Fundraiser FAQ
Insider Pages Fundraisers Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Insider Pages?
- Can any type of organization sign up for an Insider Pages Fundraiser?
- Who can participate in my group's Insider Pages Fundraiser?
- How much money will we make?
- What is a "qualified review"?
- Do all reviews have to be positive?
- When will we be paid?
- What does Insider Pages get out of this?
- How do my group's members and supporters sign up for the program?
- How do my group's members and supporters invite their friends, family, and colleagues to participate?
- Who do I contact if I have a question related to the program?
- Will people know it was me who gave a review on a business?
- How do I view/change my account information?
- How do I add my Business Review to Insider Pages?
- How do I add a business to Insider Pages?
- What if someone starts writing reviews for the Fundraiser but forgot to join the fundraiser first?
Q. What is Insider Pages?
A. Insider Pages (www.insiderpages.com) is a place where people go to read and post reviews of local businesses and services. We were built on the idea that the best way to find a local business is to ask someone you trust. We have millions of customer-written reviews of local businesses, including services relevant to parents and homeowners such as doctors, dentists, hairstylists, plumbers, contractors, insurance agents and much more.
Insider Pages is a search property of Citysearch (an IAC operating company). We are headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Q. Can any type of organization sign up for an Insider Pages fundraiser?
A. Yes. Fundraisers are designed to help any organization raise money (school, club, sports team, neighborhood group, non-profit, scout troop, etc). Any local and national group with a Federal EIN can conduct a fundraiser. Insider Pages / Citysearch may issue an IRS 1099 form to the recipient of the fundraising proceeds at the end of the year.
Q. Who can participate in my group's Insider Pages Fundraiser?
A. Any member, supporter, any of their friends, family, etc. of your organization over the age of 18 can participate in the fundraiser by writing reviews. In fact, we encourage you to invite friends, family, and colleagues to sign up and write reviews for your cause - even if they do not live in your community.
Those under the age of 18 may help by recruiting parents, relatives, neighbors, and community members to write reviews. In addition, they can take and submit photos of local businesses on Insider Pages and ask local businesses to hand out flyers recruiting their customers to write reviews for your organization. (Businesses also benefit from this since more reviews of their establishment on Insider Pages means greater web visibility on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Ask).
Q. How much money will we make?
A. The amount each group earns from the Fundraiser depends on the amount of effort it puts in. Here are the things you can do to maximize the amount your group earns:
- Sign up as many review writers as possible. Remember to ask members to invite friends, family, and colleagues to join your group’s Fundraiser.
- Motivate each review writer to write as many reviews as possible. Send email reminders and be sure to communicate to your supporters about the group's fundraising goal and specific plans for the funds raised.
- For each qualified review of a business your group writes, Insider Pages makes a donation to your organization of up to $1.50 for the first review of each business and up to $.50 for each 2nd-4th review.
- For each review your group writes, you will see a message underneath the write a review box showing the amount your group will receive for that review. The amounts are described here.
Based on past Fundraisers, a reasonable number of reviews per participant are between 20 and 50. Though we have had many participants who were able to write 100 or more reviews, a few reviews each day during the Fundraiser by each participant is a reasonable goal.
Q. What is a "qualified review"?
A. For a review to earn a Fundraiser contribution:
- Each reviewer must be at least 18 years old to participate.
- Each reviewer's experience with the business or service reviewed must be a first-hand experience. No hearsay please.
- Each experience with the business or service provider must have occurred within the last 24 months.
- The reviewed company must still be in business.
- Reviews of restaurant chains (McDonalds, Outback Steakhouse, KFC, etc.), gas station chains, movie theater chains and national or regional chain stores (Target, Dollar Tree, Home Depot etc.) DO NOT qualify. You are welcome to write reviews for these businesses but they will not earn your organization money for the Fundraiser. Most people are pretty familiar with these businesses and there tends to be little differentiation city-to-city and state-to-state. In other words, these are businesses that do not require a word-of-mouth referral so reviews of these businesses are of little value to people like you – and to our community of users.
- Copied reviews in whole or in part from any other sources do not qualify.
