Hello

My name is Claire I have set up a website to try and fund raise to repair or replace my very special wheelchair (I have Cerebral Palsy). The site took me a very long time to do mainly because my speed is so slow cause of my CP.

I am looking for a website professional who would be willing to give me the help I need free or at a very low cost.

It took me so long to set up my site and now I have no idea how to get the traffic I need to raise the funds I need for my wheelchair. I am a cafter but I cant do caftfairs because of my disability. So my website was ment to be my way of using my skills to solve a problem and help my self and my family keep my wheelchair going. I cant get the traffic that I need to sell stuff. So I swallowing my pride and trying to find someone who will help me get the site up to par and sellinge stuff. I have been told it needs constant promotion but I dont no what I can do cause everything has failed so far. I am desperite to get the help I need as the situation with my wheelchair is getting more urgent. My health has been worse lately so I am struggling more to do the web stuff as it is not easy for me. I have had people say they will help me in the past but then they have let my down. I cant put in to words what it would mean to us to get this sorted out. My site is www.handmadecardsucantreasure.co.uk if you want a look at it and get more info. can anyone help please.

Hi Claire, while I can't offer anything in the realms of proffesional help (I mearly push pixels ), I can offer a couple of suggestions which hopefully you might find useful.

 

When a comsumer purchases things online, image is everything. If a site looks in the slight untrustworthy, they'll find somewhere else. Because you obviously can't afford a proffesional designer I would recommend considering something like Shopify. Shopify a cheap and reliable way of getting a shop online and they have plenty of templates that look alright really. Check it out, I'm sure your hosting costs aren't much cheaper.

 

When it comes to promoting I can't help that much but what I will say is social networks. If you don't have the cash for adwords and shizz then you should have a Google and read some of the many blog posts and articles out there about using twitter and facebook to promote your business. I would link some but there's billions on google.

 

There's also eBay.

 

Hope that helped, best of luck Claire!

~evu.

Hi Claire, I think it would be a good idea to set up an account over at http://www.justgiving.com/ so people can quickly and easily donate money (if they would like to) straight to a fund for the wheelchair. It's inspirational that you are trying so hard to make money from your own wares rather than just asking straight up for money so huge respect for that.

 

Like evu says Facebook and Twitter are you first port of call when it comes to promoting your business, Google Adwords is good but the home craft card market is flooded with companies and people doing similar things.

 

Not to sound out of line or anything but I don't think you are going to make much money from selling things on that site and if things are indeed as dire and desperate as you say on the wheelchair front then justgiving is a way for people to invest in you as a person rather than your business. Once that is done you can share the story on facebook and get others to share it too.

 

It may sound like you are selling yourself and your story to raise funds but first you need to raise awareness of your plight otherwise people will just see a rather bad shop website and leave.

 

How much is the wheelchair if you don't mind me asking?

 

All the best

 

Chris

Hi Claire, I think it would be a good idea to set up an account over at http://www.justgiving.com/ so people can quickly and easily donate money (if they would like to) straight to a fund for the wheelchair. It's inspirational that you are trying so hard to make money from your own wares rather than just asking straight up for money so huge respect for that.

 

Like evu says Facebook and Twitter are you first port of call when it comes to promoting your business, Google Adwords is good but the home craft card market is flooded with companies and people doing similar things.

 

Not to sound out of line or anything but I don't think you are going to make much money from selling things on that site and if things are indeed as dire and desperate as you say on the wheelchair front then justgiving is a way for people to invest in you as a person rather than your business. Once that is done you can share the story on facebook and get others to share it too.

 

It may sound like you are selling yourself and your story to raise funds but first you need to raise awareness of your plight otherwise people will just see a rather bad shop website and leave.

a

How much is the wheelchair if you don't mind me asking?

 

All the best

 

Chris

Hi everyone thanks for taking the time to reply, my wheelchair is a long story. I was struggling with My NHS chair after my son was born as it didnt allow me to do things I needed to. I Managed to get a charity to pay for a very special chair that gives me the independance I need. It was 20 thousand at the time. When we got the chair we were told all repairs would be covered for the life time of the chair. But when resesson hit in the US the company changed their mind and now all repairs and parts have to be paid for. (the chair is americian) Then my chair broke just after my daughter was born about 18 mouth ago when I needed it the most. We asked people to help us fund raise as we did not have the 1500 needed to fix it. We got a real shock at peoples negative attitudes and lack of understanding. People seem to think that someone like me is given every thing that I need by the system and didnt seem to understand why we were asking for help. They did not understand how important my chair is to the whole families life (especially with a new born) My chair completely changed the whole families life for the better and when it was broke it was a desaster for us. We managed to borrow the money to fix it and we are struggling to pay it back.

Some friends set up the fund for my chair as we realised it would be an ongoing problem because as the chair gets older it needs more repair and will need replacing some time in the future but in the mean time we are faced with raising repair costs. We did look at just giving but they only let you register if your a registered charity we are not (we dont no how to do that, think you have to know you can raise at lease 5 thousand a year which we cant) At the moment there is only really me and my husband trying to sort this out people are not coming together and giving us the help we need. I dont think they get how important and special my chair is to all the family because to most people all wheelchairs are the same. I am trying to do the website so people can see I am trying to do what I can for the whole family to keep my chair going. We have set up a facebook group to try and get the fundraising support we need but no one seems to want to help and I just end up feeling bad for trying to get people to care enough to help us. The facebook group is friends of the wheelchair maintenance fund if any want to join or help us. Ive set up a facebook page for the website and a twitter page for the fund but I dont really know what to put on them I just seem to repeat the same things. I am also really stuggling to do it cause of my health problems plus the whole thing is depressing me as every effort I have made to help my family and myself have just failed. The last thing I want is people feeling sorry for me but I also no when I need help with a problem and I cant give up til I find a solution is it is to important to the whole family as we know how much we all struggled when my chair was not working at all.

All the info and links to the different pages I have done in my fundraising effort are on my website www.handmadecardsucantreasure.co.uk any other suggestions welcome. hope I havent woffled on to much but it might help people understand abit better as so far in my fundraising effort I have faced alot of negativity and lack of understanding. Thanks again

You might do a bit better by getting someone to look over the content - it needs to be a lot shorter and punchier than it currently is, and structured a bit better. I'm sorry to say that waffle tends to turn people off.

 

I'd also suggest putting a bit more of yourself into the About page - people are more sympathetic to sites that include a photo, because they get to put a face to the anonymous person asking for support. Some hard, summarised figures on how much you need to raise per year to maintain the chair would be a good idea - sort of "we need X, so far with your help we've raised Y".