Andreas Karelas wants to bolster the use of renewable energy. Two years ago, the environmentalist founded Re-volv, a charity in San Francisco that developed a novel plan to help finance solar-energy projects.
It just needed start-up money to put the plan in motion. So last December he started a six-week fundraising appeal on Indiegogo, a Web site that helps individuals and groups use social networks to raise small sums from lots of people.
His online “Plant a Seed for Solar Energy” campaign had a goal of $10,000 but ended up raising more than $15,000.
“We were totally surprised,” Mr. Karelas says. “We actually hit $10,000 halfway through the campaign.” Re-volv is now installing its first solar-power system on the roof of a local charity.
Indiegogo is but one among an ever-proliferating array of Web sites, including Crowdrise, Fundly, Kickstarter, Razoo, and StartSomeGood, that allow anyone with a creative idea to reach out to the public and solicit donations.
All of the sites are less than five years old, but they are already helping charities pull in substantial sums.
For instance, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles sought money last spring for a production based on the It Gets Better campaign to reach out to gay youths who are bullied.
The group asked for $75,000 on the arts-oriented Kickstarter site and attracted 548 donors, who gave $78,000 in 45 days. Chris Verdugo, the chorus’s executive director, says the sprawling social-media networks of its members were a key ingredient in its success.
Another charity, Big Cat Rescue, an animal sanctuary in Tampa, Fla., has raised more than $200,000 on Razoo, where the group has run several campaigns over the past several years.
While the success stories stand out, the reality is that many efforts to raise money on these mass-appeal sites either fall short or fail. And when they don’t reach the goal, charities often lose everything they have raised. Kickstarter and several other sites like it enforce time limits for campaigns, and when causes don’t succeed, no donor is asked to give a cent.
While that approach is designed to give donors a sense of urgency, it also means that fewer than half of all Kickstarter campaigns bring in any money at all. That’s why it’s important for nonprofits to learn from the mistakes of others. Following are some tips from nonprofits that have succeeded using mass-appeal sites:
Don’t expect too much. “It’s a big misconception to think there is this massive group of people trolling the Web looking for projects to fund and if you put a video and campaign on a big site like Indiegogo or Kickstarter, it’s magically going to just take off,” says Ben Lamson, co-founder of WeDidIt, a Brooklyn, N.Y., company that helps design and manage online campaigns for charities.
He advises nonprofits to spend as much time planning the campaign as they will running it once it is online. Charities that are new to social media should bolster their networks before trying a donation pitch.
“If you only have a Facebook following of 50, you can’t set a $50,000 fundraising goal and think it’s just going to catch on like wildfire,” Mr. Lamson says.
Calculate the costs. Fundraising sites charge a fee for their services, usually a percentage of donations. For instance, Kickstarter takes 5 percent, and Indiegogo charges 4 to 9 percent. Charities may also be charged additional fees for processing donations through services such as Amazon Payments or PayPal.
Another site, Razoo, recently announced a hike in its fees. Although Big Cat Rescue has long had success raising money on Razoo, it is looking to make a change now, says Jeff Kremer, director of donor appreciation.
“We will be ending our longstanding partnership with Razoo in the near future due to the fact that they have announced plans to significantly increase the fee that they charge nonprofits,” he says.
Develop a compelling project. And give it an eye-catching name that will have an emotional appeal for donors. “Getting Girls Out of Brothels One Book at a Time” was the title of a successful campaign by Traveling Stories, a charity in Santee, Calif., that sets up libraries in the developing world. The drive raised $2,700 from 60 donors this spring on the site StartSomeGood.
“We purposefully included the word ‘brothel’ because we knew it would grab people’s attention instead of just saying, ‘Help build a library in the Philippines,’” says Emily Moberly, founder and executive director of Traveling Stories, which will use the money to install four libraries at Filipino social-service organizations that help young women leave the sex trade.
“It takes some intentionality,” she says. “You want to make your campaign stand out but still be relevant to what you are doing.”
Don’t skimp on the video. Most campaigns on mass fundraising sites are built around a three-minute video describing the project and how it will use the money it raises.
While it may be tempting to just have the executive director’s nephew shoot the video with the family camcorder, it might not make sense to go cheap on the linchpin of your entire effort. Thanks to technological advances, says Mr. Lamson, charities can now expect to pay $1,000 to hire a production team to make a video that’s as polished as one that would have cost $10,000 a decade ago.
“Video is powerful because it is the most shared content online and it is never a bad investment,” he adds. “My analogy is this: When is the last time you received a direct-mail solicitation that you photocopied and shared with a friend?”
Alert the media. No matter how robust a charity’s own social network, the goal is to get beyond it and have a campaign go viral. This means reaching out to reporters, bloggers, and social-media-savvy movers and shakers before the campaign goes public.
Mr. Karelas urges charities to “think very carefully about who the audience is you want to find out about your campaign and then reach out to the places where they go to check news.”
For Re-volv, this meant calling and e-mailing a slew of prominent bloggers and media people who cover the environment and renewable energy to tell them about the forthcoming campaign.
“Once you get one or two blogs that are well read to post about you, all these other blogs pick it up and it gets tweeted around and shared,” says Mr. Karelas, noting that nearly half of his group’s Indiegogo donors were new supporters.
Hit the ground running. Rather than announcing the campaign to the public when the coffers are empty, start raising money first. The charity’s most loyal supporters might be willing to give early.
“No one is going to donate to an online campaign that may not reach its goal,” says Nathan Hand, director of advancement at the Oaks Academy, a private school in Indianapolis. “Having at least 50 percent in commitments upfront is key in creating momentum that will carry over to meeting your goal.”
Offer donors gifts that are unusual or personal. Many fundraising sites require charities to offer donors gifts when they give a minimum sum.
“Tote bags, coffee mugs, water bottles—those things are boring and they are old,” Mr. Lamson says. “What you really want to offer are things that donors wouldn’t ordinarily stumble across, as well as experiences.”
He suggests offering “fun” items that are fair trade, environmentally sustainable, or otherwise “perpetuate the social goodwill mission of charity.” Experiences, meanwhile, could be a dinner with the executive director or a personalized thank-you video from a charity worker who provides direct services.
Don’t just start a campaign and leave it. Promote the drive aggressively the entire time it’s running, not just at the beginning, experts say. Offer frequent—even daily—progress updates through social media.
“While it may feel like you are badgering people or pestering them by repeating something over and over, it is effective,” says Elizabeth Wirgau, founder of Market Colors, a charity in Orlando, Fla., that helps craftspeople in Africa sell goods online. The group raised nearly $20,000 through two Indiegogo campaigns. “As soon as we posted an update or another appeal, we would get at least one donation.”
Remember to say thank you. Acknowledge donations and give supporters a final report on how the drive did, says Farra Trompeter, vice president of Big Duck, a fundraising consultancy in New York: “You can’t just be asking, asking, asking.”
