The Fundchange end of year matching challenge continues to move forward towards its goal of raising $100,000 in project funding for Canadian charities (including TELUS quarterly matches). Fundchange is one of Canada’s first crowdfunding – or online fundraising – websites for Canadian charities, launched by Ideavibes. As we move closer to the end of 2011,  Fundchange announced a year-end matching campaign with sponsor, TELUS Communications.

So far, the campaign has resulted in a number of new charities posting projects – all focused on being one of the first 8 to have their projects funded by December 23rd to qualify for TELUS matching funds of $2500 each. In under two weeks, 12 new charities have signed up.  Each of them posted interesting projects seeking under $5,000 in funding. On Dec. 24th, Fundchange and TELUS will be announcing the 8 organizations that successfully had their projects funded by Dec. 23rd and who will receive the matching funds early in January.

Fundchange Successes

Fundchange gives the public the opportunity to support projects in different ways: voting, liking on Facebook, Tweeting, commenting, emailing, and of course, funding. Organizations like Dress for Success, The Ottawa Mission, Pick My Class, The Toronto City Mission, etc., have joined Fundchange this fall and are using crowdfunding and social media to mobilize support from people connected to them directly or through the degrees of separation through their social networks.

With Fundchange, Pick My Class has raised funds to develop a web platform that will connect inspiring public school teachers to donors, to enhance their student’s classroom experience. Pick My Class Founder Andrew Spinner says “Fundchange is a wonderful program which has assisted us in sourcing funds, and has been integral to Pick My Class’ development”.

Fundchange Workshops

Fundchange and TELUS recently held another workshop in their series on Social Media and Crowdfunding in Toronto where additional sessions had to be added due to the demand from local charities and non-profits. Fundchange and TELUS partnered with Koodonation and Artez Interactive to make these workshops available. You can read more about those workshops in the Ideavibes blog post “A Time For Giving: Why Charities Should Use Crowdsourcing“.