Whether or not it’s the attract of a large grant that comes with too many strings connected or a volunteer administration device that guarantees the world however delivers little or no, nonprofits are not any strangers to offers that appear too good to be true. The identical might be mentioned about so-called free fundraising platforms for nonprofits. Although the preliminary considered a free fundraising platform is kind of interesting, it’s essential to know simply what you’re getting (and never getting) after you enroll. Learn on to find the hidden prices of free fundraising platforms and how one can keep away from falling sufferer to them.
Lack of Assist and Sources
Free fundraising platforms could not present the identical stage of assist and assets as paid alternate options. As an illustration, sure free fundraising platforms lack devoted dwell cellphone assist, leaving you with solely dwell chat or electronic mail help.
With out satisfactory assist, you could possibly end up navigating challenges and dodging obstacles by yourself, which might result in less-effective fundraising outcomes on your mission. This might be particularly troublesome if you run into a problem smack dab in the midst of your silent public sale fundraiser. Will you be left stranded, or will you be capable to entry the show you how to want shortly?
So, it’s essential to search out out concerning the platform’s assist choices. Listed here are some questions you’ll need to ask when it comes to assist and assets:
- What assist choices can be found (i.e., cellphone, chat, electronic mail, assist heart)?
- Is there an added price for assist?
- What are the hours of availability, and is there assist exterior of enterprise hours, corresponding to nights or weekends?
- Is coaching obtainable free of charge?
- How responsive and educated is the assist crew in apply?
- What’s the common decision turnaround time?
- Within the occasion of complicated technical points or challenges, what escalation course of is in place to make sure well timed decision and minimal disruption to fundraising actions?
- Are there complete assets or a group discussion board for troubleshooting and finest practices?
Lack of Partnership
Some free fundraising platforms for nonprofits lack a devoted buyer success supervisor, in contrast to paid platforms that supply customized help. With out this partnership, nonprofits miss essential steering, technique growth, and situation decision. A devoted buyer success supervisor understands the nonprofit’s wants, presents tailor-made options, and ensures optimum platform use. In the end, the shortage of customized assist could impede fundraising objectives and end in missed alternatives for donor engagement and income era.
- With no devoted supervisor, how does the platform help with technique growth and optimization of fundraising efforts?
- How does the platform make sure that nonprofit workers are adequately educated on utilizing the platform’s options and maximizing fundraising potential with out a devoted supervisor?
- Is there a system in place for nonprofits to supply suggestions on their expertise with buyer assist and counsel enhancements to the platform’s providers?
- How does the platform plan to assist nonprofits’ evolving wants over time with out the presence of a devoted buyer success supervisor?
Restricted Options and Customization
A free fundraising platform sounds nice on the floor, however what if it doesn’t embrace the entire options your nonprofit wants to truly get the job performed?
Restricted Customization
As an illustration, free platforms may need restricted customization choices for branding your fundraising marketing campaign or offering various giving selections for donors. This might restrict your means to create a novel and compelling fundraising web page that resonates along with your viewers. For instance, you will not be ready customise the colour scheme or personalize the donation web page in a approach that might enchantment to your donors and align along with your model and mission.
Moreover, some free fundraising platforms don’t present the flexibility to customise donation types. Customizing your donation types is essential when you’re making an attempt to reinforce donor engagement and enhance contributions. Personalised types, which mirror your group’s distinctive id and mission, can considerably enhance donor belief and connection.
Lack of Options
Some fundraising platforms may lack complete options like recurring giving, peer-to-peer fundraising, auctions, raffles, donations, text-to-donate, and on-line shops. This limitation can pose challenges for nonprofits using various fundraising ways, requiring separate options for every technique. With no unified platform accommodating varied fundraising strategies, nonprofits danger inefficiencies, disjointed operations, and difficulties in managing donor information and engagement throughout totally different channels. Adopting a number of platforms to deal with distinct fundraising wants might enhance prices, complexity, and administrative burden for the group.
Providing various giving choices for donors, corresponding to PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and matching presents, is essential for nonprofits to cater to the preferences and comfort of their supporters. By offering quite a lot of fee strategies and alternatives for matching presents, nonprofits can improve donor engagement and accessibility, in the end maximizing fundraising potential. Nevertheless, if a free fundraising platform fails to supply these choices, nonprofits could encounter limitations in donor participation and income era. Donors could also be deterred from contributing if their most popular fee technique shouldn’t be obtainable, resulting in missed alternatives for assist and decreased donor satisfaction.
