7 Crowdfunding Tips for Nonprofits
Crowdfunding is a great way to persuade a large number of people to make small donations to raise funds for a specific project or support a cause. It’s a type of fundraising strategy used by nonprofits to fundraise for their mission while engaging with their supporters through in-person events or online.
Most nonprofits have a large number of supporters that reach out to their personal network on behalf of nonprofits to raise funds. These supporters can be donors, volunteers, staff, board members or other community members who support your cause. This type of supporters are ideally known as social fundraisers or crowdfunder.
Crowdfunding for nonprofits helps charities and NPOs reach a much larger and untapped audience with a potential to raise funds exponentially. It allows them to grow their online community, generate awareness about the cause and gain new supporters.
How does Crowdfunding for Nonprofits work?
Most successful crowdfunding campaigns are done online by making use of crowdfunding websites such as GoFundMe, Donorbox, Kickstarter, Classy, CauseVox, MightyCause, FundRazr, Indiegogo, Fundly etc.
Here supporters can set up a crowdfunding page which is just like a donation page, but with a personalised touch and then promote them on their social media networks, website, blog or email. In a crowdfunding page, you can add your story, images, video, logo, define your fundraising goal, timeline, setup payment processors, add wish-lists, perks, incentives etc
It’s an easy and unique way to help and raise funds for their supported cause or organisation.
Apart from online crowdfunding, nonprofits can make use of live crowdfunding where a spokesperson for the nonprofit can conduct a live event to pitch their cause to the audience gathered and pledge for donations. It also gives an opportunity to nonprofits to answer potential donors’ questions and collect feedback.
Benefits of Nonprofit Crowdfunding
When people see that their connections are contributing to the cause, it’s more likely that they will too start doing it and ask others to do so.
Allows to raise funds from a larger audience without hiring more staff
Easy to set up, cost effective and fast way to raise funds
Great way to build brand awareness and new supporters
Opportunity to test crowd response and get feedback
Top 7 Crowdfunding tips for Nonprofits
Set a clear goal for your crowdfunding campaign i.e. what amount of money you wish to raise and by what time
Create an authentic and captivating story that resonate with your audience and create instant empathy
Create a sense of urgency in fundraising appeals
Ensure that your crowdfunding website is responsive and fast loading
Make use the crowdfunding for specific projects or cause and not for general funds
Don’t forget to thank donors soon after their contribution. You can do this by sending a personalised email, donor gift, social media shout out or by listing them on your website supporters page
Make use of videos for introducing your organisation and its mission to improve user engagement
Today all nonprofits big or small understand the power of “crowdfunding” and are effectively using it more than ever due to coronavirus pandemic. However, it does require proper planning with serious investment of your valuable time and efforts to derive required results.
But this can be easily paid off with the raised awareness, increase in donor base and with the growth of online supporters.