Trends & Insights

How to Choose the Best Crowdfunding Platform for Your Nonprofit

Crowdfunding Advisors, FundRazr Team

Helping our community get to the next level of crowdfunding success

In today’s crowdfunding world there are hundreds of platforms available for different causes and projects. With all this variety, it can be difficult to choose the best fundraising website to use.

A managing editor of Software Advice, Janna Finch, has conducted a roundtable with six experts you might want to consider reading before making your choice. The original article with all experts’ advices can be found here.

Going left to right from the top: Beth Kanter, Author and Trainer at BethKanter.org; Bret Conkin, Chief Marketing Office at FundRazr; Premal Shah, President at Kiva.org; Michael Ibberson, Writer at CrowdClan; Leigh Lepore, Founder at Crowdfunding Strategy & Information; Rob Wu, Chief Executive Officer at CauseVox.

These are some of the key factors discussed in each topic that are worthy of highlighting.

Key factors to consider when choosing a platform

The most important factor is building your network and community first. A common myth about crowdfunding is that once you start a fundraising campaign, people will flock to your page to donate. That’s not how it works, and that is nothing to do with a choice of crowdfunding platform. The reality is, that the significant amount of contributions should come from pre-existing community, networks, friends and family.

In other words, most crowdfunding websites provide you with features and tools of various effectiveness, but non-profits should build their own community, social media presence and other marketing channels to successfully hit their crowdfunding goals.

Check out some other key factors mentioned by the experts and what FundRazr, as a social media crowdfunding platform, has to offer.

1. Easy branding. A non-profit organization should be able to customize its crowdfunding site and add its own branding, so it builds trust and brings more donations.Here at FundRazr, we offer nonprofits to crowdfund directly on their websites using our social funding technology. Powered by FundRazr service allows you to focus just on your brand, to run multiple crowdfunding campaigns simultaneously, to turn your supporters into fundraisers on your behalf, to get more social media visibility and more.
2. Video storytelling. Consider shooting a video as a centerpiece of your communication. It will bring your more success and donations.Here at FundRazr, on average, adding a video to a campaign with doubles its donations. Fortunately, recording a video is not a difficult process. To prove it, we’ve made a step-by-step instruction for you on “How to Create an Effective Video”.
3. Personal fundraising pages. You supporters and volunteers can run crowdfunding pages on your behalf and then ask their friends and families to donate to them. This is a good way to interact with new potential donors and reach out to wider audience.Many people have used FundRazr to run a successful fundraising campaign on behalf of a charity. If you want to learn more about how it works, follow this link.
4. Social Media Integration. You need to find a highly shareable tool to drive more traffic to your crowdfunding page.FundRazr’s deep social media integration lifts your fundraising campaign above the noise on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and more. Our social super powers make crowdfunding simple, visible and effective.
5. Reasonable fees. The industry average is around 7 to 8 percent of funds raised, including transaction fees. Watch out for providers that hide their fees.Take a look at what FundRazr offers here.

Successful crowdfunding campaigns

Experts discussed key factors that made fundraising campaigns on various crowdfunding websites successful.

FundRazr’s CMO, Bret Conkin, talked about the success factors of the Operation Sharecraft which used the platform to raise over $1M to help thousands of starving children in East Africa.

Campaigns that work best on these platforms

Based on experts’ observations and knowledge crowdfunding campaigns should have the following characteristics:

1. A personal story;
2. Being a one-time project or cause with a specific goal (no general funding or raising fund for operation expenses);
3. A deadline to demonstrate a sense of urgency;
4. A specific audience that will resonate with the campaign;
5. A measurable impact (e.g. $50 = 1 day of feeding a starving kid in East Africa);
6. Campaign marketing: regular story updates, media outreach, use of perks.

Running a campaign on several platforms

All of the experts agree that it is important to choose a single platform that supports the unique requirements, goals and available resources of your nonprofit.

Learn more about online fundraising for nonprofits with FundRazr.