We, at CreativeGiving, wish everyone a happy 4th of July. Please remember why we celebrate it.

Creative Giving has partnered with a fantastic non-profit organization to raise money to support the organization’s mission. The Mommies Network, themommiesnetwork.com, provides a safe and secure place for mothers to find encouragement to be better women and parents.

The fundraiser runs from June 15-30 2011. Please visit the Network’s fundraising page at http://www.themommiesnetwork.org/viewpoints.shtml

By simply registering for free at sponsoring websites, you can donate $1-$5 for the Mommies Network. We will keep you updated as of the amount raised.

We want you all to know that we are continually working to provide your fundraisers/nonprofits with more cool features from the CreativeGiving site. 2011 is going to be a year of new improvements for you and your input is important.

If you have any suggestions for the site, please email us at support@creativegiving.com and we will implement them for you. 2011 is all about YOU!!

We just launched our first of several videos for the #cashless fundraiser. Let us know what you think:

CreativeGiving is officially announcing the upcoming launch of a new fundraiser, which is put on by us, the CreativeGiving team. The fundraiser is called 4min4good.com and all proceeds will go to benefit the homeless families and children that currently reside at the UMOM New Day Centers in Phoenix, Arizona.

I am very excited to team up with UMOM New Day Centers, which is a 501(c) nonprofit organization because they not only support homeless families, but they also strive to end the homelessness cycle. UMOM has a wide variety of programs to help its residents overcome homelessness and be a self-sustaining individual in the community.

The fundraiser will begin on November 15, 2010 and run through December 20, 2010. On December 20, we will collect all donations and purchase needed necessities for UMOM residents. All the gifts will be presented to the families on Christmas day. We are seeking to raise $2,000; so we need your help in spreading the word.

The great thing about this fundraiser is that you can make financial donations without having to donate your money. All we ask is that you take 4 minutes and complete a simple, free survey; or write product reviews. We have partnered with corporations that will make donations on your behalf each time you complete a free task online. Please visit the fundraiser’s blog at 4min4good.com to learn more.

If we all contribute just 4 minutes of our time, we can provide a lifetime of happiness to a homeless family.

We want to congratulate and highlight one of the creativegiving pages that was created during the month of September. Michael has raised $187 of his $1,000 goal so far.

"Michael is a Boy Scout working on his Eagle Scout project. He will construct several shelves and a display case for the USO. The shelves will be used to organize many donations the USO receives. They often receive hygiene items, holiday items, books/puzzles, and electronics. Part of the display case will be used for historical items and other miscellaneous items the USO has received. The other half will be used for "The United Through Reading" books used in the past. "The United Through Reading" is where a Soldier can go in a room and someone will record them reading a book and the recording and book read will soon be sent to the family. The  USO is a place where Soldiers can relax and not worry about anything outside of the USO walls." 

We encourage everyone to visit Michael’s page so that he can reach his goal of $1,000. Remember, you can make financial donations to Michael’s page without donating cash. Good luck Michael.

Yep, we’re getting more and more hip. We just finished creating our facebook application. You can access it by clicking here: Facebook App.

Let me tell you a little about the functions of the app so you know why you should use it: The app allows you to

• display any creativegiving fundraiser on your facebook profile
• Track all donations to your fundraiser
• create a new fundraiser
• obtain access to all our offers
• do much more……

What do you think about the new app? Would you like to see other functions on the app or is there something that annoys you about it? We want to know.

I know I haven’t written a post in a long time…..but it was for a good reason. First, my wife gave birth to our second child on July 23, 2010. So Ive been pretty busy with that. With that said, there have still been quite a few things happening behind the scenes, one of which I will share with you right now.

We have just launched the new design of our widgets. Along with the new design, are also new functionalities. Here it is in all it’s glory:

The best thing about this widget is how little of work is required for a person to reach the Corporate Sponsor page. For example, if a user clicked on the old widget, the user would have been directed to the creativegiving fundraising page and then the whole sign up process would have been required. With this new widget, it only takes two clicks to reach the Corporate Sponsor page. This widget also allows a user to automatically register at CreativeGiving using their facebook login details. The user never has to go to the CreativeGiving website.

I will announce a few other major additions to the CreativeGiving functionalities soon, as well as CreativeGiving’s first sponsored fundraiser. Stay tuned.

June 30th is apparently dubbed as "Social Media Day." I’m not sure if it was Mashable.com that made the big push towards this day, but nonetheless, it is being celebrated as such.

Normally, I wouldn’t care too much about something like this except I was thinking about how much social media has helped nonprofit organizations or individual fundraisers reach thousands of people. Think about even just 10 years ago. They would never be able to reach their supporters at such high volumes, which has helped raise so much money. Look at the Chase Community Giveaway on Facebook, which gave away $5 million to dozens of charities. Or think of Twestival, where over $460k was raised all online.

It’s amazing to think of all the amazing things we have accomplished, and how important of a role social media played in it. So for that, here’s to you "Social Media Day." 

Welcome to the new design of our blog. After some careful thought and some recommendation from our readers, I decided to use DIYThesis.com as our new blog template. I really like it. Its easy to navigate on the admin side and it looks better…I think. Plus we can post a "Featured Fundraiser" on the right hand side of our blog. If you have created a fundraiser at creativegiving and want to post your widget here, we can post it for a day. I want to know what you, our readers, think about the new design. Give me your likes, dislikes, suggestions for improvements, etc.

Also, we are currently setting up a fundraiser to support a local homeless shelter here in the city of Phoenix. We are currently deciding on which one will be the beneficiary of our first official "CreativeGiving" Fundraiser. Check back for more details.