipt generated for their donors. Your supporters deserve the personal touch.

Giving Days

It was incredible to see entire communities come together to fundraise for all sorts of nonprofits serving their area. These are some of the great giving days of 2011:

• - GiveMN (Minneapolis, MN) held their statewide giving event this November for their third year in a row, raising over $13.4 million dollars for close to 4,000 nonprofits!
• - Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington (Washington, DC) was the region’s first fundraising event, bringing over $2 million to over 1,300 area nonprofits.
• - Live PC Give PC (Park City, UT) was also Park City’s first giving day, which raised $332,034 and engaged 1,561 donors.
• - Give Big Lexington (Lexington, KY) raised $235,580 in what was also their first-ever community-wide giving event.
• - Nevada’s Big Give (Carson City, NV) premiered onto the Giving Day scene with a community fundraising event that brought in over $400,000 from 2,302 donors.
• - Telluride Gives (Telluride, CO) raised over $18,000 for a town with approximately 3,000 residents. Amazing work done for these first-timers!

Congrats to all of you who made such amazing strides in your communities, and thank you for choosing us as your platform! We look forward to being alongside you for another year. Cheers to a great 2012!

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