My First Giving page: Ironman for SIGN

Previously I wrote about First Giving, a wonderful website that facilitates fund-raising for altruistic events or causes. Having registered for next year's Ironman Couer d'Alene, I knew that I could use the race as a platform to generate financial support for the Surgical Implant Generation Network (SIGN). SIGN says it better than I can on their homepage:

"Severe fractures occur daily throughout the developing world as a result of road traffic accidents, violence, and disasters. Many victims are too poor to afford surgical implants. Local surgeons often have only traction or casting available to treat complex fractures. They watch in frustration as their patients lay in traction for months, often with poor results.

SIGN’s mission is to support surgeons in the developing nations by providing them with training and modern equipment so they can provide immediate surgical treatment to their patients. As a result, surgeons can treat more patients in a timely manner, and patients are soon able to walk and return to work to feed and care for their families."

This young Ethiopian woman recently had her mobility restored, and in many ways her life saved, by SIGN. You can read her story and those of many others  here. 

A perfect union between my desire to participate in medical mission work and my interest in Orthopaedics, SIGN was an easy target for my efforts. Having the ability to easily, securely, and efficiently develop and maintain a means to try and generate that support, however, would have been quite a challenge. Fortunately, First Giving had taken care of that for me. 

I took some screen shots of the process and can direct you to my personal fundraising page. I would of course love to receive your support, but more importantly, I'd simply like to make you aware of First Giving's excellent service, so that you could also embark upon supporting the organization of your choice. I also wanted to introduce those reading this blog to SIGN and the inspiring work they are performing throughout the world. I hope that you will join me in supporting them in whatever way that you can. Now, onto the  development process:

The entire process was so convenient that it only took a few minutes. 

First, I simply went to the home page and clicked on 'Create a Page' (the green button in the above screenshot)

I then followed the very simple instructions and searched for my chosen organization, SIGN, by typing their name in the search bar

Finding them right away, I clicked on 'Start Fundraising.'

I selected the 'Triathlon' option for my fundraising event and was taken to my own personal page, where I filled in all of the requested details, wrote my short description of the fundraiser, and was done!

If you'd like, you can check out my completed page at Ironman for SIGN. On the page, you can see my brief bio and a description of the project. First Giving makes establishing and maintaining your fundraiser effortless, I strongly encourage you to give it a try, you never know what might happen.