This is a Guest Post by Nathan Beaird.
Like many of you, I’ve been on a mission trip. And like many of you, I needed financial assistance. I wrote the letter, inserted the appropriate name, and sent it off. However, with the advance of computers, “going green”, mobile phones, and social networking sites, physical hand-written letters have become endangered.
I think the last time I got a hand-written letter I panicked thinking someone had been kidnapped. Now that people can do almost everything online, anything that requires them to return a check in the “snail-mail” seems too tedious, and may result in nothing for you. I believe I’ve found something that will change the art of fund-raising and empower Missionaries, as well as churches forever.
I wanted to find a way to embed something similar to a PayPal account on a website, or create and email a link to a savings account on the web. I thought if someone could just get to that account in the least amount of clicks possible, and contribute with a credit or debit card- I could raise this money pretty fast!
Then I found out about SmartyPig.com. Open an account with them, set up a savings goal, and SmartyPig tracks how long it will take you to reach that goal.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “I can do this through my bank.” Well that may be, but I doubt very much that your bank creates a widget that you can embed on your blog, webpage, Facebook profile, MySpace, or any other social networking site. Your friends and family that want to contribute to your savings goal, can do so in two clicks of the mouse and they didn’t even have time to complain about stamp prices. I’m not saying to scrap the idea of the letter, it’s raised a lot of money for people to take the gospel all around the Earth. You could even include the link in the letter!
Although SmartyPig is great for missions giving, I’d like to outline several other helpful uses for churches:
[Read more…] about Cyber Saving and Giving with SmartyPig.com