November 2017 – Page 3 – The Chuffed Academy

November 9, 2017January 19, 2018

Power to the People: Give your Team Members a Role

Thanks to our latest Team Crowdfunding features, it’s now easier than ever for individuals and organisations to build an online team.

Here are the three ways you can now build your online team on Chuffed.org:

1. The Advocate Team

In lots of situations, one person gets the responsibility to make sure their crowdfunding page looks perfect and their main job is to put all the content up and then give the rest of the team a link to the campaign page. Everyone else needs to be acknowledged on the page, but they don’t need to edit it.

We’ve made it super simple to add team members names and profile photos directly in the campaign editor and then like magic, they’ll appear on your page.

2. The Collaborative Team
What about if more than one person needs to edit the campaign? Then it becomes a collaborative effort.

All you need to do in this case, is to add the person’s name and email and invite them to become an Editor. They’ll then get sent an email invitation with login details to edit the campaign.

This is great for the situation when you’re co-founders or a campaign team or someone has the bank account details and you need to share the campaign with them.

3. The Fundraiser Team

The deepest level of team is when people agree to fundraise for you. They need their own Individual page that’s connected to the main campaign.

All you need to do is to add in the person’s name and then switch on their individual fundraiser page. If they need to edit the page too, just invite them to edit it. Note that they’ll only be able to edit their individual fundraiser page unless you give them “Editor” access to the main page.

This is great for: when you’ve got team members with their own networks; or if you’re running a fundraising challenge event; or if you want to create a bit of competition amongst the team.

Build your team today!

Head to chuffed.org/start and begin your campaigning (for free!)
Navigate to the Team section
Create Team Members (all you need is their name)
Choose their Role in the Campaign!
Optimise Editors & Fundraisers

For more, check out our Five Examples of Team Crowdfunding Done Well.

November 9, 2017November 17, 2017

Fight for justice, by Black Women United YEG

“Black Women United YEG is a collective of: professional, blue-collar, academic, activist, artistic and immensely proud Sisters of the Diaspora residing in Edmonton, AB. We are mothers, daughters, sisters and wives. We seek to disrupt the colonial divide-and-conquer and love on one another. We seek the healing and uplift of our families and communities.

We seek equality & freedom. Black women in Edmonton began to hear allegations that a young woman was attacked in a vicious sexual assault. Meanwhile, we discovered on Sept. 30, thousands of Black Women were convening in Washington, DC, for the March for Black Women. They were demanding an end to the mistreatment of Black Women. We decided to stand in solidarity with our sisters and lend our voice to the same demand. However, we face grave injustices right here in our hometown. We are being targeted for incarceration and filling the jails. Black Women & Girls are being sexually abused and even trafficked. We face underemployment and suffer racist hiring practices and racism in the workplace. We remain stoic while living with domestic violence; our commitment to our families is very strong.

However, it’s all too much and we’re breaking down. We decided to wrench off the hand of silence that grips our collective throat. The March for Black Women YEG rally was the first step towards that end and it was a historic one. We came together – for the 1st time – to articulate our own issues and solutions in public.

We called on our Sisters, supportive Black Men, other Women of Colour and Allies to stand with us and learn how they can take part in change initiatives.

We busted the secrecy and suppression of these issues wide open!

We had less than a week to raise $1500 to cover materials, a sound system, speaker honoraria and a forum for discussion and self-care. We were given great, step-by-step advice by Chuffed.org on how to mount a successful campaign and we followed it.

Not only did we meet our goal in 3 days, we exceeded it. The event went great, all costs were covered, and we have the beginnings of an engaged support base as we craft our next steps forward.”

Check out more about the awesome Black Women United YEG on their crowdfunding campaign page:

November 2, 2017November 8, 2017

Followings for Busubi Empowered Communities

”I’m Lauren Exton, former television & radio producer in Australia, current PR manager for an entertainment company in the USA – and Followings is technically my side project, but absolutely dominates my thoughts and schedule!

A series of life-altering service trips to Uganda showed me just how great the need for community engagement is in the rural villages. I also witnessed enormous growth in myself and others on the trip and I was drawn to offer an opportunity for people around the world who might not realise they have everything it takes to be a change-agent. When all you have to do is take 10 days off work, and fundraise $6000 – anyone can make a massive impact in a short amount of time.

