Set Up and Manage a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

A crowdfunding campaign engages your supporters to raise funds from their contacts on your nonprofit’s behalf. Your organization sets up a campaign form to accept donations towards a specific cause or goal. Supporters join your cause by either donating directly to your organization’s page or creating a form of their own to share with family and friends.

Consider these questions when establishing crowdfunding campaign goals:

• Why are you launching this campaign? (Impact Goal)
• How much are you trying to raise? (Financial Goal)
• How many supporters do you want to participate? (Engagement Goal)
• What else are you looking to increase, and how will you measure it? (e.g., awareness, social media, website traffic, volunteers, memberships, etc.) (Impact Goal)
• By when? How long will your campaign run?

Gather these resources (below) as a starting point. The more elements you have, the more effective your campaign will be.

• Powerful images and videos
• Stories or quotes from program recipients
• Volunteer testimonials
• Staff/Board Member bios and why they love your mission
• Details of challenges you’re facing to fulfill your mission
• Any recent accomplishments or successes

Open DP Online Forms and click the Add a Form button on the Form List screen. Select the Crowdfunding template. Follow the prompts on the screen to complete the setup.

Crowdfunding forms are edited like all other forms you create, except that they include two Crowdfunding-specific options on the menu. Click Crowdfunding > Organization Form to personalize your organization’s story, add images, and set your campaign goals.

After you’ve created your organization form for your crowdfunding campaign, send it out to supporters and invite them to join your cause.

When supporters visit your organization form, they’ll click a link to create their fundraising page and enter their name and email address. They’ll receive two emails to help them set up and share their fundraising page.

Whenever someone creates an individual form from your organization’s page, you will be able to view and manage them from Crowdfunding > Fundraiser List. Here you can rename the page, resend the two starter emails mentioned above, inactivate the fundraiser’s page, and more.

How can you invite supporters, board members, volunteers, and others to join your crowdfunding campaign? Start by sharing your organization page with them and asking them to create their own pages to fundraise on your behalf. Make it easy for supporters to share their fundraising page with others. Provide them with sample emails and social media posts to use. For inspiration and free templates, visit Your Nonprofit Crowdfunding Kit, a free resource packed with social media, email, and other helpful examples.

Occasionally you may receive offline donations (i.e. Cash and Checks) that should be applied to a fundraiser or your organization’s crowdfunding page. DonorPerfect makes it easy to credit your fundraisers for their gift and update the progress towards the campaign’s fundraising goal.

When offline donations are received towards a crowdfunding campaign, you will enter the gift into DonorPerfect as you would any other donation and then apply it to a crowdfunding form.