The Guardian voluntary sector network today features an article about how charities may need to branch out from traditional fundraising methods and look at how they need to revolutionise their revenue-sourcing to secure their future.

We know its a tough time for charities at the moment and we hope they can work with their supporters and take advantage of the new fundraising initiatives available and make sure they don’t fall short this Christmas. Please have a read

This week, our CEO, Polly Gowers, has become a finalist in this year’s Mumpreneur ‘Mum on a Mission’ award. These awards celebrate mums in business and picks the most heart-warming and inspiring stories. Polly is a mother who runs a successful business as well as bringing up a family.

Polly is up against three other contenders and was selected out of 720 entries, which is a fantastic achievement. Her award entry focused on her successes with Everyclick, such as raising over £2million for the UK’s charities and Give as you Live, the new and revolutionary online fundraising platform.

We have our fingers and toes crossed until we find out the winner next month!

World Talk Radio is one of the largest internet talk shows in the world, and tomorrow Polly featuring on the Green with Envy Series. The episode is called Does Cause Marketing Work, it will examine cause marketing from a range of perspectives and provide their answers to many vexing questions.

You can find more information about the show here. Catch Polly in action, listen to it live at 10am PST on Thursday 11th August, or catch up by visiting the website at a later time.

Late last night we passed a fantastic milestone – together, we have now raised over £2,000,000 for deserving causes.

It is because of our users that we’ve been able to raise so much for so many causes.

Our sincere thanks to everyone that has helped us to reach this goal by shopping online with Give as you Live and other Everyclick products.

£2,000,000 is a lot of money, but that is just the beginning! Over the coming months we plan to continue improving our technology including Give as you Live, helping to ensure our users can raise as much as possible.

However, to continue to improve we need your help. We would like you to tell us how you think we can improve Give as you Live. It is only with your feedback that we can continue to improve, raising millions more for deserving causes.

Send us your feedback and each week the person that posts the most useful feedback will win a weekend break away.

Thank you again to everyone who has helped us to raise more than £2,000,000 for UK causes – here’s to many more millions.

With the current economic climate, people have been struggling to be as generous towards charities, whether this is with their time or money. But social enterprises allow people to go about their daily life AND do something good, without doing a whole lot extra. This is especially true with Everyclick, as through products like Give as you Live™, no change in behaviour is needed – simply do your normal shopping online and you can give to the charity of your choice.

We hope that social enterprises will continue to grow, so we can help the UK’s charities and causes when they need it most.

An idea born long ago and fleshed out and finalized on a jolly night in the local led to four intrepid fundraisers agreeing to walk from St. Bee’s Head to Robin Hood’s Bay, following the established Wainwright route. Like many a stunning plan hatched over a glass or six, the implications of the 192 miles of walking were slow to dawn, but the tremendous support from those friends who didn’t have to actually join in the walking, did not allow for any change of heart.

Consequently, Denise and Frank Moore and Jean and Dave Price set about an appropriate training regime, with Jean and Denise undertaking strenuous up-hill hikes whilst Frank and Dave thoughtfully discussed the most appropriate wet weather kit and whose round it was. The decision was taken that the Friends of Worcestershire Royal Hospital would be the chosen charity following Frank’s recent excellent treatment, and a fundraising webpage was created.

With everything proceeding smoothly and the wet weather kit almost selected and Jean and Denise approaching full fitness, Denise decided that now was as good a time as any to throw herself to the floor and fracture her humerus, just below the shoulder. Too high up the arm to be set, a small sling was the extent of the medical help available, and all this with just days to go before the walk commenced.

It takes more than the odd broken bone to stop a good Blackpool lass and with Frank also from Blackpool and the Prices from Hartlepool, there was enough Northern grit to build a motorway.

The wet weather gear discussion proved fortuitous with less than balmy conditions predicted as the fab four set off on their trek on Friday the 13th. Through the worst weather that May has had to offer for many a year, our walkers clocked up the hard miles and the webpage clocked up the donations. Thoughts of giving up must have occurred to them from time to time but they never faltered and eventually dipped their toes in the North Sea 17 days later.

