If you want to raise funds for your organization or personal cause, you must have come across GoFundMe, the largest peer-to-peer fundraising platform for individuals, groups, and nonprofits. However, it’s essential to note that GoFundMe may not be the best option for everyone.
So, let’s explore GoFundMe’s benefits and drawbacks, provide free and paid alternatives, and help your group decide on the best fundraising platform for your next campaign.
What We’ll Cover
What Is GoFundMe and How Does It Work?
When it comes to online fundraising, GoFundMe is a household name. But who exactly is behind this popular platform? GoFundMe is a crowdfunding website founded in 2010. Its mission is to provide a space where people can easily and quickly raise money for a wide range of causes, from medical expenses to disaster relief efforts.
To start a fundraiser on GoFundMe, you need to set a goal, tell your story, and add a picture or video to make your cause more compelling. After setting up your fundraiser, you can share it with your friends, family, and community through email, text messages, or social media.
What Are The Benefits of GoFundMe?
GoFundMe is a popular platform for fundraising that allows individuals, groups, and organizations to connect with their network and beyond to raise money for their causes. Here are some of the benefits of using GoFundMe:
- Easy setup process
- Access to a large audience
- Flexible fundraising options
- Social sharing
- Secure and reliable
What Are The Drawbacks of GoFundMe?
Overall, GoFundMe is an excellent platform for anyone looking to raise money for a cause they care about, but there are a few drawbacks to mention:
- There’s no fundraising event or sales (e-commerce store) functionality with GoFundMe.
- The platform lacks donor management tools that allow organizations to follow up and grow their donor base.
- The main focus is crowdfunding, but sometimes nonprofits need more in their fundraising toolbox.
Considering all this, let’s review the best alternatives to GoFundMe.
Free GoFundMe Alternatives
One of GoFundMe’s biggest selling points is its price point—it’s free. GoFundMe doesn’t charge a platform fee but instead asks donors for tips to cover fees. Several other software platforms follow this same pricing model and are free GoFundMe alternatives.
Check Out DoJiggy
DoJiggy is an excellent free alternative fundraising platform to GoFundMe for organization fundraising. Here are a few reasons why:
- Powerful Features: DoJiggy offers a range of powerful features to help you create engaging fundraising campaigns, such as customizable donation forms, QR code generation, text-to-donate, and social media integrations.
- Incredible Variety: DoJiggy offers an easy-to-use platform for all types of fundraisers, not just crowdfunding. Campaign types include raffles, online auctions and stores, event ticketing, and a-thons. Using one platform for all your fundraising needs is more effective; GoFundMe can’t offer that.
- Dedicated Support: DoJiggy provides dedicated customer support to help you every step of the way. From setting up campaigns to managing donations, their customer service team can answer questions via phone, email, and chat.
If you’re looking for an effective, user-friendly fundraising platform to manage your charity campaigns, give DoJiggy a try.
RallyUp
RallyUp is a great alternative to GoFundMe because:
- They offer a comprehensive platform for a variety of fundraisers, including raffles, events, and more.
- RallyUp’s Peer-to-Peer fundraising model creates personal connections between supporters for a more engaging experience.
- They provide personalized fundraising pages, team leaderboards, and prize incentives to motivate and reward supporters.
Other Best Fundraising Sites for Organizations (Instead of GoFundMe)
While these fundraising platforms aren’t free to use, they offer great full-service fundraising for nonprofits.
QGiv
QGiv is a great alternative fundraising platform to GoFundMe, offering a host of modern, personalized, and intuitive online features for those looking to raise money for their cause. These include:
- Advanced customization
- Integrated event management
- Robust reporting with in-depth donor stats
- Free phone and email support with no long-term contracts
Pricing and Fees
Start-up Fees: No
Monthly Fees: Starting at $25/month, prices vary depending on the plan.
Classy
Classy is a robust fundraising platform that makes it easy for supporters to give, resulting in higher conversion rates. They offer:
- Advanced campaign management tools, such as team fundraising, recurring donations, and donor segmentation.
- It seamlessly integrates with other tools like Salesforce and Mailchimp for easier management and tracking of donations, as well as accounting processes.
Pricing and Fees
Start-up Fees: These fees are not disclosed, so organizations must get in touch for a quote.
Monthly Fees: These fees are not disclosed, so organizations must get in touch for a quote.
The payment processing fee is 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction. The credit card processing fee is 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction with an additional 1% for AMEX. Foreign exchange fee: 1% of the transaction amount.
Alternatives to GoFundMe for Individuals
GoFundMe is the most popular crowdfunding platform for individuals looking to raise money online. That’s because most individuals like the easy setup and don’t need ongoing donor engagement and event management tools. Still, here are other options for individuals raising money online for medical and personal expenses.
Donately
Donately is another free year-round giving alternative to GoFundMe. This customizable donation form can be embedded directly into your nonprofit’s website with little effort to start raising funds quickly. It’s known for being user-friendly for your staff, organizations, and donors alike.
Facebook Fundraising
Facebook Fundraising may be a good alternative to GoFundMe because:
- It offers a variety of fundraising tools, including individual fundraisers, live-streaming donation tools, and the Facebook donate button.
- Since Facebook is a popular social platform with a large user base, individuals may have a wider audience to reach with their fundraising efforts.
- Facebook Fundraising offers insights and reports on fundraising activities, which could help individuals track their progress and make informed decisions about their campaigns.
While Facebook fundraising is convenient, nonprofits are quite limited in terms of the donor data they can access. Organizations can only connect directly with donors who opt-in to receive messages via Facebook Messenger. This is a big limitation for organizations that wish to build a donor database.
GoFundMe’s Biggest Competitor
Fundly is considered one of GoFundMe’s biggest competitors in the crowdfunding market. It offers similar services for individuals and nonprofits seeking to raise funds for a cause.
What Is The Difference Between GoFundMe and Fundly?
GoFundMe and Fundly are crowdfunding platforms allowing individuals and organizations to raise money for various causes. However, some differences between the two platforms may make one more suitable for certain types of campaigns.
- Fees: While both platforms charge fees for their services, the fees and payment structures differ. GoFundMe charges a 2.9% fee plus $0.30 per transaction, while Fundly charges a 4.9% fee. However, Fundly offers a pro version of its platform with different pricing options and features.
- Target audience: While both platforms can be used for a variety of causes, Fundly is primarily targeted toward nonprofit organizations, schools, and other institutions. GoFundMe, on the other hand, is geared towards individuals and personal campaigns.
- Features: Both platforms offer similar features, such as customizable campaign pages, social sharing tools, and fundraising progress tracking. However, GoFundMe also offers additional tools such as a mobile app, Facebook integration, and support for international campaigns.
Overall, while both GoFundMe and Fundly offer similar services, differences in their fees, target audience, and features may make one more suitable than the other for certain campaigns.
Conclusions on GoFundMe Alternatives
GoFundMe has name recognition, no platform fees, and an easy campaign setup. While it’s a great choice for many, there are some drawbacks for organizations. In addition, not all types of fundraising campaigns are supported. So, if you’re looking for a free all-in-one GoFundMe alternative, take a look at DoJiggy!