Community Fundraising: maximise engagement and impact!

The Strength of a Community

As a not-for-profit organisation, you're probably looking for new and original ideas to raise funds. Maybe you have heard of or even taken part in a charity sports race. Perhaps a supporter has already created an online fundraising campaign for your cause. Or have you already carried out a crowdfunding campaign to finance one of your flagship projects?

These initiatives are all different, but they have one thing in common... they all involve the community! They are all "Community Fundraising" initiatives. These types of approaches rely on a group of people sharing a common interest to raise funds.

More than a simple appeal for donations, Community Fundraising aims to mobilise your supporters and encourage them to take action. As well as strengthening your community, Community Fundraising can broaden your scope and raise your profile by reaching new audiences.

In this article, we'll introduce you to the Community Fundraising Platform, a 3-in-1 tool designed specifically so that nonprofit organizations like yours can put their communities at the heart of their fundraising. 

The Community Fundraising Platform: 3 fundraising tools in 1

As you will have gathered by now, Community Fundraising campaigns can amplify the impact of your association. This type of campaign can open the door to new fundraising opportunities, and give you the chance to turn your supporters into donors, or even fundraisers! 
So, what is the Community Fundraising Platform and how can it help you?

Peer to peer, crowdfunding, and event fundraising on one single platform

The Community Fundraising Platform will transform the way you raise funds by bringing together three powerful approaches in a single tool:

Crowdfunding for charities:

On the Community Fundraising Platform, you can easily create an online campaign for different projects to attract donations easily. Then you can define the type of crowdfunding campaign, whether it’s simple one-off donations or reward-based contributions. You can even keep your supporters informed of the progress of your projects with emails and updates through the platform.

Peer to Peer fundraising: Why not turn your supporters into fundraisers and ambassadors through different types of peer-to-peer campaigns? The Community Fundraising Platform gives you an interface for supporters to create and run their own personalised fundraising campaigns on your behalf. They can then spread the word. And mobilise their personal network of friends, family and colleagues to appeal for donations for your mission.

Event Fundraising: What could be better than a large gathering of supporters to encourage their generosity and strengthen their commitment? Whether it's a physical or online event, you can now manage it on a single platform and collect donations online in an easy and engaging way!

As well as combining the powers of these three types of campaigns, the Community Fundraising Platform responds to the daily challenges faced by many not-for-profit organisations when collecting donations. This includes easily managing diverse campaigns simultaneously, effectively tracking donor activities, and diligently monitoring overall performance. Finally, you can ensure a seamless donor journey and keep better track of your donor base.

Let's take a look at the range of features that the Community Fundraising Platform has in store for you, to improve every stage of your online fundraising.

Community Fundraising Platform: advanced features to maximise your results

Online ticketing for your charity events.

As you know, your events are powerful fundraising opportunities. Whether it's a sports challenge, a charity concert or another type of event, you can now use our new e-ticketing feature! 
With it, you can easily manage registrations and automatically send out electronic tickets with QR codes. During the event, you can even streamline event operations thanks to the integrated scanning system. It enables efficient ticket validation and attendee management through a unified application. And allows for a smooth experience for your participants as well as your team behind the scenes.

Your charity’s very own online shop feature: available for fundraisers when registering for your events!

Whether your organisation already sells goodies online or not, you can now create and manage your very own event web shop in one place. With the Community Fundraising Platform, fundraisers who sign up for your events can now buy items online during their registration. During your events, give participants the opportunity to support your charity by purchasing merchandise. This merchandise can include T-shirts, hats, mugs, and other branded items. 
Additionally, you have the convenience of centralising order management and inventory within the same platform used for event administration. Envision hosting a charitable concert, where participants can conveniently acquire both event tickets and merchandise, like event-themed t-shirts, all from a singular location. 

A wide choice of pre-written automatic emails.

As you know, sending the right e-mail at the right time is crucial to the consistency of the donor journey! On the Community Fundraising Platform, you will find ready-to-use automatic emails that you can program to thank, activate or inform your supporters. The texts are pre-filled, so it's easy!

Rewards and gifts for your donors.

Are you planning to send personalised gifts to your most loyal or active donors? Thanks to this feature, you can do so in just a few clicks! Define rewards or gifts associated with donation amounts to highlight the generosity of your donors. You can even easily manage your stock on the platform and collect delivery addresses without a hassle!

Vouchers and promotions.

With the CFP, you can also generate vouchers to create specific promotions during registration. Set up percentage discounts, and even define time-limited fixed prices, with personalised labels!

Easy setup of Matching Gift programmes with companies, and many other features.

This offering helps businesses support and work with nonprofits by making the process easier for them to pledge their support. How about opening the way for donors to take advantage of companies matching their donations? "Give €10 and we'll double your donation!” You have probably already heard of Matching Giving. 

