For years, charities have admired the massive sums that individuals raise on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. Now they can see if it works for them, as the company moves fully into the nonprofit world with GoFundMePro.
“Sixty-five thousand nonprofits have already benefited from people organizing and giving to them on GoFundMe, which probably would surprise people,” says Tim Cadogan, CEO of GoFundMe. “But we want it to happen a lot more, and that’s why we’re leaning into this so much more.”
GoFundMe bought Classy, a nonprofit fundraising platform, in 2022, but the two remained largely separate. Now Classy is rebranding as GoFundMePro. Cadogan says the new offering will help nonprofits raise money by incorporating some of the best features and insights learned from the individual fundraising campaigns on GoFundMe.
Such features include using data collected over time from GoFundMe to figure out suggested donation amounts for people who come to a campaign, as well as AI tools to aid fundraising. One feature GoFundMePro will be rolling out is nonprofit pages for 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Nonprofits can claim their pages by verifying their organization’s identity. Those groups that claim their pages will be able to see a list of all fundraising campaigns created for them, contact information for anyone who has raised money for or donated to the organization on GoFundMe either directly or via another supporter’s fundraiser, and where the donation came from — a supporter-led campaign or a drive the group set up on its nonprofit page.
“It’s going to be a really powerful way to see everything that’s going on behalf of your nonprofit,” Cadogan says. “The nonprofit pages create an opportunity for every nonprofit, even the smallest, to be able to reach their community, be able to understand their donors, be able to build those relationships in a new way.”
Access to information on fundraising campaigns is available to all nonprofit page administrators. Those who sign up for GoFundMePro software will get additional benefits, including unified payments where all the information comes in to one dashboard, whether it’s from GoFundMePro or the traditional GoFundMe consumer platform.
Younger Donors Still Require Engagement
Many people think of crowdfunding platforms as a gateway to younger donors. There are lots of young donors on platforms like GoFundMe, says Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer for GivingTuesday, who studies generosity. But he says there are also older generations: Crowdfunding tends to be where the generous people are.
“People who support individual fundraising campaigns, like GoFundMe campaigns, are more inclined to give to charity, not less,” Rosenbaum says.
Nonprofits generally engage younger donors less than they do other supporters, says Rosenbaum. So whatever tools organizations use — whether it’s a crowdfunding site or something else — they also need to meaningfully engage young donors.
“There’s a common misconception that the tool is the reason that somebody’s going to give or the tool is somehow going to unlock somebody’s giving,” Rosenbaum says. “But at the end of the day, what matters is how an organization uses those tools to engage in genuine, connected ways.”
Engagement is keenly important in successful GoFundMe campaigns, Cadogan says. “They want to donate, but they want to do more,” he says. “They want to be your evangelists. They want to tell other people that they support you and ask, Can you support the cause that they care so much about?”
Cadogan says it’s important to give younger donors “tools to go tell your story and drive support in new ways.”
