How to Build Your New Nonprofit’s Crowdfunding Campaign
Once you’ve decided that crowdfunding is for you and selected your platform, now it’s time to get into the weeds and build your crowdfunding project page.
Building your campaign really has two parts: building the project page on the crowdfunding platform, and rolling out the actual campaign to the public. Both parts inform the other.
In both stages, you’ll want to think about it from the perspective of the people who you want to donate. Each crowdfunding campaign has its own community of supporters, and you want to build your campaign toward your target community.
This helps to make your target audience less of an amorphous crowd and more of a distinct community of people who you want to attract to support your new nonprofit organization.
In formulating your project and your campaign, be sure to be specific about what you’re raising money for. It should be credible – something that you can realistically accomplish with the funding you’re requesting and the timeframe you’re proposing.
People need to be able to understand what you’re doing. So, keep it simple and transparent.
Your campaign should also be inspiring. Ask yourself – why should supporters care about your project? And why you? What makes your story unique?
Also consider if there is something unique or compelling about your project at this moment in time.
Finally, donors want to feel connected to the project – whether it’s through good feelings, a sense of connection, rewards or being part of social change. Consider what’s in it for them.
The Pitch
In building your project page, you’ll need to decide what is your pitch. This is the main message of your crowdfunding campaign.
In drafting your pitch, you’ll start with the top-level summary of your message. Focusing on the big picture (details will come later), try answering the following questions in one paragraph:
What problem are you trying to address?
What is your proposed solution?
Where will it take place?
When – what’s the timing for your solution?
Who are you pitching to?
Why would someone donate to this project?
Like with any crowdfunding campaign, raising money for something specific, definable and attainable is key. If you’re raising funds for social change, the same tenets hold true.
Small donations tend to be emotionally driven. People want to feel a part of the project, or the social change, or they want to feel philanthropic.
Simple is best.
You’ll also need a name for your campaign and probably a tagline. These words matter. The idea is to use active words that refer to an outcome (not the process).
Check out Fundly’s Crowdfunding Campaign Page Writing Tips to Captivate Donors.
Telling Your Nonprofit’s Story
Crowdfunding is about connecting with people who already care. So, your focus is on finding those people, not on convincing people to care.
Once you’ve found people who care about your cause, then you need to convince them that your project is a good solution.
This is where your project page comes in. You’ll want to tell stories to pull in people who already care, and give them a reason to donate to your solution.
You can tell your own story, or your team’s story. Why you’re doing this project and what brought you to it in the first place may be compelling.
You can also talk about the issue, or the place, or the community or culture at the heart of your project.
Including a few stories on your project page from these different perspectives can help donors connect.
Tip: it’s important to sound human in telling your stories. While this is all a pitch, you want to be accessible and not too salesy.
By telling a story, you can communicate both the services you provide and their impact. This is how someone truly understands what your nonprofit is all about. Check out this interesting Causevox article on nonprofit storytelling for crowdfunding.
Creating a Crowdfunding Campaign Video
Your campaign video should tell the stories that you created for your project campaign. It should be authentic. The audience should be able to get a sense of who you are and why you’re doing this project.
The great thing about crowdfunding campaigns is the personal element of the campaign video. It allows you to talk directly to your audience and show why your solution is worthwhile.
The video should be credibility raising, but not too polished or salesy. Remember this is for a social cause. You want to demonstrate that you’re skilled enough to finish the project.
It also should be just long enough to tell your story and deliver your message. Keeping it concise will increase the odds of keeping the viewer’s attention
Make sure to end with a call to action – giving donors a reason to donate and inviting them to join your cause and your community.
This StartSomeGood campaign raised $30,903 to fund Myanmar’s first food truck. Their video is personal, tells a great story and clear call to action.
Crowdfunding Campaign Rewards for Nonprofits
Most crowdfunding platforms are set up to allow donation tiers, which is a great idea. You can also offer rewards associated with each donation tier.
If you’re mailing out rewards, you’ll need to handle and track mailings. If the reward has monetary value, that will impact any tax deduction notice that you send (if you’re a 501c3).
Tip: There are a lot of non-monetary rewards that lend themselves well to social cause crowdfunding. This could range from an opportunity to get involved, volunteer, attend a launch party, or attend a site visit.
If you’re offering rewards, be sure that they are relevant to your story, and be sure to have a few reward levels.
In any case, all of your donors should receive a thank you. Larger donors should receive public acknowledgement.
Check out Kickstarter’s rewards tips for some brainstorming ideas.
Finding Your Donors
You’re going to want to start with your existing volunteers, donors, network, friends, family, etc. From these, line up early supporters before you launch the campaign so you’re sure to get those all-important first few donations.
The goal is to have the support of people who already know you before you go out to people who don’t know you.
Tip: If can’t find these early supporters, your project may not be ready to share, or you may not be ready to fundraise.
Next, you’re going to look for people who follow causes or interests that overlap with your project. This will require some research.
You may want to search for similar types of causes. See how they did their campaigns and who liked them.
Try to make your target market as concrete as possible. Who are they? What characteristics do they have in common? Where are they? What do they care about? Why will they support you? Why won’t they support you? What media do they use? Where else can you find them?
This will help you build a plan for targeting the correct audience.
Finally, you look to everyone else.
Launch and Outreach
Before you launch, you’ll need to have your name, tagline, pitch, stories and video ready to go.
You should also already be talking about your project or your campaign publicly, for example through questions or posts on social media.
Finally, you’ll need to line up your marketing plan before you launch. Use as many different channels as possible for outreach. This includes social media, hashtags, asking for re-posts and re-tweets, attending conferences, YouTube videos, etc.
Use whatever you’re comfortable with, and go where your target donors are.
A typical launch might go like this:
First, you share campaign with your early supporters for their support and to encourage them to bring others into the campaign.
After you’ve got your initial supporters, and your campaign page now has some credibility.
Next, you email blast to your entire network, and engage in extensive social media sharing for the next week or so.
Once the campaign has some momentum, then you can start outreach to influencers: media, bloggers, celebrities, etc. You can also hold events, like a launch party, to bolster attention for your campaign.
Gaining local media attention can be helpful have a big payoff. Check out this GoFundMe article on how to get local media to cover your campaign.
Toward the end of the campaign, you’ll email blast your network one more time to remind them about the campaign and ask them to give.
It can feel awkward to send that second email, like you’re bugging people. But think about it – if you don’t think it’s worth a reminder, then why should they? You want to tell people how much it matters.
Afterwards
It’s essential to involve your donors in your campaign and your project. You’ll share updates and celebrate milestones. This keeps these donors involved and spreading the word. It can lead them to donate to future campaigns or become bigger donors.
Technical stuff
If you have your 501c3 organization set up, then you’ll need to comply with the charitable solicitation registrations that are required by most states. You’ll also need to send acknowledgements of the tax-deductible donation to your donors. Be sure to consult with your attorney.
Launching a crowdfunding campaign can be fun and invigorating. One option is to organize your campaign around Giving Tuesday (day after Cyber Monday) or some other event. Either way, crowdfunding can be a great starting place for fundraising for your new organization.