“If you don’t do this now, you will never…”I said these words to myself before signing up for a 100km race in the UAE. Soon after making this commitment I decided I’d use this opportunity to fundraise for my favorite charity. Full of optimism and excitement, I searched google for an online fundraising platform in the Middle East that would allow me to collect donations in the UAE. YallaGive was the top search result, and so began my fundraising journey!

Getting Started with YallaGive

As a newcomer to the world of charity, I needed a user-friendly platform that would make the whole fundraising process quick and easy. Luckily, creating a profile on YallaGive was simple and efficient. Setting up a personalized fundraising page took less than five minutes, and the platform even allows users to sign up using either a Google, Facebook or email account. All that’s required is to then select a good cause, write a short description of the goal, and illustrate the campaign with photos and videos. To fundraise for an approved charity, the charity will then approve your campaign page. And so, before I could finish a mug of coffee, I had created a YallaGive online fundraising campaign and I was ready to tell the world!

The Ups and Downs of Fundraising

With my YallaGive profile live and my marathon training underway, I set about sharing my goals with my friends, family, and social media network. Initially, I chased the low hanging fruit; sending direct messages to loved ones inviting them to support. Of course, they responded positively and gave willingly and generously to my campaign. However, after an initial flurry of contributions, my fundraising efforts soon slowed down. Far from reaching my fundraising target and with new donations reducing quickly, I started to ask myself “how am I ever going to hit my fundraising target? ;

Fundraising with a Strategy

Through this experience, I learned the importance of developing meaningful and inspiring communications to engage with both current and potential donors. Simply asking for a direct donation is not going to persuade anyone to hit that donation button (except perhaps your wife or husband). From this moment forward I began communicating with my target audience

consistently, sharing updates about my fitness, charity, activities and even posting photos of each training session.