Ask the Expert: GoFundMe’s Crowdfunding Secrets

Jonathan Sprague, Redux

Every 18 seconds another fundraising campaign launches on GoFundMe. The crowdfunding site, geared for individuals seeking support for personal needs (medical, funeral, and burial costs are the most common) has become a popular portal for charities to raise money for projects — and in a hurry. Users of GoFundMe raked in nearly $1.1 billion last year. If the five-year-old company were a charity, that figure would make it the 10th largest in America.

GoFundMe’s president, David Hahn, says successful crowdfunding appeals have a few things in common. He offers these tips:

Campaigns are most likely to get traction on GoFundMe if they raise money for education, health care (including money to research rare disorders), or causes specific to a neighborhood, city, or region — earthquake relief for Nepal, say, or the repair of a storm-damaged baseball diamond in Fort Worth.

Through crowdfunding sites, fundraisers can show potential supporters the human face of their cause: the cancer patient facing a mountain of bills, the promising student who needs tuition. It takes some work, but organizations can tell vivid, detail-packed individual stories that showcase their work, Mr. Hahn says. “I encourage nonprofits to think of their missions as a collection of microcauses.” And when you spotlight a beneficiary or project, he adds, post updates. Donors like to see “the full arc of the story.”

In many charity appeals, Mr. Hahn notes, donors “don’t know exactly what their money is going for”; they imagine it’s simply added to a very large pot. To better engage donors, he says, spell out a potential gift’s impact.

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“The overwhelming majority of our users are coming from a mobile device,” Mr. Hahn says. It’s tough to craft a compelling message for small screens, he acknowledges, but there’s an upside: Mobile demands appeals that are direct, simple, and uncluttered.

Donors are more motivated to help than to reach a monetary goal, Mr. Hahn says. Some crowdfunding sites require fundraisers to forfeit the money they raise if they don’t reach their drive’s target. Not GoFundMe. He says the causes its spotlights desperately need the money. Say, for example, a family is grappling with hardship and starts an online appeal for help. “They need $10,000 but only raise eight,” Mr. Hahn says. “That $8,000 is still quite useful.”

The most successful fundraisers, says Mr. Hahn, follow every twist and turn of their campaigns. They also give people ways to help beyond simply clicking the donate button, such as organizing additional supporters. “Everyone has a cause in their life,” he says. “And they’re asking, ‘What do I do? I know, give money. But what do I do?’ ”