Squidblog

Squidoo is donating $1000 to charity every day through Thanksgiving.

With a $5000 grand prize on Thanksgiving Day.

To enter and raise money (for free) for your favorite charity on our list, just make a foody lens. Great apple pie recipes, best locally grown squashes, tried and true baking secrets, best coffeemaker recommendations, your family’s Thanksgiving menu — anything and everything food or kitchen, it all goes.

Read up on the rules, then get started building.

Happy autumn! In September we had two new charity partners join us.

Golden Friends Rescue
We work as a go-between to help move Golden Retrievers and Golden Retriever mixes out of kill shelters and into reputable, established rescue organizations. We assist shelters and the larger established rescue organizations with their adoption processes.
 

Horses for Healing of NWA
The Horses for Healing is a nonprofit, therapeutic riding center that helps special needs children across Northwest Arkansas grow mentally, physically, and emotionally.
 

It’s easy to make a lens and set your royalties to a deserving charity, or two or ten. Learn how to edit your payment settings for charities.

Visit these and our other partner charities listed at Charity Central.

Congratulations, and welcome!
~Kimberly Dawn Wells
YOUR Charity Organizer on Squidoo

PS - not yet a partner charity? Learn about our criteria and apply here.

We love to hear how partner charities are putting donations to good use. Here are a few updates from partner charities who share their newsletters with us:

“Thanks to you Squids for your generosity to many causes, including our own small one to help upgrade combat troops, especially in the troops now fighting in Afghanistan.”
~Operation Helmet

“Your donation will help us provide educational opportunity to millions of children in the developing world. Since 2000, we have published 333 local language children’s titles, established over 7,100 libraries, partnered with local villages to build 765 schools, funded 179 computer and language labs, and provided 7,132 girls with long-term scholarships through secondary school. At Room to Read, we believe that there is no more valuable investment than the gift of education and the life change it can provide.”
~Room to Read

“Caring individuals like you help us continue our relentless efforts to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.”
~The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Aw…thanks for the warm fuzzies. You can easily make these fuzzies even warmer. Won’t you spend just 5 minutes to make a lens for one of our charity partners?

Do you have an official newsletter for your charity? Add us to the list! Use charitynewsletters at squidoo.com, or send us the sign-up link. We love to know what you’re up to. (Please don’t use payteam at squidoo.com, thanks!)

Hi charities! Time to dust off those bios and avatars of yours and see where you could use an update.

Your avatar and biography are important components of your lens, especially as a charity. The face you present needs to be polished, and a missing image or bio can be devastating to your reputation!

Does your bio look like this? Ick. Chances are slim a reader will donate. Time for an update. The best part is it will only take 5 minutes!

Once you’ve logged into your account, you’ll find all the info you need to update your bio on the My Profile tab of your dashboard. In that top Personal Info section you’ll see Default Photo and Default Bio. Let’s update the bio first. This will update your global biography, meaning it will show on all your lenses. You can also edit the biography on each lens individually, in the workshop.

Writing a biography.
Your biography doesn’t need to be long or extensive. In fact, you probably have the perfect elevator speech for your organization on your own website, or neatly tucked in a mission statement. Here are some of my favorite short biographies from our partner charities:

Paws Animal Kingdom is a Non profit charity dedicated to helping animals all over the world. We are dedicated to building a NO KILL animal sanctuary on 100+ acres of land in the Maryland area. You can help by visiting http://www.pawsanimalkingdom.org and clicking the donate button!
~Paws Animal Kingdom
 

Wildlife Forever is a 22 year old multi-species conservation organization. Our mission is to conserve America’s wildlife heritage through conservation education, preservation of habitat, and management of fish and wildlife. Become a member and support wildlife in America.
~Wildlife Forever
 

The Freeplay Foundation has helped more than 8 million poor and vulnerable people improve the quality of their daily lives through the distribution of sustainable, self-powered and environmentally friendly technologies. We strive to provide the poorest of the poor with access to education, information and energy.
~Freeplay Foundation
 

See how easy it is? From these bios, it’s easy to tell what each charity does and how they do it. If you’re having a hard time writing your bio, ask yourself, “What problem do we solve?” Keep it simple, so anyone can easily understand it.

