Personal Fundraising: How Individuals Can Raise Money Online
Raise Money For Trips and Adventures
Raise Money For Emergencies
Raise Money For Life Events
Raise Money With Personal Fundraising
Personal fundraising allows people to ask their friends and family members to help them raise funds for practically any reason. Individuals in need of money can create a personal fundraising campaign, share their page, and accept donations online.What Is Personal Fundraising?
The great thing about personal fundraising is that anyone can create a fundraising page to raise money for themselves or someone in need. People all over the world are creating fundraising pages to help cover tuition, medical expenses, and so much more.Who Uses Personal Fundraising?
With personal fundraising, individuals are empowered to share their stories and ask for help. The social sharing component helps raise awareness and encourages communities to support someone in need.Why Personal Fundraising Works?
Reasons to Start a Personal Fundraising Campaign
Benefits of Personal Fundraising
Since it’s easy and quick to set up a crowdfunding campaign, you can start raising funds as soon as you hit “publish.” When correctly promoted on social media, your campaign has the potential to go viral. In fact, most campaigns are able to reach their goals within 4 weeks! If you’re looking to raise money quickly, creating a personal fundraising page is the best way to
get started.Raise Money Quickly
When you create a personal fundraising campaign, you have the opportunity to share your story and let people know about an important cause or situation. The more people that know about your cause, the more likely you are to reach your goal and get the support you need. Plus, raising awareness can help other people understand your situation and connect them to your
cause.Spread Awareness
Personal fundraising helps bring communities together to unite and fight for a common cause. Friends and family members can support a personal fundraising campaign by contributing or sharing the cause with their networks.Bring Communities Together
Whenever an individual reaches a milestone or meets a goal, the community of supporters will be able to celebrate with the person and feel accomplished knowing that they were a part of that success.
Individuals have full control over how much they want to raise and how often they share their campaigns. Depending on the platform you use to start your personal fundraiser, you might have the ability to customize your campaign page to match your personality. Users have the ability to tell their personal stories through descriptions, images and videos, crowdfunding updates, and social media posts, allowing them to speak up about the causes that matter most
to them.Empower Individuals
How Personal Fundraising Works
Step 2: Determine a Goal and Deadline
When setting your fundraising goal, account for any platform and payment processing fees that will be deducted from your total funds. Set a reasonable amount so that you have a better chance of reaching your goal. Most personal fundraising campaigns last for 1-2 months; if you set a shorter date you run to risk of not reaching your goal.
At the end of step two, you should know exactly how much you want to raise and when your campaign will start and end.
Step 4: Share Your Campaign
Sharing your campaign lets people know that it exists and makes it easy for them to access your page and donate. Post your page’s URL on all your social media accounts and ask your peers to contribute (or share your page with their networks if they can’t donate).
At the end of this step, your campaign should be posted to your social media accounts and personally sent to all your connections via email or direct mail.
Step 6: Acknowledge Your Supporters
After you’ve reached your goal, it’s time to thank everyone that supported your campaign. You can use several ways to show your gratitude like highlighting donors on social media or sending personalized thank-you letters. Typically, showing your appreciation happens at the end of the campaign, but you can thank your donors at any time to show that you care.
At the end of this step, you should have thanked all your donors using both public and direct acknowledgements.
Personal Fundraising Examples
Rocco’s Road to Recovery
Amount Raised: $60,915
The Rocco’s Road to Recovery campaign was created to support Rocco Casso, who suffered a stroke. The funds raised in this campaign will help cover his medical expenses so that he can continue to go to his therapy sessions and pay for at-home assistance.
This campaign stands out because of the constant updates that the campaign creator posted to let supporters know about his progress. Posting updates to your personal fundraising page is a great way to let donors know how funds are being used and show that their support made a difference.
Great Lakes Great Stories
Amount Raised: $3,157
The campaign creators of the Great Lakes Great Stories personal fundraiser had a dream of biking around Lake Superior and collecting stories of the amazing people they encountered. The money they raise from the campaign will go towards gear, food, and other expenses for the trip.
This personal fundraising campaign uses giving levels and perks to help motivate people to support their dream. The perks include stickers and postcards from their trip. The creators also post several updates to encourage people to support their cause.
Best Practices For Personal Fundraising Campaigns
Top Personal Fundraising Websites
Fundly — for Quick and Easy Personal Fundraising
Overview
With Fundly, anyone can raise money for virtually any cause. The platform offers fully customizable (and mobile-friendly!) fundraising pages. Users can upload images and videos, change color schemes, and so much more!
Fundly is a keep-it-all platform, which means that users don’t have to raise a minimum amount or reach a deadline to receive their donations.
Pricing
Creating a campaign on Fundly is completely free. Once you start receiving donations, Fundly charges a 4.9% platform fee, as well as payment processing fees.
Why It Stands Out
Some of Fundly’s features include fundraising updates that automatically post to a user’s connected Facebook account and a hashtag feed that shows posts with the campaign’s personalized hashtag.
Additional Resources for your Fundraising Success
7 Tips for Fundraising Success
Every crowdfunding campaign can use a little help every now and then!
Whether you need advice about shooting and uploading crowdfunding photos, writing descriptions and updates, or sharing your fundraiser with your friends and family members, we’ve got your back.
Click below to learn more about the top seven crowdfunding tips that can be used for all types of fundraising efforts and campaigns!
10 Fundraising Examples
You’ve heard the stories about fundraisers surpassing their goal, but how often does that really happen?
The answer? More frequently than you might think! In fact, individuals and organizations often meet and exceed their goals when they use Fundly to set up a fundraiser and share it with their friends and family members.
Check out these ten crowdfunding campaigns that all exceeded their fundraising goals by sizable margins in just a matter of weeks!
Understand Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding has been used to raise money for everything from creative projects to medical costs and more!
Why is it so popular? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that a crowdfunding campaign is insanely easy to set up and share with your friends, family members, coworkers, and other peers.
See for yourself! Take a look at our Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding and learn how you can make the most of this fundraising craze!