As of this moment they have raised a superb £635.20 with the promise of a good deal more to come, towards their target of £1,000 for the Friends of Worcestershire Royal Hospital, who should be mightily pleased with their efforts. Well done all of you.

This week’s featured fundraiser is Ulrika Ellis. She has raised £355 so far in aid of The British Heart Foundation.

Ulrika was quite a lazy person, she was never a fan of exercise and especially not running, but one day this all changed. Ulrika’s friend Sara gave birth to her daughter, Lily and shortly after she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Sara’s condition meant that she would have to stay for long periods of time in hospital. In addition to this she would have to attend regular shorter visits throughout the rest of her life. When Sara asked Ulrika if she would join her in running The Sheffield Half Marathon, Ulrika was pleased to agree. This condition was going to affect her friend for years to come, so taking part in this fundraising event was a way of saying thank you to the people that have made a difference to her life and will continue to help her.

Ulrika has found the training very tough, lonely and boring; she sometimes has had to train in horrible weather. She said she has often thought to herself “what have I done?!”

Despite the hard work, Ulrika has kept Sara in mind, which has given her the motivation and drive to push forward and carry on running. For her, the cause is really important and it needs a happy ending, not just for Sara but for lots of other people too.

Ulrika did really well at the event on 9th May and she has exceeded her target of £300 and raised a whopping total of £445.00 for The British Heart Foundation.

The team at Everyclick would like to congratulate Ulrika and Sara on completing the half marathon yesterday; it is a great achievement, and well done for raising so much money for this important cause.

The 2011 London Marathon is long since over for most runners. However, Lloyd Scott is still working towards the finish line, raising money for Action for Kids.

Crawling the marathon dressed as Brian the Snail from the Magic Roundabout, Lloyd is able to manage about a mile a day. It’s slow going because in addition to crawling, Lloyd has to pull himself and Brian’s nine-foot long shell around the entire route.

If you are based in Canary Wharf then do make sure you look out of your window on 5th May as Lloyd will be crawling past around 1pm on his way to Jubilee Gardens where he has been given permission to spend the night.

Lloyd, best known as the UK’s most extreme fundraiser, has completed marathons dressed as a deep sea diver, St George and the Dragon, Indiana Jones being chased by a huge boulder and the Iron Giant robot.

If you would like to see videos of how Lloyd is crawling inside Brian’s shell or to read about his daily adventures please visit Brian’s Magic Marathon website. To donate to Lloyd’s marathon, you can visit his donation page. Or, you can raise money for him for free when you shop online with Give as you Live™. Thousands of stores have signed up to donate money to Lloyd, at no cost to you, when you shop with them online.

This week’s featured fundraiser is Stephen Mahon, who has raised over £740 in just 4 days for Children’s International Summer Villages.

Stephen is being sponsored to run coast to coast along the route of Hadrian’s Wall, that’s 85 miles which he hopes to complete in just 3 days.

Children’s International Summer Villages (North East) is a charity that brings children together from across the globe in month-long summer camps. It is a valuable experience in mixing with a range of cultures and backgrounds.

This week our featured fundraiser is Team GAR, made up of Paul Loader and Linda Blampied, who are running the Brighton Marathon this month for the Greek Animal Rescue charity. GAR was founded in 1989 after Paul and his wife saw the appalling neglect of animals when on holiday in Crete.

They are hoping to raise £5,000 to continue to alleviate the suffering of animals in Greece and to support a number of animal shelters sterilising as many dogs and cats as funds allow, while finding homes for the lucky few in the UK and other EU countries.

Zorba was the first dog GAR sent out to the UK to find a new home, who spent most of his time at Northvale vets. So much so that he became part of the family whilst having his chemotherapy.

Northdale Vets became more and more interested in helping Greek dogs, offering long-distance diagnosis from photographs and X-rays. Also sending vets to Greece for a week at a time to undertake sterilisations and assist with surgeries.

Unfortunately Zorba lost his battle against cancer 10 December 2010. When he died Zorba’s Legacy’ was born – a fund set up by the vets in his memory to continue to raise funds to give other Greek dogs their chance to come to a forever home in England.

Everyclick would like to wish Paul and Linda the best of luck in the marathon and hope they reach their target of £5,000 to continue their amazing work and passion for the Greek Animal Shelter.