I agree about "#GivingTuesday" - I got so many bombardments to give donations over the last 48 hours (including a call from a Canadian church ministry) that it was way overwhelming. That said, one member did put up a personal WW&F fundraiser on Facebook and raised $370.
The donations via the shopping portals, however, are VERY legit. I too was extremely skeptical when I first signed us up with "iGive" 5-6 years ago. Since then, we've raised over $1000 (iGive + smile.amazon) with just *three* iGive donors participating regularly (one is not even a member, who happened to visit us twice, then moved away). (We have a few more donors on Amazon.) I'm sure that if everyone who reads our forum and facebook pages used iGive and smile.amazon whenever they ordered something online, we could be raising at least $100/mo in "free" money.
Of course, we have three active formal fundraising campaigns:
1. The Annual Fall Fundraiser (targeted to our membership. Look for an update in the Nov/Dec Newsletter)
2. The "
21 Campaign" (targeted to our broader friends and followers, or those who want to specifically support the boiler building projects.)
3. The
"Narrow Bridge Ahead!" campaign (targeted to our broader friends and followers, bridge enthusiasts, or those who specifically want to fund the bridge.)
The downside of online donations (some of #2, and most of #3) is that there are fees collected by the web sites hosting and gathering the donations. However, these web-based fundraising efforts reach a lot of people, who then often turn into members and regular donors.
The best way to support the museum is to send an old-fashion check to:
WW&F Railway Museum
PO Box 242
Alna, ME 04535
And either specify what project you want to contribute to - or leave it unrestricted.