Go ahead and enter yours, and be sure to click “save.”

Next, upload a photo.
The easiest way to add an image quickly and build brand recognition is to use your logo. The best logos are simple, have few colors, and aren’t intricate. If your logo is a combination of text and graphics, for instance, consider removing the text and using just the graphic. If you don’t have access to a good graphic designer, ask for help on our peer-driven forum. We bet a tech savvy lensmaster would be happy to lend a hand.

Remember to use a small image (2″x2″ on your monitor is good), and .gif or .jpg files are best.

That’s it! Now your bio is beautiful.

Bonus: after you’ve updated your bio, send an email to kimberly at squidoo.com with a link to your official charity Squidoo lens. You’ll get credit for updating your lens!

Welcome to these four new charity partners! Starting immediately, you can create lenses and send your royalties to these hard-working organizations. Soon, you can add the Donations Module to your lens and encourage readers to give even more.

New Identity Magazine
New Identity Magazine is a publication created to help people find their new identity in Christ by presenting interesting topics, issues and ideas from multiple Christian perspectives and showcasing the cultural and world aspects of life and following God.
 

Freeplay Foundation
The Freeplay Foundation has helped more than 8 million poor and vulnerable people improve the quality of their daily lives through the distribution of sustainable, self-powered and environmentally friendly technologies.
 

Global Sports Alliance USA
Global Sports Alliance USA is a nonprofit organization focused on making sporting events more sustainable and encouraging people to adopt a green lifestyle. We promote sustainable living to sports players and fans of any age from all sports backgrounds.
 

Cecil County Pregnancy Center
The Cecil County Pregnancy Center is a Christian, prolife organization which provides emotional support and practical assistance to pregnant women and to families with young children.
 

Visit these and our other partner charities listed at Charity Central.

Congratulations, and welcome!
~Kimberly Dawn Wells
YOUR Charity Organizer on Squidoo

PS - not yet a partner charity? Learn about our criteria and apply here.

We currently have an awesome selection of partner charities who are working hard to share their stories and raise funds through Squidoo. Some of these charities met us through passionate lensmasters, and some ran into us in a search engine. We’re curious, “how did you find us?”

If you’d like to get a little extra special promo, or just want to cure our curiosity, send a short note to charity -at- squidoo.com and tell us how you first learned about Squidoo.

While you’re at it, why not send a short note to your volunteers? If they create a lens or two, you could end up earning mega donations.

Hello generous lensmasters,

Things sure have changed for charities on Squidoo over the past three years! Squidoo is as dedicated to helping our non-profits as ever - 5% off the top of everything we make goes to charity, right away, without fail. Of course, the best charities know that the real power is in making lenses and being active partners.

The good news is we’ve gotten more organized and are attracting charities that are super enthusiastic about getting out there and making Squidoo work for them. New charities have a list of criteria they must meet and maintain in order to be registered with us. (The IRS says so.) Plus we have a few of our own requirements that helps us attract organizations that are working hard to earn donations, rather than sitting back and not joining in. After all, it’s easier to support an organization that’s working hard to help itself, right?

As we continue to expand our list and efforts, we’re also taking a look at existing charities. There are a few, alas, that have changed their internal advocates who were working with us, and for which we’ve wound up with outdated data and information, or are unable to contact at all. Would we love to keep working with them, and will we continue making it easier for you to choose what charity you want to support? Of course.

In the meantime, though, we’re updating our membership list and removing a small handful of charities that have disappeared into the ether. IMPORTANT: If one of these is a nonprofit you have earmarked your lenses for, you’ll be seeing those payment settings default to the Squidoo Charity Fund. It’s easy to see which charities these are, and make quick, global changes to your payment settings here.

