Edge Pledge TV Ep 33

The weekly Edge Pledge update is here. Welcome to Edge Pledge TV episode 33 where we take you deep into the world of a wildlife-fundraising platform and we unpack all we are doing as we try to end extinction with you and have some laughs along the way.

1. 50/50 progress Through the awesome support of Landcare Australia we are launching the new 50/50 program.

Right now we are working on the backend of our new 50/50 program where schools and community groups can use Edge Pledge to raise money for themselves (50% of funds raised) and support local wildlife (50%).

Our aim is to have 20 schools complete their challenges in March 2018 and we are on track to see that happen.

We are working on our communication material at the moment, which summarises the program and how schools can make the most of it. We are also developing social media packs to help people share their content and also packs to help schools contact local businesses to encourage them to participate.

1. Formalities in signing up a school or community group We have an established process to sign up organisations with Edge Pledge which is the same for Schools and Community Groups. The only difference is that we can’t provide donors with a tax deductible receipt for the 50% that goes to schools.

When a school is ready to sign up we send them our fundraising agreement and they sign up to a payment gateway so all the money goes straight to them. We then load them as a school on our system, we pick the wildlife project they want to support, they outline how their funds will be spent and we are right to go. This takes about 10 minutes all up!

We know teachers and parents will ask us whether it is safe for kids to do challenges. We believe it is and have checks and balances
1. We have a kids challenge generator so they can be guided by safe challenge ideas.
2. We see every single challenge that gets loaded and we will inform the school if we see any that are inappropriate.
3. We encourage schools to work with kids to sign up so they aren’t doing it on their own.

1. Play Outside Australia - how we can support environment-focused education programs I reached out to Narelle who runs Play Outside Australia based in Melbourne to discuss 50/50. It is always inspiring to hear of people who are doing so much to help our environment and educate the next generation. The focus of her work is getting kids into nature and educating them there and about nature.

Narelle loves what we are doing with 50/50 and we discussed how we can support each other.

Basically we decided that this 50/50 program is a great way to help her educate more kids and connect them to local projects. So we are going to setup Kids Outdoors as a community group who we will raise funds for.

This way Play Outside Australia can use the funds raised to build bug hotels which are then established at schools and form the centrepiece of environment education. Perfect.

Please reach out if you are a similar organisation and like the sound of us helping you to help th next generation

1. How we could support Universities We have been having even more brain waves as well. Why can’t we apply the 50/50 program to Universities undertaking environment-focused research? There is no reason.

So we are contacting all the researchers we know and also who have participated to see if we can get them on board.

They could use the funding to buy field equipment, buy software to crunch numbers - whatever they want that can help to understand our wildlife better.

1. Next steps We are continuing to focus on refining our communications material. We are meeting with our lawyers to make sure everything is in order in terms of our fundraising agreements and website terms and conditions