If you wanted to build a website that would grow exponentially via grassroots, check out YouCaring.com to see one at work.
Living in Shasta County and working on this concept together, Brock and Naomi Ketcher and Luke Miner launched the YouCaring.com website in October, 2011.
What is YouCaring.com’s purpose?
YouCaring.com is a free online fundraising platform (similar to the Kickstarter model but without any mandatory fees or absolute timeframes) focused on raising money for causes people care about. As they say, if it’s important to you it qualifies you to set up a fundraiser with them.
Fundraising categories of YouCaring.com
The 7 main areas YouCaring.com fundraisers are focused on: medical expenses, memorial/funeral expenses, tuition help, adoption fundraising, mission trips, and animal/pet rescue or helping a neighbor in need. If your fundraiser falls into another category, it will be up to the discretion of the administrators whether it will be accepted.
YouCaring is free. How does that work?
YouCaring.com is supported 100% by donations from a major contributor and the public. They are the first fundraising platform of its kind. Other fundraising sites that say they are free usually, in fact, charge 5-10% commission. Those sites are free only if no donations are received.
A wonderful feature of YouCaring.com is they send all monies donated in real time (not necessarily the case with other sites) minus the fees PayPal or WePay charge for processing credit cards. Again, YouCaring.com itself charges no fee to you.
Rather than built in fees to use the YouCaring website, there is a tipping system giving the fundraiser’s beneficiary the option to donate a percentage back to YouCaring.com. This has worked successfully to pay salaries, hire various contractors, maintain and grow.
YouCaring.com’s success continues
Since YouCaring.com’s launch in October of 2011, they have helped 72,000 various fundraisers so far. Their most successful fundraiser was for a fallen American hero who died in Afghanistan when $401,623 in donations were received to care for his loved ones.
With each and every fundraiser, be they big or small, more people learn about the site allowing the site to grow exponentially through word of mouth.
Today, YouCaring is in the top 4 fundraising sites (out of some 1500) in the USA alongside Kickstarter, IndieGogo, and GoFundMe as the others.
They have thousands of people visit their website daily. And what you see on the website is a great explanation of how it all works. YouCaring’s FAQ page is thorough. Add to that their testimonial page and it’s easy to understand why they have caught on.
If you are a visual person, they have produced a YouCaring YouTube video. You can also find them on Facebook and Twitter.
Creative and technical talent in Shasta County
In interviewing Luke Miner to learn more about YouCaring.com, he made a point about the ease of working in Shasta County. Part of the reason is there are so many talented and creative people in the area which has spurred him on. An interstate transplant to Redding, going on 6 years ago, he has recently traveled to some cities in other states (the size of Redding and larger) and came away with a thought reinforced: Shasta County has an unusually high percentage of creative and technical talent for its size. This is one reason why it’s easy for Luke to consider Shasta County his home for years to come.
Please show your virtual support by finding the Shasta EDC on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Here you will be able to follow along as we shed light on more area companies.
January 2014
