Creating a Group to support a charity

The first thing you'll want to do is log in to your Squidoo account. This will take you to your lensmaster dashboard. From here, you make all your squiddy magic! At the top of this page, you'll see a navigation bar. It'll be the part labeled "My Account", "Hot Stuff", "Groups", and "Charities". Hover that mouse pointer over groups, and you'll see a drop down menu with "My Groups" and "Explore". Go ahead and click "My Groups", then scroll down for lesson #2!

YES! An easy step! Go ahead and click that HUGE button that you already want to click... I mean, it is probably the biggest button in the world, but just in case, it'll be labeled START A GROUP then you get to move on to lesson #3

After you click that slightly oversized START A GROUP button, you get moved on to a new screen. This will be a very magical area. Here you'll be able to do much of your group work. Do not fear, you can change most of it later on your edit screen!

The first thing we'll do here is pick a URL for your group page. This part CAN NOT be changed, so come up with an easy to remember and intelligent url.

Next, we are going to make a title for our group. This can be edited easily later on if you need to. You still want the title to be not only eye catching, but intelligent. My Charity Group support the Lance Armstrong Foundation and its motto is LiveSTRONG, so my title is Live Strong.

Next, go ahead and write a short description of your group. You only get 250 characters (and that does include spaces), so be wise with your words.

Now, scroll down a bit (on this lens and on your Group page) and move on to the next lesson!

Now, we're getting into the good stuff! You are going to need to pick a category for your Group Headquarters page. Click on the dropdown menu and pick the category that best fits your Group. I picked "Sports" for my Lance Armstrong Foundation Group because Lance Armstrong is a cyclist and a lot of support from the foundation comes from the sports field.

The next step is to pick some tags (or keywords) that will fit your charity and group. The first obvious one to pick would be the name of the charity. You can come up with more now if you'd like. All you have to do is click that "Add more Tags" button and type away. You'll also be able to add more later in the edit screen. Make sure that your tags fit the charity and the group!

Now, you're ready to pick your primary tag! Just one. The BEST one. Type in the tag that you think best describes your group! Then, you move on to lesson #5!

This is one of the easiest lesson here! You get to upload something to Squidoo's servers!

This is the part where you start to visually define your charity group! All you have to do is click that browse button and find an image that you want to use as your Group's logo. This is the picture that you will see on your invitation page and on your "My Groups" page, so pick something good and moe on to the next lesson!

Okay, we're getting there! This is a pretty easy one too and it deals with control!

The next question that Squidoo asks you is: "Do you want to control membership in your group?" You have two options here; "Yes" or "No".

Choosing "Yes" means that you get an email when somebody wants to join your group. This lets you, the group leader, take a peek at their lens and see if it is the kind of lens you want in your group! Choosing "No" lets anybody that wants to join right on in. If you have the need, you can always boot them out later.

Now, you get another question. "Is your group safe for all ages and eyeballs?" Again, a yes or no question. "Yes" means that your group is family friendly and office safe. If you'd let your kids or grandma look at this group then choose yes. If you think that only adults need to see it, say no. After making your decisions on these two questions, click that big SAVE button at the bottom and move on to the next lesson!

It's our policy that Adult content must be marked as such. Please remember that and help keep Squidoo a safe place.

Now, you're on the Group Admin page! Awesome! Great! What does that mean?

It means, that you have successfully started your very own SquidooGroup and are ready to start with some editing of ye olde group headquarters! I told you this was going to be easy!

Go ahead and click the "Group Settings" function and get ready to see some old friends. Here you'll be able to edit the group URL, description, group icon, and the control settings. You also get some new stuff to look at!

You can set "Group Defaults" for new lenses here too. This means that when somebody creates a lens just for your group, you get to helf give them a nudge.

Go ahead and choose the main category for all new lenses that join your group. This will put all new lenses (the ones that are made for your group that is) into one main category. Next you can go ahead and choose the "Payment Settings" for new lenses too! Go ahead and scroll down that list and choose the charity that your group is supporting! Now, choose their "Primary Tag". Remember from Lesson #4 when I suggested that you set that tag as the name of your charity? Go ahead and do it here too!

There is also a really cool tool here! The "P.S. Module". This only available to Groupmasters! You can add a module to the end of lenses that are in your group! It supports limited HTML, which means that you can cool badges or possibly the group logo and even links back to the group as well! Use it wisely though, as it WILL appear on somebody else's lens!

After you're done with this page, hit that slightly less than huge SAVE button and move along to the next lesson!

Now that you've hit the save button, you are back to the Group Admin page. From here let's go ahead and click "Edit Your Group HQ page" and get into this lesson.

From here you can add whatever group modules you want to. I won't get into that because it is your creativity that needs to flow. What I will get into is making sure that you have a header picture up! There is a long gray box on the right hand side of this pages with several little orange "edit" buttons. Underneath the title "About your group name here" click on the edit button. Here you can edit the "bio" of the group and set a header picture. Go ahead and type away for your bio. Then click that "browse" button and find another picture. This picture will appear at the header of your group, so choose wisely and hit the "upload phot" button. Then you can go ahead and hit the small "save" button just above it and move on to the last lesson.

Here it folks! The Last lesson! That means that you are almost ready to graduate! It also means that there are some really AWESOME charities that are about to start getting some well deserved help!

Look at that sidebar again and find the "Payment Options" area and hit the "Edit" button. Now, check the "Specific Charity" button and pick your charity off of that list. Hit that little "save" button and smile. Now, I want you to scroll down and hit that big PUBLISH button and know that I think you are AWESOME for supporting a great charity!

Congratulations! You just Graduated my class on "Making a Group to Support a Charity". Pat yourself on the back and know that you are helping great charities to achieve some really awesome things!