Most people don’t know just how much they are capable of, so if I can help them see just how amazing they are – for me that is the greatest gift of all.

With 50% of Uganda’s population under the age of 15, and only 8% of girls currently completing high school – it’s obvious to me that we need all hands on deck, and that’s partly what I’m trying to do with Followings. Whether people come on the trip, or donate to someone who is – they’re making a change.

I opened up world-wide applications for the first 10 day trip in August 2017 and we had a full team of both Australians & Americans in just a few short weeks! We have weekly conference calls for the 12 weeks leading up to our November trip, and by the first week of September the team had already raised 10% of the $63,000 goal! (I’m still pinching myself!) Right now, with 2 weeks left until we fly out – we’re sitting at almost $35,000 – truly amazing!!

The money raised will build a Learning & Community Centre in the rural Ugandan village of Busubi, and also covers the trip costs for the 10 hardworking fundraisers/volunteers who will tirelessly co-create & facilitate 7 intense days of community engagement with local villagers while on the ground.

We’ll return again in April 2018, and again in October 2018, with 2 more trips in 2019, and a goal for the centre to be accredited to facilitate university courses and become fully self-sustaining by 2020.”

Check out more about this inspiring story on Lauren’s crowdfunding campaign page below!

November 2, 2017March 12, 2019

Positive Change for Marine Life: Empowering Communities in India

Karl Goodsell, Founder of Positive Change for Marine Life

In my early-mid twenties I was always searching for something bigger, something better, more fun, more fulfilling and that gave me a greater sense of purpose. I attempted five degrees at various universities around the country, worked odd jobs, and perhaps on paper and in a conventional sense, wasn’t destined for “success”.

In 2008, I was lucky enough to work abroad on a number of life-changing volunteer projects. For the first time I realised that there was more to life than self-indulgence and the constant desire to overcome my lack of purpose. As someone with a good education and every opportunity in the world, it was also the first time that I realised how much I took many of those opportunities for granted and that while I was searching for purpose in my privileged life, most of the world’s population were just trying keep a roof over their heads and figure out where the next meal was coming from.

I returned home with a very different perspective and on the direction that I wanted my life to take. I decided to attempt another degree and this time take it seriously. I moved back to Byron Bay and enrolled in Marine Science at Southern Cross University. I always loved the ocean and this would give me the chance to not only study something that I was passionate about, but also pursue a career in which I could do something positive for a change and focus on a world that didn’t just revolve around me.

Very rapidly, through the course of chance meetings and putting myself out there, I became involved with a local dolphin research organisation, as well as a number of marine activist groups, which opened my eyes to some of the incredible challenges that marine ecosystems were facing. As the years went by I found myself meeting incredible people, working on some inspiring campaigns and loving my new degree. I finally felt a sense of purpose and knew that I was capable of so much more than I used to give myself credit for.

In 2011, whilst working in Japan, I witnessed a huge divide between foreign activists and the perspectives of local people who were involved in an industry which the activists were opposed to. It seemed a little insane to me to harass people in their own country and expect them to just put down their fishing gear, give in and wind-up their only source of income, which had been operating for almost 2,000 years. I decided to start a facebook page with a friend of mine to highlight this fact, as well as the potential that understanding, education, respect and working together can have on creating long-term solutions to these kinds of issues. The page raised an incredible amount of money in just a few weeks and it was clear to me that other people out there also believed that there was a better way.

Armed only with an idea and a few hundred dollars, in 2012 Positive Change for Marine Life was born. We had no clue of how to run a non-profit-organisation, let alone how the organisation would develop strategies and campaigns, attract community support or raise the funds to be able to create the change so desperately needed. We did have passion though and the belief that it was better to try and do something and fail, than not do anything at all.

I finished my degree, worked in various research and non-profit positions and kept the organisation going outside of my other full-time positions. It’s been a tough slog with many ups and downs along the way, however I’m proud to say that PCFML has grown by over 1200% in the last 3 years alone! We are finally starting to see the fruits of over 5 years of hard work, consistent community engagement and thousands of hours of research into the best way to address the challenges that our ocean and the communities who rely on them are facing on a daily basis. We’ve run 7 campaigns around the world since we formed in 2012 and 3 days ago, over the course of 24 hours, we raised an additional $14,000 to help our Marine Conservation Masterplan crowdfunder in India, from a $4 social media ask! We are now sitting just short of our target of $25,000 and I would really appreciate your support to get us there!

