Justgiving introduces 'widget' to promote online fundraising pages

Howard Lake | 14 January 2007 | News

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Sponsored event fundraising participants can now use a widget from Justgiving to publicise and link to their online fundraising page from their blog, web page or social networking space. Widgets or badges offer a mini version of the online fundraising page that includes a regularly updated figure for donations raised.

The widget or badge has a little graphic that automatically updates whenever someone makes a donation to a fundraising page so both the fundraiser and their supporters can keep track of their fundraising progress. The widget links directly to the actual fundraising page on Justgiving.com so more people can easily add their own donation.

Simon Doggett, Marketing Manager – Users, said: “The widget is more engaging than a simple web link and fundraisers are really enthusiastic about the idea. It’s a great new way for charity supporters to spread the word about their fundraising page through their own websites, blogs and forums.”

Supporters of an individual fundraiser can also copy and paste the friend’s widget code to their own blog or web page and help promote their friend’s fudnraising.

Justgiving fundraising page owners can get hold of a widget by logging in to their personal account. They simply copy and paste a line of code onto their own website and the widget will automatically update as their fundraising total grows.

Widgets and badges are now being used by more and more online fundraising service providers and charities. Kintera, Yahoo! for Good, and ChipIn all introduced widgets or badges in 2006.

Widgets themselves are popular modular add-ons or plugins designed to enhance a blog, often with information or a service from a third party site. WordPress, the blogging tool, for example, lists hundreds of different widgets that its users can add at no charge.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.