We are pleased to be giving away last week’s mini break to Lisa James, Congratulations to Lisa, who gave us some great feedback on Give as you Live.

A lot of our parents visit our facebook page – would it be possible to develop a ‘Give as you live button’ which could be put on the facebook page – so that when clicked upon it takes our supporters straight through to the sign-up process, with the charity already selected, and possibly even their name, etc taken from their facebook page? I think it would encourage ‘time poor’/’techno-phobe’ people to sign up if it was just the click of a button.

We are passionate about using social media to help charities raise more money. Lisa’s comment could not have been better timed as we are particularly focussed on how we use Facebook and will investigate how we this function to our charity support kit– Watch this space!

We are so pleased with the quality of feedback that we are receiving from Try it and Win that we are extending it into September. The last chance to post your feedback will be 20th September, and on Tuesday 27th September we will announce the overall winner and the three runners-up.

The overall winner will get a luxury weekend in Corfu.

Here’s a sample of what we have learnt to date:
• To work on getting Give as you Live live on as many browsers as possible
• To make the sign up process as straight forward as possible
• To notify shoppers when Give as you Live is active
• To be knowledgeable of great offers and deals and notify our shoppers of them
• To look at how Give as you Live can be developed for charities using Facebook

So if you haven’t done so already, go and try Give as you Live, earn some money for your favourite charity and post some feedback on www.tryitandwin.com to be in with a chance of a free mini break in the sunshine!

Our 5th winner for try it and win is Paul Seligman from The Glamorgan Bird Club. Congratulations Paul!

Paul explained to us how he though Give as you Live should have more upsides for the user, like offers and vouchers.

Since receiving Paul’s comment we have upped the pace in searching through the Give as you Live retailers for the best deals. We will be advertising these on our website, Facebook and Twitter, as well as sending selected ones out to our users so that they are informed of great offers from their favourite stores.

Paul was delighted to hear that he had won, he said “I’ve been telling people they should use Give as you Live to raise funds for our club – I’m pleased to be rewarded with this great overnight stay”

We would like to thank Paul and all the other shoppers who have provided us with feedback, it is really helping us to enhance the shopping experience with Give as you Live.

If you haven’t yet had chance to try Give as you Live, why not go shopping now? There are two weeks of Try it and Win. If your feedback is the most useful out of the bunch, you’ll win a weekend away. The next winner will be announced on Friday 19th August.

Congratulations to Grainne McEntee from Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation who sent in the winning feedback this week, and won a relaxing weekend away.

Grainne highlighted an issue she was experiencing with using Give as you Live for Safari,

“One “glitch” I noticed was that as I was shopping on play.com, every time a progressed to another page, the same window informing me that giveasyoulive was active kept popping up in the centre of the page. This I could see as being an irritant to some and may put them off using it.”

After we received this comment our tech team got straight to work and the problem has now been fixed.

Without having Grainne bringing this problem to our attention, it would have taken us longer to discover it, which is why your feedback is so valuable to us.

If you haven’t yet had chance to try Give as you Live, don’t despair, there are still several weeks left to enter Try it and Win. If your feedback is the most useful out of the bunch, you’ll win a weekend away. The next winner will be announced on Friday 12th August

Congratulations to Victoria Prince-White, Commercial Ventures Development Manager at The Stroke Association, who has won this weeks weekend away.

Victoria gave us some great feedback on our sign up process and how it could be shortened to make it easier. She added:

‘…I wasn’t sure if Give as you Live was active when I visited the Boots store so I did not actually shop.’

In light of this week’s winner’s feedback, we have revised our sign up process to make it easier for supporters to sign up and making sure that it is clear that Give as you Live is active when shopping.

The more feedback from our supporters the more we can improve Give as you Live, raising even more money for deserving causes.

If you would like to win a weekend away, all you have to do is try Give as you Live and tell us what you think. The most useful feedback each week will win a weekend away, on us. The competition runs for another six weeks, with the next winner announced on 5th August.

Congratulations to Stephen Noble, Head of Fundraising at Barnardo’s who is the second lucky winner of our Try it and Win competition.

This is the feedback that Stephen entered to win a weekend break away, choosing from 10 beautiful locations.

I use Give as you Live to raise money for Barnardo’s, a charity that I work for. I was surprised when I introduced it to my wife, the one in our family who does most of the shopping, she wasn’t as fired up as me.  I subsequently realised it was because I had set Barnardo’s up as the default Give as you Live charity I had removed the motivation factor. Whilst Barnardo’s are a great charity my wife has other causes that are closer to her heart.

In answer to Stephens feedback, Give as you Live allows you to change the charity your supporting at any time, so if you were purchasing 10 different items from 10 different stores, you could make each one of them a donation for a different charity.

With feedback from our supporters that we can improve Give as you Live, raising even more for deserving causes.

If you would like to win a weekend away, all you have to do is try Give as you Live and tell us what you think. The most useful feedback each week will win a weekend away, on us. The competition runs for another six weeks, with the next winner announced on 22nd July.

Announced yesterday by Suki Gallagher at the Institute of Fundraising’s National Conference, Give as you Live is pleased to share the first winner of our Try it and Win competition:

Sharon Heathcote of Action Medical Research.

Sharon’s feedback, asking for Give as you Live to work with as many browsers as possible, has won her a weekend break away, choosing from 10 beautiful locations.

In line with Sharon’s feedback, Give as you Live is now available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and via our web based shop, ensuring all shoppers, even those behind a firewall, can raise money each time they shop online. Give as you Live for Chrome is currently in development, shortly to be followed by Give as you Live™ for mobile.

Thank you to Sharon for your valuable feedback. It’s only with feedback from our supporters that we can improve Give as you Live, raising even more for deserving causes.

If you would like to win a weekend away, all you have to do is try Give as you Live and tell us what you think. The most useful feedback each week will win a weekend away, on us. The competition runs for another seven weeks, with the next winner announced on 15 July.

It’s easy to enter:

1. Shop with Give as you Live™
2. Post your feedback and comments here
3. Win a weekend away

Each week we will select the most valuable feedback and winners will be contacted via email. You can read our past winner’s experiences with Give as you Live™ and where their prizes took them.

Please see our terms and conditions.