Restricted Data
One other facet to remember is that some free fundraising platforms provide solely restricted purchaser particulars that may prohibit a nonprofit’s means to realize insights into donor conduct and preferences. With solely primary purchaser particulars obtainable, corresponding to transaction quantities and dates, nonprofits could lack the depth of data wanted to know their donor base absolutely. Restricted stories could hinder a nonprofit’s capability to section its donors, personalize communications, and domesticate lasting relationships. Consequently, nonprofits could miss alternatives to have interaction donors meaningfully, optimize fundraising efforts, and foster long-term assist, in the end impacting their means to realize their mission and maintain their packages successfully.
Keep away from these platform pitfalls by doing all of your analysis first. Ask these questions to know precisely what you’re getting with the free fundraising platform:
- Is there a restrict on the variety of free fundraising campaigns and occasions you’ll be able to launch?
- What’s the price when you go over the restrict?
- Can you model and customise your donation web page? Are there limits to what you’ll be able to design?
- Do the donation pages from that fundraising vendor look related? If that’s the case, how will your model stand out?
- How scalable is the platform? Can it develop along with your group’s wants over time?
- How user-friendly is the platform for each your crew and your donors? Is the interface intuitive?
- Are you able to customise the donation kind?
- Is recurring giving obtainable on the shape? Are weekly frequencies an choice?
- What fee choices can be found (i.e., Paypal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay)?
- Does the platform have an choice for matching presents?
- Does the platform present complete reporting (donor demographics, giving historical past, engagement, and so forth.)?
- How ceaselessly are bug fixes and product enhancements being applied on the platform?
Platform Charges
Platform charges are incurred on high of processing and transaction charges, and so they can add up shortly. Although a free fundraising platform could say it doesn’t cost platform charges, this will likely solely be true in case your donors cowl these prices themselves via what is named tipping. If you happen to plan to show that “tip” choice off, relying on the platform you’ll be able to count on a platform charge of between 1-5% per transaction primarily based on the kind of marketing campaign.
Guarantee one of the best use of your donor’s cash by asking these questions forward of time:
- What’s the platform charge? Does it differ by sort of marketing campaign (i.e., occasion, donation web page, kind)?
- Do donors need to tip to pay for platform charges?
- If you happen to flip off the tip choice for donors, what charges are charged?
Processing and Transaction Charges
When calculating hidden prices, don’t overlook about processing and transaction charges, too. These charges are incurred every time a donation is made via the platform and may differ primarily based on a number of elements, together with the kind of fee technique utilized by donors.
To keep away from getting caught with further charges, ask these essential questions:
- What’s the processing charge?
- What’s the transaction charge?
- Do you cost each processing AND transaction charges?
- Does the charge differ by fee sort?
- Exterior of ordinary fee processing charges, corresponding to a bank card charge, are there some other charges, corresponding to a per ticket or per transaction charge?
- Is there a month-to-month or normal fee processor charge?
Lagged Payouts
As soon as your fundraiser ends, what’s subsequent? How precisely do you get that cash from the free fundraising platform to your nonprofit’s checking account? With some free platforms, withdrawals aren’t computerized, and may take 5 enterprise days or extra to seem in your related account. As well as, some platforms could cost a payout charge.
Discover out what to anticipate along with your payout by asking these questions first:
- How shortly can I get my payout?
- What’s the course of for initiating payout?
- Do I’ve to take handbook steps to provoke payout?
- Do you cost further charges for payouts?
- Is there any approach to expedite payouts in case of pressing want?
- Have there been situations of payout delays, and the way had been they resolved?
Safety and Compliance
Utilizing a safe fundraising platform is crucial to a profitable fundraiser. Nonprofits merely can’t afford to danger a safety information breach. As soon as your donors know that their private and fee data is protected, they’ll be extra more likely to return with future donations.
Listed here are some inquiries to ask to know simply how protected the free fundraising platform is:
- Have you ever had a knowledge breach up to now? How did you deal with it?
- Are you SOC 2 compliant?
- Are you PCI-compliant?
- What measures are in place to guard in opposition to unauthorized entry to donor information?
When in search of a software program resolution on your nonprofit’s subsequent fundraiser, you’ll want to do your homework. Though the promise of a free fundraising platform could enchantment to your funds, you simply could find yourself paying extra in the long term because of further charges, upcharges, and missed income from missing options. Take a look at our Nonprofit Final Purchaser’s Information for much more recommendations on what to search for in a fundraising platform and questions you might want to ask as you consider your fundraising and donor administration platform choices.