Whether it's matching gifts or fostering employee engagement, the Community Fundraising Platform offers a holistic package that facilitates seamless corporate participation. You can benefit from a significant leverage effect. The concept is simple: a company agrees to double (or even triple) the donations made by its employees to a charity. 

This is the perfect opportunity to give companies a way to push their CSR activities and for your charity to multiply the gifts you receive. Define the overall amount, the timetable and the calculation (2x, 3x...) and post this opportunity on the platform! The tool even has a special company focus which allows you to solidify your corporate partnerships.

You are able to:

• Propose a dedicated sign up process for company teams at events
• Create company registration packages
• Let companies propose special rewards
• Even give partners a branded sub-site, campaign or their own platform

But that's not all... You can also showcase your sponsors, carry out A/B tests on your donation page, create fundraising badges and much more! And it's all available in English, French, Italian, Dutch, Danish and Swedish.

Easy, intuitive configuration and customisation of all your campaigns.

The Community Fundraising Platform will allow your team to simplify the way they work, improving their efficiency and performance. You'll be able to better manage your time and administrative costs.
In addition to its intuitive interface, the tool has been designed to be a plug-and-play solution, making life easier for you: no skills are required to set it up or get up and running.

Once you've installed the tool, you'll be able to use intuitive dashboards and manage all your content using an easy-to-use editor. The functions are easy to set up and, if you're in any doubt, there's a helpdesk with detailed descriptions.
Finally, benefit from real-time analytics and progress tracking on a clear and concise dashboard.

A seamless user experience for your participants and supporters

On the other side of the screen, it's just as intuitive for users! The platform offers your supporters, participants and donors an easy, and seamless experience. Not only when they make a donation, but also when they fundraise for you, or attend one of your events. The transparency of interactions and donations creates a positive experience, strengthening the user's relationship with your charity.

The platform is supported by powerful donor management and emailing tools, for smooth and consistent communication. All participants can track their fundraising progress in real time and integrate their campaigns with social media platforms with ease. They can share updates to their fundraising pages with their network, share progress, encourage new people to donate or thank contributors.
The platform is therefore easy for your charity to use, but it's also easily accessible to all your community of supporters, donors and their network who take part in events involving your cause.

These nonprofits have unleashed the potential of their supporters thanks to the Community Fundraising Platform.

A number of nonprofit organizations involved in change have already been able to boost their fundraising efforts by using the Community Fundraising Platform! 

• The ARC Foundation for cancer research is using the Community Fundraising Platform to organise the Triathlon des Roses. This solidarity race takes place in 5 different French cities to mark Pink October. Thousands of people take part in these events in aid for breast cancer research! The organisation invites its network of supporters to get involved for this specific cause, through team efforts and personal fundraising pages.
  
  
• Using iRaiser’s Community Fundraising Platform, "Soutiens ton Club", the French Sports Foundation, enables sports clubs to appeal for donations online! Skiing, volleyball, athletics, whatever the sport, sports clubs can create an online crowdfunding campaign and solicit donations from their supporters in just a few clicks! The funds raised can be used, for example, to finance infrastructure renovation projects or the purchase of sports equipment.
• Race for Life is a charity race to raise funds in the fight against cancer. Donations collected on the online fundraising platform are donated to cancer organisations that support people affected by the disease and those around them. Whether they are cyclists or solidarity walkers, participants can create their own peer-to-peer fundraising pages, to raise funds individually or in teams.
• The Norwegian association Barnekreft Foreningen (Association against Childhood Cancer) is using iRaiser’s white label platform to collect donations. One of its flagship events is a solidarity race, which brings together children and adults in the fight against childhood cancer. The race takes place in September, which is International Childhood Cancer Month. During the event, supporters can make donations to support existing teams, or create their own online pools via personal fundraising pages.

• Tell compelling stories with customisable campaign pages.
• Increase reach and participation through social media integration.
• Strengthen relationships with their donors through personalised communication.
• Simplify the management of their events and ticketing for fundraising events.
• Make data-driven decisions with real-time analytics.

So, are you ready to transform and maximise your fundraising through the active engagement of your online community? You too can join other associations that have already explored the powers of peer-to-peer, crowdfunding and event fundraising.

Take advantage of the many advanced features of iRaiser's Community Fundraising Platform to mobilise your supporters for your cause. From now on, you can use this 3-in-1 tool to build stronger, more connected communities that bring about positive change. And turn every interaction into a conversion opportunity!

Are you thinking of launching your own community fundraising initiatives and looking for inspiration for your campaigns? Check out our free guide, where we share 13 community fundraising ideas to get you started.