Success Stories / Alex Steed Raises Money to Help His Cousin Rebuild After a Fire

When his cousin lost everything, including her dog, in a fire, Alex Steed needed to find a place online where he could raise money for her and spread the word about her troubles. Using The Point, not only was Steed able to do both of these things with ease, but he reached his goal so quickly that he had to start another (successful) campaign.

As a social platform, Steed explains that The Point was an especially handy element in his fundraising drive since he did not need to direct funds to a particular organization in order for his cousin to collect them, so that helped to skip a middle-instution, putting the cash straight into his cousin’s hands. By simply directing people to her campaign via email, instant messages, and Facebook correspondence, Steed had people pledging their money to be given directly to her.

“People also really responded to the conditional nature of pledging their money. Some of those who donated told me that they might have otherwise put off giving indefinitely, but since the campaign only went on for a finite amount of time, and needed a certain amount of money for it to be granted to her, the sense of immediacy for helping my cousin pushed them to commit instantly,” said Steed of his fundraising efforts.

His first effort, held in the six hours after he heard about her loss, was particularly successful since The Point helped for him to structure it for optimal success. It made setting up a matching campaign particularly easy. Prompting him to consider challenging others to give on the basis of what he was willing to put up also challenged folks to give generously. When he reached his goal, he explains, and those who hadn’t yet had an opportunity to do so could no longer give, Steed actually received emails from them demanding that another avenue be provided. That day, he set up another campaign for her and successfully raised for his cousin another $500.