5 crowdfunding lessons every nonprofit should know

Online crowdfunding and micro donations are a great way to raise money, activate your community and spread your message. Petra Dzurovcinova from the RiAus shares how they raised $5,000 to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students excel in technology and science.

At RiAus we are always seeking new avenues to spread the message about our activities. Our digital team did some research into micro donation and crowdfunding campaigns at the beginning of 2011. Our time to shine came by the end of the year when we proposed a project to trial this new way of engaging new audiences and raising funds.

Crowdfunding with StartSomeGood

A campaign to raise funds for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Summer School for Excellence in Technology and Science (ASSETS) was created within a few weeks, with the Start Some Good platform as our avenue of choice.

We chose Start Some Good as it offered a really strong social media presence and social interaction for potential donors. It also hosts campaigns in various fields from education to humanitarian aid, rather than purely creative pursuits.

What convinced our team the most about the platform was the personalised approach of Alex Budak, a co-founder of StartSomeGood, who led us through the setup of the campaign, suggested improvements to it and to our communications, gave important feedback and provided support for us to successfully reach our goals.

Before the start of the campaign we had to choose a tipping point. This is the amount you need to reach before the campaign becomes active. Only after this point will all the raised funds be given to the cause.

5 Lessons learned about crowdfunding with StartSomeGood

1) The 100 for 1 rule

The biggest lesson for us was the realisation that you need to talk to one hundred people to get one donation. This means your message needs to be seen as many people as possible. Over the two month campaign, we tied in with our ASSETS summer school. This provided a rich resource of blogs, videos, pictures and real time developments happening during this drive for donations. We also used our social media channels and e-newsletter.

2) Start with your community champions

It seems that no-one wants to be among the first to start donating. So, it’s important to start with those who are more likely to give.  Ask your closest fans, volunteers and friends of the organisation to donate. Once you have some donations on-board, the rest will start flowing more consistently.

On top of this, our donors became ambassadors of the cause, sharing and promoting the campaign which helped us reach the goal.

3) Mix up your messaging

A major learning point was realising how much work you need to do. And to approach your community carefully, so your audience won’t get tired of similar or repetitive messages. It was important to find the balance in communication and move away from just email newsletters and Facebook updates.

Flexibility of communication was key. We had to identify when and how to communicate on the feedback, so we would keep people’s interest in the long run.

4) Offer different ways to donate

One of the drawbacks of the campaign was the difficulty experienced with using PayPal as a payment solution, with some donors not wanting to set up an account.

5) Test your timing

We believed that the Christmas period would help us pick up on the holiday spirit, but the reality was that the campaign slowed down over the break.

The last two weeks of the campaign brought the most donations.

The outcomes

Happily we managed to raise our goal of $5,000 for two students to attend the ASSETS Program in December 2012.  

One large organisation found our campaign through the Start Some Good publicist, whose role was to share our story with bloggers and the media in general.  This additional service from Start Some Good helped us to reach our goal.

Through this campaign we managed to inform new audiences about our activities, and potentially recruited new partners for our projects.

The teamwork on this project was amazing.  Thanks go to Freya, Melodee, Bryan, Kathy and the rest of the RiAus team.

About Petra Dzurovcinova

Petra is originally from Bratislava, Slovakia where she graduated with honours in International Business. She has also studied in France and South Korea. Now living in Adelaide, she is the Digital Communications Manager at RiAus with the aim to “bring science to people and people to science.” Petra is also an active organiser of the NetSquared community in Adelaide.