Basics of Crowdfunding

From the time lockdown started, most of the charities have increased digital fundraising. Crowdfunding is an effective way of raising funds digitally. Especially, for charities which need low cost campaigns and don’t have dedicated and highly experienced resources for other digital campaigns.

Crowdfunding has its own challenges. If done properly, it’s main advantages are low cost and good number of donors who can also be retained and upgraded. At my current organisation, I have raised funds myself, through colleagues and volunteers using Crowdfunding. Mentioning below some of my learnings, will be happy to listen to your views and experiences.

Platform Doesn't Matter

Any platform with good payment gateway and decent branding is good. There are many platforms and every platform claims it’s the best. The fact is platform does not do anything for you, it’s YOUR efforts. If you are not doing paid promotions then, as an individual or organisation, you are reaching out to your own network only.

Only way a platform can help you is by sharing your or your organisation’s campaign on their home page, which is rare. If you are not on the platform’s home page, then there are very less chances of their regular followers landing on your page and donating.

Rights or Relief Based Work

If it’s your own network, then it doesn’t matter. But if you are thinking of paid social media promotions then promoting relief is always easier. For a right based approach, you need to make sure that you have data to show the impact clearly. You also need to explain your approach with proper reasoning. Adding a short video, instead of lengthy write-up, about the organisation’s background, vision and how it works is really helpful.

Involving Volunteers and Colleagues

Having multiple individual/campaign pages is better than having a single organisation page. At Breakthrough, even before we got volunteers who were willing to raise funds, we started by setting up pages for close to 40 employees. Be prepared that only 4 out of the 10 pages will raise funds. When employees raise funds then we get donors who trust easily and get retained many times. Employees are also able to answer all queries well. Now when you reach out to volunteers, they see many pages and donors acquired and feel confident about raising funds. You can run ads on FB and Instagram to get volunteers for crowdfunding.

Quality Content

“Content is King”, Always!! It’s not only about what goes on your page but also about the follow up messages you send or the social media posts. For the page, try to highlight the issue, how it’s impacting the society. Most importantly explain how you work to bring the change needed. Content should be easy to understand. It should not be full of jargons which you understand, being from social sector, but others don’t. You should connect emotionally with your target audience but should also back it with data.

Sharing Content and Follow-ups

Most of the platforms give you an option to share your page link though LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In my experience what works most for individuals is WhatsApp. People might miss your content on other platforms or choose to ignore. When you send a personalised message and see the ticks, then you know people have read it. At the same time, the recipient also knows that you are aware they have read the message and would be waiting for their reply.

During follow-ups don’t only ask for support again and again. Do share some updates of your work as your page won’t cover everything. Many times reading more about your work motivates people to support. This becomes even more important when it’s volunteers raising funds for your organisation by setting up individual pages. Volunteers are not fundraisers and don’t have all the information you have. If you draft the messages and share with volunteers, then they not only feel confident but it’s also convenient for them to forward the same in their network.

Donor Retention and Upgrades

Since most of the donors are from personal references, it would be better if the person who has set up the page sends them a message before a retention caller calls from the organisation. This has worked out really well for us at Breakthrough so, wherever possible, we have done it. Many upgrades also happen as their initial donation was a small gift, just done because someone known to them asked for it. Since these donors have received updates from you in one year, many people upgrade when retained.

Hope these points help some people in raising funds. Will be happy to get more points/insights from people who read this article.