Education is the basis for a successful and prosperous future. However, with ever increasing tuition hikes and the challenge that many students face of balancing school and work, a college degree can seem like a far off dream. Astonishingly, 51% of all US students who enroll in college fail to graduate within 6 years. The good news is that there are people working hard to provide solutions to this problem.
StudentMentor.org is an incredible organization that was created to help low-income students earn their college degrees with the help of mentors in the industries in which they wish to join. Four out of five low-income college students fail to attain a bachelor’s degree by their mid-20s. With mentors who can encourage and give insight to these students, these statistics can be a thing of the past. StudentMentor.org has made a great impact in hundreds of young lives; 93% of students say their mentorship has made them more positive about their future and 85% say their mentor has helped them towards achieving their academic goals.
The next goal for StudentMentor.org is to raise their goal of $25,000 for the 2012 school year, which will provide 500 students with mentors. This organization turned to Fundly as a partner in achieving their fundraising goals and so far, they are halfway there. (Please visit their campaign page at http://fundly.com/studentmentor.)
Ash Jafari, founder and CEO of StudentMentor.org, has some valuable advice about creating your Fundly page and getting the word out. “We included a background about our organization, a video, our fundraising goal, relevant statistics about our outcomes, and the Fundly donation widget on our website. It’s important to keep your message relatively brief and concise since people will only take a quick glance at the page. Also, having media or visuals will help bring your words to life.”
With 31 supporters, 52 donors, and $11,420 raised, it’s clear that Jafari and his team are off to a great start with this campaign. “We are using Google Grants to target those people who are already interested in our cause and introduce them to our Fundly donation page. In addition, we modified our homepage so that the ‘Donate’ section appears in the top navigation bar,” explains Jafari regarding the tools they’ve used to reach new donors. “If it’s not working at first, change things up and keep iterating.”
Google Grants provides select 501(c)3 nonprofits with $10,000 a month in free advertising on Google.com. If you’re not taking advantage of this program, we highly encourage you to apply here. If your organization already has a Google Grant, don’t forget to create a campaign specifically designed to drive traffic to a donation page on your website.
We would love to hear what advice you have in creating a successful Fundly fundraising page! Please use the comment section below.
