How it Works

Once a donor clicks on “Give to this Project” on any of the project description pages, they will be given three options for supporting a project. A donor can make a financial contribution by filling out an online form on GivetoCal’s secure site and using a credit/debit card (Visa, Mastercard, or American Express) or check. Additionally, a supporter can collect donations from their social network by creating a ChipIn event. Finally, a supporter can make an in-kind donation of products or services if these are requested by the project. Airline tickets for student travel are always appreciated.

Donors will receive two “thank you” emails – one from the University and one from the Big Ideas @ Berkeley Initiative. The second will contain a password for viewing progress reports of projects they are supporting.

All contributions directly support the work of the Big Ideas @ Berkeley student-led teams who are tackling major challenges at the local, regional, and global level. All donations go through the UC Berkeley Foundation Fund.

Themes

Projects Ordering - The order in which initiatives appear on "browse" pages is dynamic and changes every time you click on the theme titles. We want to give all the projects that we support equal opportunity to be listed at the top to attract the attention of donors.

Progress Reports - Progress reports on Big Ideas are posted directly to bigideas.berkeley.edu by project leaders as they are completed, or at least once every 6 months (in January and June) as required by administration. To protect the privacy of the student teams, these documents are made accessible only to supporters of projects (financial or in-kind) through password protection.

Promoting Your Project

The following features for promoting projects can be found by clicking on the "Spread the Word" button on any of the project overview pages.

Tell a Friend - Spread the word about Big Ideas @ Berkeley and update your friends and family on the projects you're either working on or interested in supporting.

Start a ChipIn Event - Ask your friends and family to help raise funds for a project by creating a ChipIn event. Organize and communicate with donors and track fundraising easily with this online "social giving" feature.

Create a Widget - Find the project you want to support and create a widget to promote it! The Widget can be added to your Web pages, social networking pages like MySpace, blogs, or any other Web precense. They help drive traffic directly to your chosen project and show real time information on the amount of funds raised.