We have recently been working with one of our members to help diversify their income and part of the process involved a deep-dive into the world of online fundraising platforms. When you start looking at online fundraising platforms there are so many it is difficult to know where to start so hopefully our quick guide will give you an overview of some of your options and help to narrow down the field a little:
JustGiving
This is the biggest online donation platform with 22m users, that is 22m people who can potentially search or stumble upon your cause and donate with or without any prior knowledge of your organisation. The popularity of the platform is probably the major selling point of using JustGiving – people know about it, many use it regularly and they trust it. However there is a trade-off; they take a 5% fee on online donations plus 2.9% transaction fee meaning you would receive £11.74 of a £10 donation with gift aid (total donation value of £12.50). Don’t necessarily be put off by slightly higher fees – think of the bigger picture and the extra reach your fundraising campaign can gain by using a platform like JustGiving when making a decision.
CrowdFunder
Another of the big players in the space. The platform has dedicated coaches to help fundraisers maximise the money they raise. Gift aid is included as standard. Similarly to JustGiving there is a community aspect to CrowdFunder and charities can offer rewards to encourage donations. There is also match-funding opportunities through Crowdfunder’s network of trusts and public bodies. They also have a partnership with Nectar Donate, which lets Nectar customers spend their points on supporting causes. There is a processing fee of 1.9% plus 23p +VAT per transaction meaning you would receive £12 of a £10+gift aid donation.
Facebook Fundraising
Facebook allows charities and individuals to setup fundraising campaigns within their platform. This is a great way to connect with people who already have an interest or connection to your cause. At very least I would recommend putting a donate button on your Facebook page (here’s how). Other people can also fundraise on your behalf and this helps to spread the word about your cause. In the UK donations payments are made either via Facebook Payments where there is £100 minimum threshold before payment and takes 15-30 days, or by Paypal Giving Fund (PGF) where there is no threshold but takes 15-45 days if enrolled with PGF or 15-90 days if not. There are no service or transaction fees with either so you would receive £12.50 of a £10+gift aid donation.
Total Giving
Total Giving is the UK’s fastest growing online funding platform, and for good reason. There are no fees, donations go directly to causes and you are able to claim gift aid on eligible donations. Users can make one-off donations or setup recurring direct debits. Interestingly they are also the only mainstream platform I can see which accepts donation payment via bitcoin (you would receive GBP). Bitcoin is still seen as a niche currency and there are currently relatively few places to spend it given the amount of capital in circulation so this is a potentially underserved market and a bonus of this platform. Although total giving don’t take any fees there are still payment provider fees meaning you will receive £12.16 of a £10+gift aid donation.
RedCloud Donation Manager – this a suite of donation management tools which is linked to Total Giving. It is free to use and allows charitable organisations to track and manage online and offline donations, claim gift aid, integrate donations into their own website or social media and also provides donor CRM software. It is an impressive range of tools available for free and worth checking out.
EasyFundraising
Easyfundraising is slightly different in that it is a platform which allows people to donate to causes simply by shopping online. This is based on an affiliate marketing model so EasyFundraising receives a commission from the retailer for sending a user to their site and them making a purchase, similar to how a price comparison site makes money. EasyFundraising is a bit coy about how much they keep but they state ‘at least 50%’ of this commission is passed onto the cause as a donation, with EasyFundraising keeping the rest. This method of fundraising is becoming more popular and widely accepted by users as an easy and ‘free’ way to support causes which are important to them. The difficult part for charitable organisations is getting enough people to use the platform regularly to generate good levels of fundraising but as a way to keep the pennies rolling in it is worthwhile looking into.
There are of course many more online fundraising platforms and tools which we haven’t listed here so if you have a platform which you use and which works well for you let us know so we can spread the word.
Other Fundraising Resources:
Support Cambridgeshire Funding Week
As part of our Support Cambridgeshire partnership we will be running the first ever Funding Week – 4 days of online events dedicated to all things funding and fundraising. There is too much going on to list it all here so I recommend you have a look at the dedicated section of the Support Cambridgeshire website here.
We are happy to help/advise our members on creating and promoting a fundraising campaigns but we would recommend you also look at something like this to try and get a professional onboard to give yourselves the best chance of running a successful fundraising campaign. You list your cause and they match you with a professional who can help with marketing/PR. This is a simple, but great idea and a quick search looks like it is fairly well used which can sometimes be a problem for this sort of platform. If you do try it out and you have success please let us know.
Finally here are some articles which may give you inspiration and tips on what makes a fundraising campaign successful:
Examples Of Successful Fundraising Campaigns | Great Charity Campaigns (goodbox.com)
8 Surefire Ways to Run a Successful Fundraising Campaign | Classy
Fundraising Tips on Promoting your Page – Virgin Money Giving
As always if you have any questions or you need support with anything funding or fundraising related please get in touch with me via oli@huntsforum.org.uk
Written By…
Oli Bachini
Development Officer at Hunts Forum
