Fundraisers crash online community launch

The past couple weeks I've been receiving emails from the Third Sector Daily - a group that describes themselves as the UK’s leading publication for everyone who needs to know what’s going on in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector. They usually have good stories about fundraising gossip, news, and tips. I recommend adding them to your RSS feed.

Well, a couple days ago I learned from Third Sector about a new fundraising research website called fResource which was slated to launch yesterday - and with a description like this, how could I not be excited:

fResource is the world's first online fundraising community where fundraisers and researchers from around the world can come together to share knowledge and experience of fundraising research, products and resources. We exist to promote fundraising research as a discipline in its own right within the fundraising sector, but we also want to show fundraisers how to utilise research skills and knowledge to help find new sources of funding. Our fResource database, for example, has the most comprehensive listings and reviews of products and resources on the internet bar none.

Well, unfortunately it seems like they underestimated the amount of traffic they would get on their launch day. After sending out an announcement email yesterday, Matthew Ide, the director, sent out this embarrassing email note:

Believe it or not the website seems to have crashed due to the sheer weight of traffic but we are working very hard to rectify the problem, so if you’ll please bear with us. We didn’t think everyone would hit it at once, which I guess is a mistake on my part, especially as I know how thirsty for knowledge you all are!

I haven't had a lot of time to play around on the database or community forum yet, but I would love readers to post their feedback or reactions in the comments below.