UPDATE 12/22/2010: An editorial today in the New Haven Register talks about how important the KIMBIA-powered GiveGreater.org is to the local New Haven community.

“the website is a one-stop place for information and donations to nearly 100 area nonprofit groups.” — New Haven Register Editorial Staff

UPDATE 11/5/2010: Today, WTNH-TV in New Haven interviewed Will Ginsberg,President CEO of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and Katrina Clark, Executive Director of the Fair Haven Community Health Clinic. In the video below, they discuss the success of GiveGreater.org 2010 Giving Challenge, how the site works with features like KIMBIA’s leaderboard, and how competition has inspired the community and activated the non-profits throughout Greater New Haven.

“We (the community foundation) usually get about 2,000-2,500 gifts a year, and we’ve had almost 2,000 gifts this week!” — William Ginsberg, President and CEO of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

Update 11/2/2010: See what some of the local media has to say about the successful first day of the giving challenge. Nonprofit ‘contest’ raises a quick $90,000 — New Haven Register

At 8am EDT on November 1, 2010, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven launched the GiveGreater.org 2010 Challenge with the KIMBIA Giving Event solution. So far, response from the New Haven community has been amazing! Half way through the first day, The Community Foundation is approaching $100,000. At one point this morning, KIMBIA was processing more than eighty-five donations per minute. Great Job New Haven!

The Giving Challenge is composed of ninety-nine participating organizations, each of whom have a unique fundraising page on GiveGreater.org. When a donor arrives, they can find their favorite:

Once they’ve found their NPO, a KIMBIA donation form takes their transaction delivers a confirmation number and sends an emailed receipt confirming their gift. All of this happens on one page, making the giving process easy and efficient.

Every participating organization and their supporters also have the option to grab an embeddable version of the form to post on their own Websites. This way, the NPOs can promote donations on their own sites while receiving credit in the community Giving Challenge competition.

For this challenge the Community Foundation, has created a series of monetary grant prizes for NPOs who receive the most qualifying donations. If the gift is over $50, then it is counted in the real-time leaderboard. The first six NPOs who get to fifty donors receive an additional $5,000 grant. Then for the remainder of the challenge period all NPOs compete to see who can get the most donations. NPOs can get up to $20,000 in additional grant funds.

If you are in New Haven and would like to give to your favorite NPO, be sure to GiveGreater today! The Challenge runs From now till December 31, 2010, so tell your friends to give as well.

This Fall, KLRU choose KIMBIA to help them manage both Online and On-air pledge drive. In this video, Shane Guiter, Development Director at KLRU-TV PBS Austin, discusses how the new KIMBIA system…

• Saved KLRU time with easier volunteer training,
• Increased cash flow by converting more pledges into immediate transactions, and
• Provided real-time feedback to pledge staff allowing them to optimize their giving appeals.

GuideStar and KIMBIA continue to share a mission to deliver the most advanced online fundraising and event management solutions for cause organizations. Working toward this mission, GuideStar is now featuring the KIMBIA donation widget on the profile pages of every 501(c)(3) public charity on GuideStar. Visitors to GuideStar.org can donate to their preferred organization without ever leaving the NPO’s Public Reports Page.

These new forms on Guidestar.org are just the latest in our continued partnership with GuideStar. KIMBIA forms are already powering donations for many DonorEdge Community Foundations such as GiveGreater.org in New Haven and GivingMatters.com in Nashville during flood relief efforts.

Look for more giving power coming soon with our partners at Guidestar. If you are interested in learning more about our partnership with GuideStar...click here.

In 2009, event organizers selected KIMBIA to handle event registrations for the 19th annual running. This year, for the 20th annual event, they took their use of KIMBIA to the next level by making it the centerpiece of both their registration and check-in processes. Here’s how they did it…

1) Early Registration = KIMBIA Online Registration

One of the first decisions made by the event organizers and title sponsor (Thundercloud Subs) was to promote the KIMBIA online registration forms as the way for people to register. Because KIMBIA registration forms can be embedded anywhere online, Thundercloud Subs was able to promote their own Web site as the place for people to register.

