Firstgiving review

Compared to N4G Firstgiving has the added functionality of "sponsor me to do X so I can raise money for Y." Yay them. A smart set up. Sometimes I wonder if peeps aren't more willing to give money in order to see people they know do something heroic, stupid or humiliating than they are to giving a wide-eyed Filipina- for example (oh you know the commercial) child with dirt on her face and one flip flop. They'll definitely feel for said one-shoe wee one. But I'd bet cash money (or rather coin money- I am poor, and semi Filipina, and I also in fact, cannot find my other flip flop)- esp in these trying times, the wallet may come out more for the friend doing the deed more than for the kid in need. Almost as a way of paying your pal for doing SOMETHING, damn it. I digress.

I couldn't figure out how to get a widget from an event. But there is a whole event setup like all Boston Marathon runners running for Oxfam know where to go on the site to all create the same Oxfam/Marathon branded page and then from that page I imagine it is the same process as below. I think the orgs are responsible for that.

How it works.
You design a page. You pick your charity and explain stuff. You get to add flickr and youtube and jpg and it's easy. Here's mine. http://www.firstgiving.com/mahachehlaoui

Once you make the page you can:
Email peeps. According to the site "It's the most important part of your fundraising." You can enter many manually or add from address book and you can customize your message.

Post in Facebook. My page is an embarrassment I won't.

Pro's
The badge is easy to create.
Metrics 101- you can see who gave: Log-in to your account to see a full list of everyone who's made a contribution to your page (including anonymous donors), and their personal messages for you"
So cool that you can have team pages. Can you have team widgets? I would want two thermometers one on how the team is doing and one on how my own personal fundraising for the team is going. Ie team goal and my goal.

Cons
But if you change your mind on charities I think you have to start over. That's kind of annoying.
The widget doesn't support the Youtube or the Flickr. Pourquoi Firstgiving?
The charity's name doesn't show up in the widget you have to click to see it. Lame. I guess I coulda made it my title but still. Downer.

PS this site calls the widget a widget and not a badge. Solid, FirstGiving- seriously, way to go. But they do use the term badge, and with it they mean button. What's up online charity world? Why couldn't you just use the same words as everyone else? Badges? Et, tu Blogger. "Add a GADGET?"