To find out more about Positive Change for Marine Life, check out their successful crowdfunding campaign page below:

November 1, 2017November 10, 2017

The Deakin Vietnam Volunteering Program

”We are a group of Deakin University students who have a passion for helping those in need and seeing a change in people’s lives. We will be heading over to Da Nang in Vietnam to help a community who needs support and enhancement in their basic health services and education. Through this volunteering program we will be able to use our skills and academic background to provide assistance and contribute to the community. Not only are we able to give back but we too will receive a rewarding experience that is both challenging and confronting as we immerse in an environment which we are not commonly exposed to.

We are brought together through our shared interest in connecting with people and inclination to help improve the lives of underprivileged people. Coming from Australia we are fortunate to have access to basic healthcare. So we have seen the obstacles faced by community healthcare providers in developing countries and are eager to offer support and provide any help we can give through volunteering ourselves and our skills. We hope that our efforts will continue to support this community to purchase basic health supplies and equipment to utilize to improve their living conditions.

The lack of facilities/services available for these people,compelled us to do something to aid them. The fact they struggle to gain basic health necessities and education supplies has pushed us to make efforts to raise funds to provide them with items they are lacking in.

Our team was brought together through our common interest
of helping communities in need. We are hoping to learn more about the health services and education present in Da Nang and contribute to their communities with our skills and knowledge.

We have been working together raising funds through social media, bake sales, sausage sizzles for a month now. We are fundraising for Volunteer Vietnam, an organisation founded by Viet Dang in 2004 who was an orphan himself at a young age. Deakin University started its partnership with Volunteer Vietnam in 2016, we chose this organisation as we support Volunteer Vietnam’s motto “together we make a difference”. Volunteer Vietnam helps to improve the lives of orphans, children with disabilities and the homeless elderly people
in Central Vietnam.

Volunteer Vietnam shows its simplicity and acknowledges
that a difference, no matter how big or small, can be made when we work together.”

Check out more about this amazing story by clicking the link below:

November 1, 2017November 7, 2017

Close the Pine Gap by the PineGapPilgrims

”In September last year a group of people from across Australia gathered in Alice Springs to mark 50 years since the lease was first signed for the Pine Gap US military intelligence base. Most people don’t know much about this facility just south of Alice Springs, and for good reason – the base and what it does has been intentionally kept secret. But over the years it has been used to gather intelligence for the CIA, NSA and the US military; as part of the US nuclear weapons program; and used to target unmanned drone bombings.

A group of six of us – Jim Dowling, Margaret Pestorius, Paul Christie, Andy Paine, Tim Webb and Franz Dowling – decided a way to bring attention to Pine Gap and what it does was to walk on to the base as “peace pilgrims” – carrying musical instruments and an image from the US war in Iraq to lament the death and misery caused by Pine Gap.

The group was not just brought together by this action. Three of us live together in Dorothy Day House in Brisbane, where we live simply and communally and open our doors to friends and strangers. Jim has for many years been living in similar communities, and Margaret also is a long time friend. We have all been involved in peace activism for some time, but also see this as just an extension of our lives spent trying to live consistently with our values of love, justice and sustainability.

For our non-violent lament, we were charged under the Defence (Special Undertakings) Act – a rarely used law which carries the remarkably strict maximum penalty of 7 years in prison. From November 13-23, we will face the Supreme Court in Alice Springs on these charges. We hope to use the court case to put Pine Gap on trial – ask whether our lament can really be considered the immoral act while Pine Gap spies on the whole world and kills people in their home by remote control. To help us do that, we are hoping to call a number of expert witnesses to court to talk about what Pine Gap does. To get people to Alice Springs, of course, costs money.

But more than just giving money we ask you to help us by spreading the word on Pine Gap, what it does, and the resistance by an ordinary group of friends who could not turn a blind eye to the violence perpetrated in the centre of our country.