Here are the charities that will be leaving us:
AIDS Research Alliance
All Golf’s Kids
American Can! Academy
American Institute of Architects
American Refugee Committee
Andean Aid
Brookings Area Habitat for Humanity
Caring Hands
Children’s Defense Fund
College Media Scholars
Community Supervision
Covenant House California
Destination Cure
First Nations Outreach
Fund for Peace
Gaston Youth Football Organization
Genocide Intervention Network
Global Action Foundation
Grand Street Settlement Beacon
Hadassah: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America
Heifer International
Lance Armstrong Foundation
Midway Cub Scouts
MyTwoFrontTeeth.org
National Latino Children’s Institute
Oxfam America
PA Breast Cancer Coalition
People for the American Way
Preeclampsia Foundation
Rabbit Rescue
Rotary Club
Sobriety High Digital Media
Society for Orphaned Children in Canada
Stroke Network
Talking Science
The Andrews Alumnae Association
The Liberty Kids
The Love of God Ministies
Tides Foundation
UJA Federation of New York
Veterans for America
Violence Policy Center
Volunteer Match

Of course, you can always send donations to these organizations directly, and if you’re super passionate about one of these charities, encourage them to reapply! It’s quick and easy, and you can learn all about it here.

Why not make a new lens for a charity partner? You can meet them at Charity Central.

Have fun!

1. dozens of lenses generating awareness and donations for your cause

2. hundreds more opportunities for donors to learn about you

3. cool projects to bring in more lensmasters to build lenses to support your cause, like the one in which Christopher Scott from A Day of Hope is excitedly participating.

PS - need to learn how to become a Giant Charity?

Voting is closed and ballots are tallied, congrats to Marine Parents for winning our $3,000 charity giveaway!

As you know, this contest was different from past contests. In order to be eligible, charities first had to pay an entry fee if you will. They had to build ten great lenses in just seven days! Over thirty charities showed interest in the challenge, and eight finalists met it, with the help of dedicated volunteers and lensmasters.

With nearly 75% of the votes, Marine Parents took a strong lead in our contest, and won the prize. Here’s what they had to say about how they’d spend $3,000: “We could certainly use the $3,000 to help with the renovations of our new corporate office and/or for the shipping costs to send care packages to our Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan in August.”

While we had a great time putting together this contest, our savviest charities know that contests aren’t the end all of generating donations through Squidoo. For this contest alone, in less than two days, nearly 7500 people stopped by the contest page to vote. Wow! 7500! That’s 7500 registered users who care enough about the future of our partner charities to stop what they’re doing and take action.

The real question is, what are these 7500 people going to do to continue supporting charities above and beyond this one contest?

Let me share a story about charity lenses. A few years ago, I had a problem. My dog was munching through tennis balls like crazy, and it was getting expensive. I built a lens with links to used, bulk tennis balls, figuring it was kind of a goofy thing, and I’d be the only one to use it. I set the royalties to go to charity, and totally forgot about it. But a few months later I realized it was really taking off. People were commenting on the guestbook and buying tennis balls. I was getting referrals from eBay and Amazon sales, and traffic from search engines.

In two years, that lens has generated over $250 for the Humane Society, and I put maybe 30 minutes worth of work into it. That’s $10 a month of easy money that is helping put puppies in loving homes. Even if the lens only made $1 per month, it was 30 minutes well spent.

This means if you could get just TEN volunteers to spend 30 minutes a week to build a lens to support your cause, and each lens made just $1 a month, in two years you could generate over $11,900 to fulfill your mission. Um…wow! It costs your volunteers nothing, and we bet they’ll have a heck of a lot of fun doing it. How does that compare to your current fundraisers’ ROI? Could you find ten volunteers who love you enough to do that?

Over 30 partner charities told us what they would do with $3,000 and we were amazed. The needs of these charities are so real, so immediate, and so worthy. They’re all right here on Squidoo, ready to show you how to help them make our communities better. Visit these charities, learn more about them, and consider sending a donation or making a lens to support them.

WWCD: What Would Charities Do with $3,000?

We want to see that happen, and we want to show you how to use the tools Squidoo offers to accomplish that goal and others. That’s why we’re ramping up the charity resources on Squidoo to provide more training, more partnership opportunities, and more one-on-one answers to your questions.

Keep an eye on the Charity Network Newsletter for more details coming soon. (subscribe here)

I’m looking forward to working with you!
~Kimberly Dawn Wells
YOUR Community & Charity Organizer

If you haven’t already voted, do it quick! Then go tell a friend.

At 9 pm EST voting will close and one of eight partner charities will win $3,000.

Visit Who Deserves $3,000? to learn more and vote.