- Profanity, abusive or offensive language in reviews, reviews alleging illegal activity or malpractice, and reviews deemed inappropriate by Insider Pages editors do not qualify.
- Proper grammar, capitalization, punctuation and spelling must be used. No "text speak" or ALL CAPS.
- Business owners and employees/associates are not allowed to review themselves. Instead, business owners should claim their business profile page and customize it by adding information, photos, special offers, their story, and more – all for FREE.
- If you are adding a new business to the Insider Pages database, please make sure to the best of your ability that the listing is not a duplicate and that the company's current contact information is provided. Information provided must be able to be verified by a third party source including another website, a business card, receipt, directory listing or other reliable source.
- Reviews may not include personal information or messages including email addresses, URLs, phone numbers and postal addresses (or both first and last name of an individual unless their name is also part of the business name) that are not already publicly available.
- Review submissions must be entered directly on the Insider Pages website.
- Reviews not meeting our terms and conditions or deemed inappropriate by Insider Pages editors do not qualify.
Q. Do all reviews have to be positive?
A. Reviews should reflect your actual experience with the business. That means they can be positive, negative, or mixed. The key is to focus on the factors (and facts) that shaped your experience. Reviews should never contain offensive or abusive language, provide the personal contact information of any individual, or make references to illegal activity, malpractice, or other matters more appropriately handled in a legal setting.
Q. When will we be paid?
A. A check will be mailed approximately 30 days from the end date of your group's Fundraiser.
Q. What does Insider Pages get out of this?
High quality customer reviews are the key ingredient required to make our site useful to users. The more businesses we have reviewed in each city or town, the more useful our service is to the community. So, one of the most important things we get out of this promotion is more reviews.
Most of the community groups we speak with comment how their members are always emailing back and forth about recommendations for dentists, pre schools, plumbers, etc. We hope that the supporters of your group adopt Insider Pages as a way to satisfy this need and share this information. As part of this, we hope you continue to read and write business reviews long after the Fundraiser.
Q. How do my group's members and supporters sign up for the program?
You will be provided with a unique link (URL) that you can distribute to your supporters. People who wish to sign up for the Fundraiser simply need to enter the URL into their computer's browser or click on the link you have provided them. The resulting web page will enable the user to join your Fundraiser, after which any qualified reviews they write during the Fundraiser period will earn a contribution for your group.
The URL will look something like the following:
http://www.insiderpages.com/fundraiser/[yourgroupname]
Q. How do my group's members and supporters invite their friends, family, and colleagues to participate?
Users simply email the Fundraiser URL directly to their friends & family.
Q. Who do I contact if I have a question related to the program?
Our support team is highly responsive and reachable via fundraisers@insiderpages.com. Just remember to put your group name in the subject line!
Q. Will people know it was me who gave a review on a business?
Only people in your group’s Fundraiser will know that the review came from you. To all other Insider Pages users, you will be identified by your first name and the first initial of your last name.
Q. How do I view/change my account information?
To view your account information, sign in and then click the "My Profile" link located on the upper right section of every page. Once on your profile, click on the "Account" tab to update any of your information.
You must be signed in to view your account information.
Q. How do I add my reviews to Insider Pages?
Any Insider Pages registered member is eligible to submit a review. Simply click the "Write A Review" button on the top of business's profile page, or start typing your review directly into the review box on each business's profile page. When you're finished, select your rating, add a title, and click the "Submit Review" button.
Q. How do I add a business to Insider Pages?
If you cannot find the business you are looking for, click the Add a Business button at the bottom of each search page. This link will direct you to a form allowing you to fill in the business name, categories and contact information. Once completed, you will be directed to the business' page, where you can then write your review.
Q. What if someone starts writing reviews for the Fundraiser but forgot to join the fundraiser first?
If someone starts writing reviews before they click on the join this fundraiser link, they can click the join this fundraiser link anytime within the Fundraiser dates. Once they have joined, we will still count reviews written within the fundraiser dates. If the participant doesn't see a total for him/her that matches what they believe they have written, have them email fundraisers@insiderpages.com with your fundraiser's name in the subject line and we will make sure everything is taken care of.