Firstgiving is a service that allows individuals and organizations to set up personal fundraising pages. They just added the functionality to allow users to embed YouTube videos on those pages — another step in the general recognition that video is effective for fundraising.

Here’s the release:

Somerville, MA (PRWEB) March 12, 2008 — Firstgiving, a leader in providing Web-based fundraising services for individuals and charities, today announced the ability for its users to add YouTube™ video and Flickr photos to their personal Web pages. Mark Sutton, Chief Executive Officer of Firstgiving stated, “Experience shows us that the more personal the appeal, the more successful the fundraiser. Therefore, we made it easy for people raising money on Firstgiving to add their personal videos and photos to their fundraising pages.” The end result he says is more people raising more money for their favorite charitable causes.

Firstgiving fundraisers can choose from among hundreds of thousands of U.S. certified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations for which to raise money. Many individuals use the pages for event-based fundraising such as marathons or polar plunges. Others set up pages to raise money in lieu of birthday or wedding gifts or in memory of a loved one. Charities themselves can also use Firstgiving’s fundraising pages for events, special appeals or general donations. At any given point, there are 15,000 – 18,000 active pages on the Firstgiving Web site. Since 2003, they have helped over 100,000 people raise more than $50 million for more than 12,000 charities.

Experience shows us that the more personal the appeal, the more successful the fundraiser. Therefore, we made it easy for people raising money on Firstgiving to add their personal videos and photos to their fundraising pages.
Sutton noted that there is no “right” tone for the videos or photos that people post, but rather that it’s more important that they reflect the personality of the individual making the appeal. “Some are funny, others are serious and then there are those that are so inspiring they knock your socks off,” he said.

Sutton added, “Firstgiving’s goal is to make raising money for non-profits as easy and simple as possible for our users. By putting the right tools in their hands, we can help them make a positive difference for the charities they support.” For more information on how to set up your own Firstgiving fundraising page visit www.firstgiving.com.