A Few Good Tools for Online Distributed Fundraising

Distributed fundraising isn't a new thing. Many organizations have been engaging their supporters – like staff, volunteers, program participants, or current donors – to fundraise on their behalf for decades. Traditionally, this is done through walk-a-thons and similar events where individual supporters seek sponsors from their own networks of colleagues, friends, and family. In fact, distributed fundraising is often informally called "team" or "a-thon" fundraising.

But the definition of distributed fundraising is evolving, and now includes the use of online tools to facilitate fundraising by supporters. These tools let supporters participate in broader campaigns by setting up individual online donation pages that allow them to speak directly to their own friends and family.

Is online distributed fundraising right for your organization? We asked six nonprofit technology experts for advice on how to decide, and for information on tools that have worked well for their nonprofit colleagues. Pulling from their experience, we combined their advice below to provide information about a few tools that may work well for your nonprofit.

How Does It Work?

Most basic tools let potential fundraisers create their own personalized fundraising pages related to the campaign. These individual pages provide opportunities for the supporter to use pictures and text to talk about their involvement in the cause. Individual fundraisers can then contact their network, direct them to their pages and begin taking donations.

Many tools also offer fundraising "widgets" or "badges." Widgets usually take the form of a small box – often with a logo, text, and a donate button – that can be added to existing Web sites, blogs, or social network profiles. While potential fundraisers may need to know a little HTML (the language of Web sites) to add widgets to their sites, these widgets can be a very useful to reach out to existing communities – for instance, the readers of a blog or a supporters' Facebook friends.

Some of the more sophisticated tools also let organizational staff members oversee a campaign's progress. A centralized Web page may show the overall status of the campaign, with tools to compare individual fundraisers' results or to easily download information about donors. Some even allow fundraisers to organize themselves into teams and let you track the progress of each of the teams.

Tools to Get Started Quickly

Many of the available tools let you experiment with distributed fundraising without making a significant investment – they're relatively easy to set up, with no big up-front costs. These tools are better for smaller campaigns, or to get your toes wet if you are new to distributed fundraising.

Many of these services are free, except for a percentage fee for each donation, and some offer upgrades to a more sophisticated set of features – such as the ability to create campaign blogs and connections to social networking sites – for a small cost. This type of service generally hosts your campaign on the vendor's Web site. It's clear to donors that they're donating on a site other than your own, but some tools offer the opportunity for customization.

Many also offer helpful features, like "thermometers" to measure the campaign progress, lists of people who have already donated (and, often their comments), and the ability to upload contacts from other sources.

ChipIn

Chipin is best known as a widget that supporters can place on their own Web sites or Facebook profiles, with a donate button and a thermometer measuring progress toward the campaign goal. It also lets users without Web sites create a page on ChipIn.com for free. There's no cost for Chipin itself, but organizations must set up PayPal accounts to process donations and pay the associated PayPal transaction fees (which are less than 2.5 percent for nonprofit organizations).

SixDegrees.org

SixDegrees.org, which is affiliated with Network for Good, lets individuals and organizations create donation widgets. These widgets, or badges, can be created online and inserted into a Web site or integrated into social networking sites like MySpace. SixDegrees.org does not support individual fundraising pages, and the badges are only somewhat customizable – you can add pictures, video, and text information about your cause. Progress is tracked at the top of the badge, but there is no thermometer, and administrators can track donations through a donation tracking report that rolls up the donations from all the distributed badges. Fees are 4.75 percent per transaction with no setup fee.

Change.org

Change.org provides a social networking site geared toward nonprofit causes, which includes both online giving and distributed fundraising tools. Through the free basic service, organizations can create a page that includes their logo and information, an overall progress thermometer, testimonials, photos and videos, a list of supporters and recent donors, donation functionality, and a donation widget for supporters. Supporters of the organization can also create their own fundraising pages via link from the organization's page, and donations can be tracked by an administrator through an online report. Change.org offers a premium package for an additional $20 per month that allows for more customization. Donations are processed by Network for Good, a common processor, with a fee of 4.75 percent for each donation.

ChangingthePresent.org

This site encourages donors to replace traditional gifts with donations to a cause. With the free package, organizations have a very basic home page where donors can make a simple donation of any amount and supporters can create fundraising page to raise money for the organization. Changingthepresent.org also offers a premium package for $100 per year, which lets organizations create pre-packaged gifts that show what they can provide for a given price – for example, a $100 donation feeds a child in Somalia for one month, and donors purchase that $100 donation as a gift for someone, and allows for more customization of the organization's profile. Fees are 3 percent, plus $.30, per donation.

Facebook Causes

While the other tools listed here support a more general audience, Facebook Causes is specifically geared to let supporters who use Facebook (a popular social networking site) fundraise from their own Facebook contacts. Facebook members establish a cause, select a beneficiary organization, and solicit donations through their Facebook friends network. They can also post Cause profiles on their Facebook page, though they're limited to one at a time. Costs are 4.75 percent per donation, processed through Network for Good. Donors must be registered on Facebook in order to donate.

