If you’re active at all in digital spaces, you’re definitely familiar with crowdfunding – but do you also know about Do-It-Yourself (DIY) fundraising? This popular method of fundraising empowers passionate supporters of your cause to raise money by organizing an event of their own and setting up an online fundraising page to collect donations. It’s a great solution when your supporters want the ability to make a quick, creative campaign that will reach out to their friends and loved ones and fundraise virtually.
Need more info? We’ve got you covered with our quick primer:
What is it?
Let’s say that a supporter of your cause is having a event of their own, like a birthday party, a BBQ, or a wedding and they want to include a fundraising component – so instead of asking for gifts, they’d like people to donate to your organization. This is where a DIY program comes in: It leverages the power of a P2P event system for a more personal DIY campaign.
With this type of DIY program, third-party fundraisers rely on the help of their extended network of family, friends, and community in order to reach a specific goal. Plus, there are online fundraising platforms out there that are specifically tailored to DIY fundraising, allowing for creative branding, fun features, and other modules that add extra personalization. Whether it’s setting up a fundraiser in memoriam of a loved one or hosting a challenge campaign, a DIY program gives your supporters options to make a personal fundraiser feel just as huge as a major crowdfunded one.
How does it work?
Let’s look at what a DIY fundraising platform such as raisin has to offer from both participant and administrator standpoints:
Fundraisers:
For your fundraisers, there’s the ability to create unique, beautiful pages that are responsive across all mobile devices – a super important feature when it comes to bringing in online donations! Plus, there’s a wealth of fundraising tools for participants to access to help them raise even more money, including email templates to help them craft the best appeals.
Administrators:
On the administrative side, you have the ability to create a website, fundraising pages, and automated emails all under your own branding. Indeed, with a couple of small content tweaks, you design to a DIY fundraising campaign from scratch that lets your supporters “register” to host their own fundraisers and create a page and run a successful campaign online.
Scheduled emails can be setup to trigger a set number of days after registration to steward and drip information that supports them along their journey (i.e. how to use email tools in the Participant Centre).
What's more, transactions align with Campaign, Fund, and other financial tracking codes, plus tax receipts are immediately received by the donor without them having to inquire. Also, payment is transferred immediately into the organization’s merchant account – unlike some crowdfunding sites, which can hold the donation money for a period of time before it’s cleared.
The DIY Solution
When supporters are raising money for your cause, you want to make it as simple and easy as possible for them to set up an event and bring in the donations. That’s why
DIY fundraising is such a good fit for weddings, birthdays, school fundraisers, and more – it gives you the flexibility and creativity that you get with online crowdfunding, but with more control and faster payment transfers. It’s the perfect way to get your supporters started!
