Crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, which made its name helping people give to other people, is expanding its charity fundraising tools.
The company on Tuesday announced GoFundMe Charity, an expansion of its online fundraising software. GoFundMe declined to say how much the new charity service will cost, saying it will announce pricing in November. The company did say that charities will now have the option of not paying for the platform, provided they ask donors to add a “tip” to their donations.
The company will begin rolling out the new features, in addition to a new donate button, in November.
Here’s what’s new:
- Access to a data dashboard that allows charities to run custom queries, build data visualizations, and schedule analytics reports. GoFundMe Charity will integrate with common database and marketing systems like Salesforce and Mailchimp.
- Ticket sales for everything from a simple gala RSVP to registration for multiteam charity rides and races.
- Charities will be able to run reports on who’s raising money on their behalf, both currently and historically, on the GoFundMe platform.
- Nonprofits can embed customizable donate buttons with suggested donation amounts and branding on their websites. The buttons allow charities, even those that haven’t created GoFundMe Charity accounts or campaigns, to access the company’s payments platform as well as donor analysis, automated receipts, recurring payments, and customer support.
“Charities are really good at focusing on their cause. What they need is new ways to access audiences, new ways to raise money,” says GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon. He hopes these features introduce organizations to new donors. “Charities really need to reach donors where they are hanging out.”
Some of the features will be familiar to charities that have used the company’s CrowdRise by GoFundMe software, which launched in 2018. Solomon says that “literally thousands” of charities are using the CrowdRise by GoFundMe tools. Large charities pay for the software, which includes ticketing and registration capabilities and the ability to pull donor data, among other features. The company offers tiered pricing for less robust options.
Charities have been able to run basic campaigns through GoFundMe but did not have access to the same analytics tools.
Managing how it presented both CrowdRise and GoFundMe to the public was hard,, Solomon says, and the new software extends what CrowdRise offered. “We want to consolidate everything around the brand that has become the take-action button, the brand that has become ubiquitous with social fundraising,” he says.
Big Aspirations
The world of online fundraising providers is getting smaller, and GoFundMe continues to be a major player.
The company has acquired other crowdfunding companies in recent years. In addition to CrowdRise in 2017, GoFundMe acquired YouCaring in 2018.
Solomon recently told the Atlantic that his “grand ambition” is to for GoFundMe to be the main player for internet giving for individuals and nonprofits alike.
In December 2017, around the time that Facebook eliminated its 5 percent transaction fee for charitable donations, GoFundMe moved in the same direction. It ended its 5 percent fee on contributions and began requesting that donors provide a “tip” to cover payment processing fees.
GoFundMe, which turns 10 next year, had helped raise more than $5 billion from more 50 million donors as of June 2017. The majority of GoFundMe campaigns are for people supporting other people — like covering health-care costs or supporting a family who lost a home in a fire. But Solomon expects that to change significantly over the next five years. “I wouldn’t be surprised if charitable giving eclipses person-to-person giving in as short as a couple of years,” he says. “A large portion of that over the next five years is going to move online.”
The company declined to provide data about how much money has gone to charities so far but said that hundreds of thousands of nonprofits have benefited from fundraising on GoFundMe.
In August, Facebook announced that its users had raised $2 billion for charity in the four years since it introduced its fundraising tools.
Eden Stiffman reports on nonprofit trends and fundraising for the Chronicle. She recently interviewed MIT’s Epstein Whistle blower about her own lack of fundraising ethics training, and other topics. She also writes a popular weekly fundraising newsletter. Email Eden or follow her on Twitter.
Clarification: We have updated this article to say that the $5 billion GoFundMe has raised was as of June 2017, the most recent data available.