Firstgiving

FirstGiving provides easy to use tools that let supporters set up their own fundraising pages, and allows campaign administrators to track campaigns' progress across individual fundraisers. With the basic program (which is free except for transaction fees), the organization and individual pages are not very customizable and won't necessarily mesh with your organization's graphic style. The premium package is $300 per year (with the same transaction fees) and offers more customization of the pages, the ability to link back to your organization's homepage, and support for teams of fundraisers. Unlike some of the other tools, FirstGiving does not have a built in audience, so you'll need to rely solely on your own supporters to spread the word. Transactions cost 7.5 percent (5 percent for the FirstGiving service fee and 2.5 percent for credit card processing.)

Tools for a More Robust and Integrated Strategy

While the first set of tools allow you to launch distributed campaigns with relative ease, organizations that plan to run many distributed campaigns may find them lacking. In particular, they don't provide much centralized control over campaigns, and it can be difficult to integrate data – for instance, records of your donors and gifts – with other systems.

For organizations ready to invest more in distributed fundraising software, there is another class of system. These online systems offer more feature-rich possibilities, and considerably more central control and reporting. All of the ones here are also available as modules in much larger suites of online communication and constituent management tools, so can be fully integrated with other fundraising strategies. In the long run, these solutions will better support sophisticated campaigns, but they'll take considerably more time to get up and running.

'Friends Asking Friends' Kintera Thon Online

This hosted solution allows organizations to create sophisticated, customized distributed fundraising campaigns centered around individual fundraising pages. This application is particularly widely used to support online fundraising for "a-thon" events, like walk-a-thons. Administration is quite centralized – for instance, fundraisers are approved to create a fundraising page. It provides several easy-to-use templates for creating fundraising pages, but customizing those pages can require substantial technical know-how. They charge a setup fee of $1400, plus a percentage of each donation.

Convio

Convio's TeamRaiser for Special Events module allows users to set up individual and team fundraising pages. Constituent360, an online constituent database, is included as part of TeamRaiser.

Our contributors also mentioned Artez Interactive and Donor Perfect Online as integrated tools that provide distributed fundraising functionality.

Which Is Right For You?

Determining which tool is the right one for your organization requires a little planning and self-assessment. Ask yourself the following questions:

Have you done this before?

Past experience with distributed fundraising is more important than the size of your organization or the resources (constituents and dollars) you can bring to the project. If you're just starting out, choose a straightforward, easy-to-use tool – for example, fundraising pages and widgets. This is an iterative process, and every attempt yields new knowledge and skills and builds your network for the next round.

What are your fundraising goals?

How many fundraisers and donors do you expect? How much money do you hope to raise? This information will help decide how much you're willing to spend on a tool. Fees differ in structure – if you want to raise a lot of money through many small donations, you might choose a different pricing structure (higher base fee, lower transaction costs) than if you wanted to raise a smaller amount through a small group of donors (higher transaction cost, lower base fee). Make sure your solution is scaled to the campaign so you don't pay a lot if you don't get a lot.

Do you have the network?

How many fundraisers do you need to make the campaign work, and how big are their networks? Effective and connected fundraisers, as messengers for your cause, are the most important component to distributed campaigns, as you'll need to rely on their efforts and personal networks in order to succeed. You should have a number of "seed" fundraisers committed before launching the online campaign.

Are you reaching out to your network where they are?

Make sure you've correctly identified the tools your network is likely to use. If you're using a tool that only works for registered Facebook users, ensure that your supporters are using it. On the other hand, if your supporters use Facebook much more than email, you could be missing a whole group of potential donors by not including it in your strategy.

Do you have the time?

Successful campaigns integrate basic tools with social networking and conventional communications, making them complex things to manage – but someone needs to keep the ball rolling. Make campaigns fun and easy to participate in, create incentives, provide technical support, and templates to help them gain traction. Blog posts, progress updates, and incentives all can help keep energy up. If you ask staff to fundraise, make sure you provide them time to set up individual pages and get involved.

Do you have the technology know-how?

Different tools require different levels of complexity, customization, and involvement. If you're just starting out, choose a solution that's easy for participants and administrators to manage. If you expect a lot of participants, choose one that can integrate campaign data into your existing systems, but remember, more features can mean often mean more complexity.

Does the application have "critical mass" or reach?

Since you're often essentially co-branding with the tool's provider, the reputation and professionalism of your chosen tool are important. In addition, better-established vendors can typically provide better technical support to keep a campaign running smoothly.

Wrapping Up

Whatever your budget, you can likely find a tool that will allow you to try out an online distributed campaign. Advanced features and customization can be helpful, but inexpensive tools can be used creatively to good effect. Customization and the ability to manage the overall campaign may be more of an issue for larger campaigns where it's important for your staff to see the progress of the entire campaign.

Whatever tools you use, your strategy is critical. Identify who you're going to ask to participate, and how you're going to ask them, and then help them keep their momentum. Distributed fundraising can be a useful technique for many different kinds of organizations, as long as you're is willing and able to invest the time.