As a result almost 17,000 people came to www.thundercloud.com to register themselves and their families for this year’s race. In all, approximately 95% of registrants chose the online method for pre-event registration.

“As a sponsor of this event, KIMBIA has been great.  People can register directly on our Web site… and they contact me directly. (KIMBIA) has enabled me to go in as an administrator get (participants) information, issue refunds, everything…  It’s important for us to have that direct relationship.
Good or bad, we take all those participant comments  to heart and we like to make it better for the next year.  This is our 20th year, and this is the best it’s ever been.” – Jeanne Haggerty —Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot

2) In Person Registration = KIMBIA Online Registration

In an effort to reduce paperwork and ensure real-time data integrity, the Thundercloud team, in coordination with Austin-based running store Run-Tex, organized a process to handle walk-up registrations on KIMBIA. As people entered the store to register for the event, they were directed to kiosks with wifi-connected laptops cued up to KIMBIA forms. Registrants could either register and pay immediately with their credit card, or they could complete a non-transactional KIMBIA form and pay by cash or check with one of the volunteers. Perhaps the best result however, was that only about 5% of the event participants chose an in-person option for registration, eliminating almost all paperwork, and allowing event volunteers to focus on check-in.

Walk-up registrants were directed to kiosks with laptops displaying KIMBIA registration forms.

Registrants provide their name and/or KIMBIA confirmation number to a volunteer Using KIMBIA Check-in.

3) Event Check-in = KIMBIA Check-in

Now that all registrants (pre-reg or walk-up) were confirmed in the KIMBIA system, the Thundercloud team was able to create one of the most efficient processes for check-in and packet-pickup that we’ve seen. All registrants were instructed to visit the Run-Tex store to pickup their bib numbers, t-shirts, and race packets. As they entered the store, most people went straight to a line where a team of volunteers waited; armed with KIMBIA’s Event Check-in application on screen. Volunteers would simply look up the person based on name or confirmation number, the KIMBIA check-in system would find their registration record, and in a single click the volunteer could mark them as checked-in. Participants were assigned a bib-number and sent to the final stations to pickup their their promotional race packets and T-shirts. In total, participants would take no longer than 5 minutes to complete their check-in process.

Volunteers can search and check-in participants in mere seconds. They assign a bib-number and send the participant on to the final station

In less than a few minutes, registrants are checked-in and move on to pickup their race packets and T-shirts.

In the past few months, our race event customers have registered and enabled fundraising for over 60,000 participants using KIMBIA. If you manage or sponsor a large event like this, we know that KIMBIA can help you too. Check our our Race Packs to learn more and fill out an information request form to have a KIMBIA representative contact you.

Fundraising events are a tried and true method of exciting your supporters and raising money for your cause. Historically, the logistics of coordinating events like these are very complicated and costly. Recently however, the Republican National Committee came up with an innovative way to use their existing KIMBIA toolset to meet all of their needs and coordinate two major events on opposite ends of the country.

The hope was that a single system could be used for event registration, credit-card processing, ticketing, and participant check-in. With a little planning and the launch of a new KIMBIA feature, they were able to use the KIMBIA platform for all of the above tasks. Here’s how.

1) First, because KIMBIA forms can be embedded anywhere online, the same registration form could be launched on GOP.com as well as on the GOP Facebook Fan page.

2) Next, the RNC was the first KIMBIA customer to take advantage of our new barcoding system for event registration. By doing this, they were able to process funds for each registration while event participants were immediately emailed a confirmation receipt with a barcode. They could then print this receipt to take with them as their ticket to the event.

3) Finally, at the event, RNC staff was able to use barcode scanners and KIMBIA’s Event Check-in tool to confirm people’s registration and grant them access to the event. For people who did not bring their printed receipt, staff members could look them up by name or address and check them in manually. For those who wanted to pay to attend the event day-of, they could do so by registering on a live form at one of the stations.

At this time of year, its important for an organization like the RNC to be nimble and efficient in their fundraising efforts. We are glad that the KIMBIA platform was able to provide the flexibility and end-to-end functionality needed to help make these efforts a success.