Volunteers

Fundraising events can sometimes go tragically wrong. In New Jersey (USA), for example, in October 1997 a young boy was murdered while out fundraising from house to house.

One woman has set up the Montreal Ice Storm 98 Reporting Site to report on the atrocious ice storms affecting Canada, and to raise funds.

Service club Rotaract, which is affiliated with Rotary International, now has a Web page and an e-mail discussion list.

Rotoract has more than 140,000 members in its target 18-30 age group in 6000 clubs around the world.

The number of households in the UK that have Internet access has doubled within a year. There is now even less reason not to start testing and investing in online fundraising.

By June 1997 there were 960,000 households online, compared to just under 400,000 in June 1996, according to NOP.

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Appeal includes an online request for volunteer fundraisers.

While the charity realises that money is useful, so too is people's time. To this end they publish on their Web site guidelines for individuals and groups who want to organise a fundraising event or activity.

You can now search online for your local Rotary club, all of whom are engaged in fundraising or supporting charities.

Rotary Canada is the Internet's first Global Rotary Search Engine which will help you locate your local Rotary Club.

Angela Smith has set up an e-mail list to help a young woman in Kentucky & Ohio with a pet-relief project to save the animals of the flood that occurred in that area on 2 March 1997.

Two US non-profits received professionally-designed Web sites in eight hours as part of a Web design competition.

Two teams of designers created the sites as part of the Web97 conference in San Francisco. The benefiting charities were Artists for a Hate-Free America and Spare Change.

Three fundraisers on a sponsored trek to the South Pole are reporting on their progress to donors and supporters via the Web.

Leukemia sufferer Tom Price Lloyd Scott and two companions are raising funds for the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust by trekking to the South Pole. They are using the Web to report on their progress and to seek further donations.