Today, with the help of technology and various platforms available,  it’s fast and easy to create a fundraising or a crowdfunding campaign. However, it requires a bit more time and effort to make your campaign page stand and attract more donations. Thanks to the feedback received from 7 million users, who have already used Leetchi.com platform to raise funds, we have a pretty good understanding of what makes a fundraising or crowdfunding campaign work.

The purpose of this article is to help you, the fundraiser, make your page more appealing in order to raise awareness about your cause and of course the much needed funds. We want your project, whether personal or for a good cause, to be the next success story!

Here are the top 5 tips to keep in mind when setting up and running your campaign:

1. What does your cover photo and title say about your campaign?

We’ve noticed that many fundraisers set up their online money pot pages in a hurry, skipping the personalisation part, which is the key to success.

To catch potential donor’s attention it’s best if you have a good quality photo and title representing the project or cause. We advise that you don’t use generic images. For example: your neighbor’s house has burnt down and you’re asking the local community to club together to help them get back on their feet. Take a photo of the damaged house and make it clear why and for whom you’ve started your crowdfunding campaign page.

fundraising for an individual in need

2. Is your project description reliable and convincing enough to get donors on board?

Again, we’ve seen many crowdfunding campaigns with almost empty description section of their page. Looking like this and containing generic text that Leetchi.com provides by default on all money pots pages:

To get support and donations flowing in you should consider ‘telling your story’ answering the following questions:

  • What’s the project?
  • Why are you raising funds?
  • Who will the funds benefit?
  • How much are you planning to raise?
  • How will this amount make a difference to the person/project/charity in question?
  • Do you have a personal motive? If yes, share it!

To make the summary part easy read and understand, please upload additional photos, videos and add any necessary links. For example if you’re raising money for a charity, include their link so that potential supporters can find out more about it if they wish to.

Here is an example of a well executed fundraising campaign for PETA UK, organised by Lucy Watson.

3. Is everyone around you aware of your campaign?

Living in a fully digital and fully connected world, we cannot stress enough the importance of using social media (Facebook, Twitter Instagram, LinkedIn) to leverage your campaign. Sharing your money pot page is a crucial step to raising awareness about your project and encouraging people you know (friends and followers) to spread the message even further.

Social media posts can help provide the so called ‘viral’ effect. 

In your posts you can also add hashtags relevant to your fundraising campaign, this will increase the size of your audience. Here’s a helpful tool to choose them for Twitter: http://hashtagify.me/

Needless to mention, Leetchi.com money pot links are fully integrated with all social media.

Twitter integration

Lucy Watson for PETA campaign on Leetchi.com, fundraising website

Facebook integration

personal fundraising website
 

4. Are you providing regular updates on the advancement of your campaign?

Leetchi.com money pots have an ‘updates’ section which are designed to help fundraisers communicate with their donors. You can use this function to thank everyone for their contributions, encourage to help you spread the message as well as provide updates on the project. You can do so with a short message/photo/video etc.

Providing regular updates makes your project look credible, and you as a fundraiser more professional 👍

5. Spread the word even further, why not the local press?

If you really feel strongly about your cause and you believe that a broader audience would be interested in supporting it, why not contact local journalist and bloggers? Having your project with the money pot link featured in an article can have an important impact on your fundraising campaign!

Start your crowdfunding campaign page today and turn your project ideas into reality!

Need more help?

Here you’ll find some examples of an eye-catching, well executed fundraising campaigns:
Make it better- Uganda project
Running for Kieran and The National Society for Phenylketonuria (NSPKU)
100 chairs and desks for a Nigerian rural school

More tips & tricks

Fundraising Guide
How to create fundraising page?
Tips and Tricks