West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Not by me it's not.

Each of us would pick a different project to back and mine would not be Crossrail.

But what does that have to do with the thread.

 

Out of curiosity, what advantages do the WSRA see specifically in using JustGiving as their platform of choice - there are others in the market, and JG seem to be rather more expensive than some of the others.

(I’m not averse to online giving in principal, and I fully understand the need for fees, and recognise that other donation mechanisms - such as handling cheques - aren’t cost free either. So accepting that a charity will have to choose one platform, I’m curious about what advantages JustGiving present, beyond I guess brand recognition / trust in being probably the market leader).

Tom

 

I think you may be out of date with your information. Just Giving only charge (keep) the standard UK card fee to charities for defined fundraising campaigns.
However you are right in as much as sending in a cheque and registering with the charity for gift aid will net a little more money.
Just Giving do offer other services for which they do charge but above all they are the best known so they are trusted by donors who use that type of channel for giving.
You are always welcome to write to me privately if you can suggest alternatives which will make a significant difference to the amounts of money we collect via the online channel.

 

Tom, I think it's less about the platform & more about how easy it is to make a donation. A one-click link is needed.
Right now, I can't even find the track appeal on the WSR Plc web site or on FaceBook, the most likely sites for folks to find.
FB promotes events heavily, but I don't see links to timetables or fares anywhere.
I imagine the Plc is suffering from a lack of resources in the web dept.
Somebody needs to take a cohesive look & see what the Public see, then re-arrange accordingly.
As I said earlier, priority posts need to be pinned to the top of web sites.

 

The appeal is being run by the charities. There are good strategic reasons for this which have been well rehearsed in this thread many times.

 

And that's the problem isn't it. I think, or at least I hope, that the WSR has more than 62 people who support it.
But it seems that neither the PLC or WSRA is really actively promoting the appeal. Yes, it's on the WSRA website, but that's a fairly passive sort of promotion. I've seen it mentioned on Facebook & Twitter a couple of times, but as you point out such posts soon vanish beneath the new news (or cat videos). Perhaps we should post the link to the appeal every so often on whatever social media sites we frequent.

 

Indeed, but that's no excuse for it not to be heavily promoted by *all* WSR outlets, regardless of who nominally runs them.

 

Yes, & I thoroughly agree with that technique.
The link at the top of https://www.wsra.org.uk/ is a good example - one click goes straight to the DONATE form https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/railrenewal2019
There's no reason the same link couldn't be provided in Plc publicity, of no matter what kind.

 

The same thing happened a couple of years ago with the then appeal to raise funds for the repair/renovation of the three locos. It started with a brief flurry of activity but, without any follow up, had virtually died before the end of the first year and with only about a third of the funds raised. Enquiries on here about progress were ignored or dismissed. In the case of the present promotion I had certainly gained the impression that the work had been done and that the funds had been raised. As the WSRA showed with the loco appeal earlier this year regular progress updates keep people involved and draw attention to the project.

 

Sadly, the WSR family aren't very good at promoting their fund raising activities.

 

And may explain the slow take-up or lack of donor interest.

 

Just because there are sensible structural reasons for Organization B to run the appeal rather than Organization A, does that require Organization A to pretend the appeal isn't happening?

Why not add the option to add a donation towards the fund when paying for online ticket sales or online membership renewals?

 

That last may be a little trickier given the different organisations involved, but I completely agree with the spirit of the comment.


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Folks please!
(1) The NP massif all know about the appeal and could easily be promoting it to their friends, much more useful than kicking those working hard to run the appeal.
(2) The journal has carried and will carry information about the appeal. It goes to all WSRA members.
(3) The "on line" channel is but one channel for the appeal, those assuming only 67 people have donated really don't understand the process. Much more is raised though talking to folks who might be prepared to assist and who prefer to send in the big cheques.
(4) We are looking at how we might go for external grant funding but you get one chance to get that right so it's still a work in progress.
(5) It's far easier to ask the "why aren't they doing this or that question" than it is to put the system in place to make that idea a reality. We don't have in house IT experts who can quickly tweak our web sites we have to pay actual money to have these things done a lot of the time.

I'll say it again, despite the fact it seems to fall on deaf ears most of the time:

If you have actual knowledge about how to run big fundraising campaigns and the time to voluntarily assist the WSR then please get in touch with me and I'll be very happy to find you a (leadership) role in the fundraising team. Similarly if you are willing to come and shake a bucket on a station of your choice let me know and I'll find you a bucket.

 

Where am I? Did this just happen?

 

This post would do well in the Picture Puzzle thread.

 

Not sure where, but can guess. LNER tweeting about hiring two HSTs to XC today.


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Looks rather like Great Western Way, Norton Fitzwarren. The lightly used line to the left would be the WSR connnection.

 

I would have expected this appeal would be promoted to all their contacts by all the organisations affiliated with the WSR. It hasn't been because I would have have got it via that route and not via this forum.

 

NYMR seem to have a stronger focus and spread to their appeals, raising more from a similar base.