eTapestry

When 7-year-old Sage Friedman learned about the Japan disaster in her first grade class, she knew she had to help. Sage looked at all the toys she had and decided she could raise money to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami by selling her toys, books and the clay sculptures she makes.

Sage’s mother, Jennifer Friedman, remembered an organization that shipped boxes of essential equipment to Haiti after that country was devastated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in January 2010. The organization, ShelterBox, is an international nonprofit, disaster relief charity with U.S. headquarters in Florida (ShelterBox USA) and delivers boxes of aid to those affected by natural and manmade disasters. Each box supplies a family of up to 10 people with a tent and other life-saving equipment such as blankets, a water purification system, a cook-stove, tools and other vital items that are essential while victims are displaced or homeless.

ShelterBox USA uses a product called eTapestry® that allows constituents to easily build their own webpage and solicit donations and support for ShelterBox. The personal pages allow each person to tell his or her story and share it with friends. Donations made on the pages go directly to ShelterBox, so fundraisers don’t have to collect money and then submit it to the organization.

For Sage and her mother, the eTapestry tool made it easy to spread the word of Sage’s mission and raise money through ShelterBox to send much needed boxes to Japan. Sage wrote a letter explaining her mission and with some help from her mother, sent the letter out via email. It quickly went viral. Sage and her mother also set up a personal fundraising page on the ShelterBox website and provided a link to the page in the email. The personal page, which is housed on the ShelterBox website, enabled people to quickly and easily donate on behalf of Sage to the ShelterBox organization. Within three days of setting up her page and sending the email, Sage had reached her $1,000 goal and has to date raised more than $3,000.

According to Tiffany Stephenson, communications and event manager for ShelterBox USA, the personal fundraising pages are used often to raise awareness and money - especially since the disaster in Japan. Companies have also used the personal fundraising pages to raise money for ShelterBox.

When disasters occur, ShelterBox has to react quickly to provide aid to those in need. The use of personal fundraising pages through the eTapestry technology, and the heart of people like Sage, help the organization raise money and run efficiently - especially when time is of the essence.