For more information on us and our case, see closepinegap.org, facebook.com/ClosePineGap or @ClosePineGap on twitter.”

Check out more about this story and see how you can help:

November 1, 2017November 2, 2017

Empowering Transwomen: ‘A Woman Is A Woman’

”I am Mimi Wong, Director of the Association of World Citizens Hong Kong China. I came out at the age of 56, losing both my job and family. I am now dedicated to support of the less privileged in Hong Kong. I am the executive producer of the film ‘A Woman is A Woman’ but I will not draw any compensation from the money raised. All money raised will be used for the production.

As you can see, transwomen are arguably the most marginalized group of people in Hong Kong. Local media in Hong Kong always presents the negative image of transwomen to improve readership or ratings. Many of them are met with struggles, bullying, discrimination and pain. This has devastating effects on the economic well-being of transwomen. Many of them go out-of-job when they are transitioning. Many of them completely hide their identities after transitioning to avoid the same mishaps. On the other hand, the local film industry is predominantly monopolised by men. Very few women have the opportunity to show their talents in an industry where men are almost always the first choice for the investors. Our hope is to tackle both problems. We plan to produce a 90 minute feature film led by women and transgender people about the stories of two transwomen in Hong Kong utilising a production team where women occupy all prominent positions during all stages of the film production process. Through this film, we hope to educate the public that transgender people are just like any ordinary cisgender people. They just want to live well like an ordinary member of the society. Application of gender stereotypes attached to the birth sex is hurtful to the healthy development of transgender people. We hope this feature film can bring about the cultural change in society and remove the label and stigma that has been attached to transwomen.

We will show this feature film free of charge at community halls. The name of the Film is ‘A Woman Is a Woman’. Upon completion, we will send the film to participate in at least two major international film festivals, namely, the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival with an aim to win some awards back to Hong Kong to attract audience to view this film. We will first show this film with cooperation of our private sponsors and raise funds for them. After the premiere shows, we will show them throughout the year of 2019 with a view to reach up to 200,000 people. We wish to cover every layer of the population in Hong Kong to achieve our objectives.

We need a total of HK$1.2 million to produce this film. We already have 8 institutional sponsors and would continue to look for more institutional sponsors and individual donors. We hope this crowdfunding platform could help us find empathetic individuals who could donate to support this noble cause. Every cent is important to us and we need your generosity to realise our objectives. We will thank every donor by listing their names at the end of the film.”

For more on this groundbreaking project, check out Mimi’s crowdfunding page:

Check out this inspiring video below for more information:

November 1, 2017November 8, 2017

Uni2beyond: Providing equal learning opportunities

”My name is Jemima MacDonald and I coordinate the uni 2 beyond initiative at the Centre for Disability Studies. uni 2 beyond is an initiative that enables adults with an intellectual disability to participate in university life at the university of Sydney. My journey with uni 2 beyond began 4 years ago. At the time I was studying a masters in Developmental Disability and I was attending a conference in the city. I saw the Centre for Disability Studies had a stall and I approached them.

I told them I was interested in volunteering my time and that I was interested in inclusion, education and human rights. The team then told me all about uni 2 beyond. I am so glad they did because this is when my life changed. After this, I became a volunteer for the initiative. I would volunteer my time to support adults with an intellectual disability in lectures and tutorials, as well as supporting them to engage with university social life. I loved it so much I applied for a job, now 4 years later, I coordinate 11 students, 45 student mentors, and engage with over 25 university lecturers. Being someone who has spent 6 years studying at university, I hate to think that others do not get the same experience, purely because they may have an intellectual disability such as autism, or down syndrome. With my job, I love being included in a community where everyone feels like they belong.

I love the idea of the Creating Futures crowd funding campaign, because not only is it helping us to continue and grow this initiative, it is helping us spread the word about what we are doing. uni 2 beyond is one of only 2 initiatives in Australia, and the only one that has an internship component for its students. Some exciting news I would love to share is that we have recently been selected as a finalist for the International Day of People with Disability, 2017 National Disability Award- so, watch this space to see how we go and let’s hope we win! I would love for uni 2 beyond to spread throughout Australia, and raising awareness through crowd funding will help get the word out about this.”

Learn more about this awesome cause on their crowdfunding campaign page: