5 Ways GiveGab Helps Nonprofits through Online Crowdfunding

Online crowdfunding has greatly expanded over the past five years and, in the process, has helped to change the way nonprofits interact with their current and potential donors.

Overall revenue from online fundraising grew by 14% in 2016, in large part because of unprecedented growth among fundraisers utilizing online crowdfunding campaigns.

Engaging with current, past, and potential donors through a variety of social media and electronic communication venues is invaluable to the effectiveness of online crowdfunding campaigns.

Used together, social media engagement and email can help nonprofits earn 89% more donations!

At GiveGab, we understand the critical role online crowdfunding plays in the donation process. In this post, you will learn about some of the key features available on the GiveGab platform that can help your nonprofit optimize its crowdfunding efforts.

1. GiveGab Helps Nonprofits Engage with Donors on Social Media

Recent studies show that re-marketing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn can increase traffic to your donation pages. In fact, 21% of all donations are made directly through some form of social media.

Facebook alone refers 29.4% of traffic to donation pages on #GivingTuesday and more than 29% of mobile donation traffic on #GivingTuesday came from Facebook in 2016. In an average peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, 15-18% of donations are referred directly from Facebook.

With so much potential giving happening on social media nonprofits have a lot to gain from honing their social media strategies. There are several ways the GiveGab platform can help nonprofits engage donors through social media.

While fundraising on GiveGab is separate and very different from fundraising directly through Facebook, you can easily link your campaign, fundraising event, or Giving Day Profile to your Facebook profile in order to reach more people! 

You can also connect your Facebook donate button to your GiveGab fundraising profile. This can help to increase traffic on your Giving Day and Fundraising profiles and will aid in increasing the overall visibility for and impact of your nonprofit!

Additionally, peer-to-peer fundraising helps nonprofits cast a wider net during online crowdfunding campaigns by giving participants in your organization’s fundraiser the opportunity to fundraise on your behalf. This is a very effective way to make sure that your online crowd-fundraising efforts reach as many potential supporters as possible!

2. GiveGab Helps Nonprofits Tell Compelling Stories that Reach More People

At GiveGab, we realize that the most important part of any nonprofit is your individual story. The story behind your organization not only reflects why and how you got started as an organization, it is also what makes your organization so important to your donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries!

The GiveGab platform is designed to help you highlight your story in the most captivating way possible to solidify support and continuously engage with your donors and participate in donor stewardship. 

Our platform focuses on helping nonprofits produce authentic, engaging, and approachable stories. Often, this means highlighting the specific impact that your donors make by participating in your organization’s events, fundraisers, and campaigns.

Below is an example of a campaign story on GiveGab:

This means helping your donors to understand that their contributions are not just supporting your organization; they are buying the food, medicine, shelter, and other items that care for those your organization helps on a daily basis.

Approaching your story in this way will allow your donors to understand that they are making a true difference and they will gain knowledge about the direct impact they can make by participating in your organization. This is the first and most important aspect of donor stewardship and it is where online crowdfunding truly begins!

You can expand your story’s impact by including videos and photographs of donors and volunteers truly engaging in the projects your organization undertakes and making an identifiable difference. Instagram and YouTube are great social media resources you can link to in your GiveGab profile to expand your organization’s reach and help to enrich the stories you tell!

3. GiveGab’s Crowdfunding Model Helps Donors Feel Appreciated

At GiveGab we are obsessed with Donor Stewardship and make sure to include ways for nonprofits to engage donors as much as possible. In fact, there are many tools to help with Donor Stewardship built into the GiveGab platform!

One of the most important aspects of maintaining long-lasting relationships with your supporters is giving thanks. Studies show that email messaging accounted for 26% of all online revenue in 2016. You should make sure your donors feel appreciated and that they receive thank you messages that are genuine and timely and that recur on a regular basis.

We prompt each of the nonprofits that use GiveGab to create a custom “Thank You” message during the campaign and event creation process.  Below is a screenshot of an actual thank you message from a nonprofit on GiveGab: 

4. GiveGab’s Status Updates Encourage Donor Participation and Keep Supporters Up-to-Date on Campaign Progress

In addition to a personalized email thanking donors, nonprofits can send out status updates in the GiveGab platform. This feature allows organizations to create customized messages centered around keeping supporters informed about the campaign’s progress.

You can also include inspiring photos and videos with your updates to truly demonstrate the positive impact your organization is making in the community.

Anyone already involved in your campaign will automatically receive email notifications about your status updates and they will appear on your campaign’s wall so you can reach even more potential donors! Learn More About Posting Campaign Status Updates on GiveGab here.

5. GiveGab’s Embeddable Donation Widget Makes Online Crowdfunding Easy and Accessible

GiveGab’s Embeddable Donation Widget is a donation form you can add to any website to collect donations.  This form lives on your website, so your donors aren’t being directed away to make a gift somewhere else, on a separate platform.

This is more user-friendly and saves your donors time when they are making donations; it is designed to help make fundraising more effortless and streamlined!

Below is a screenshot of GiveGab’s embeddable donation form used by EcoVillage of Ithaca:

With the widget, you can create different donation levels so donors can choose a specific amount that will go towards helping your nonprofit reach a specific goal, such as purchasing medication for patients or clothing for shelters.

You can also allow donors to enter a custom amount and select the option to make a recurring monthly gift. This tool is instrumental as studies show that the most successful crowdfunding campaigns are also oriented towards increasing donor stewardship, recurring donations, and donor loyalty.

Curious about even more ways your nonprofit can use social media to boost engagement? Check out these helpful articles on social media, fundraising, and marketing!