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Be a fundraiser for the Army this Christmas.
By Georgia Tzanidis
The website for the Online Red Kettle (ORK) Campaign—the virtual way to donate during the holidays—is now live at onlineredkettle.org.
“Online Red Kettle gets bigger and better each year,” said Dona Romine, territorial direct marketing director. “With fewer kettle locations, holiday fundraising gets harder each year. We need programs like Online Red Kettle so that we can replace the donations we used to get in our kettles. It’s easy and fast to set up, so we hope for the biggest participation we’ve ever had.”
Registering for an online red kettle is easy. After linking to the website’s home page, you have a few options. You can register a kettle as an individual or you can gather a group and register for a team kettle. To encourage team-building within a business or company, consider registering for a corporate kettle that is comprised of several team kettles to foster competition between departments.
Once registered or logged-in for returning kettle hosts, you can design your personal kettle page with a personalized URL, kettle goal and the community you want to receive the donations. A new feature this year allows you to include streaming video.
Three types of solicitation email templates are available to send to friends and family—after uploading your email contacts from Yahoo or Google—introducing people to the page and requesting a donation. Conveniently, auto-generated emails are sent to thank donors and to inform you of a donation. You also have the option to send a personalized “thank you” email.
Although the Online Red Kettle website is active, the official public launch date coincides with the National Kettle Kick-Off on Thanksgiving Day. The ORK Campaign runs through Jan. 31, 2014.
