With the recent valuation of GoFundMe at $600 million and the growing interest in the best ways to raise money for a personal cause, charity, or nonprofit online, I wanted to take a second to compare, what I consider to be, two of the most popular crowdfunding platforms out there.
GoFundMe
By far, GoFundMe is the leader and currently the most popular platform when raising money for medical emergencies, education expenses, volunteering initiatives, or for a memorial fund.
The funds raised on the platform rival that of the major crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, which is more geared towards creative projects. “GoFundMe is profitable and has made roughly $60 million in total revenue over the five years since the site launched. Its members now raise about $100 million in donations per month.” – Source.
GoFundMe has a lot of built-in functionality that makes it easy to set up an online fundraiser and share it with your social network or on the internet. The platform highlights that there are “no deadlines or goal requirements,” that you can “keep every donation you receive,” that you can create a mobile-friendly campaign, and that there is prompt email support.
Pricing: 5% platform fee + ~3% payment processing fee + $0.30 per donation.
Let’s say you raised $5,000 from 200 donations (average of $25). You’d actually receive $4,540 and GoFundMe would take in $460 or $250 from their platform fee.
If you’d like to learn more about running an effective GoFundMe campaign, I would recommend reading through the step-by-step process that you can follow to set up a campaign here and how to go about advertising it here.
The one point that I would emphasize is that you are going to be doing most of the marketing and promotion of your own campaign. It’s unlikely that strangers are going to pledge or that you’re going to get donations from the GoFundMe marketplace.
Indiegogo Life
Indiegogo Life is a newer subsection of the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform and allows you to raise money for charity or for a personal cause, with the top categories being medical, education, memorial, and community fundraisers.
This platform has a lot of the similar functionality as GoFundMe, including social sharing options, an ongoing fundraising campaign, and a keep what you raise model. They also emphasize that “you’ll get tailored, one-on-one support.”
Pricing: 0% platform fee + 3% payment processing fee.
Let’s say you raised $5,000 from 200 donations (average of $25). You’d actually receive $4850 and Indiegogo would take in $150 or $0 from their platform fee.
If you’d like to learn more about running a charity fundraising campaign, I recommend checking out these tips that we outlined in a webinar.
Which do I recommend?
Considering that the majority, if not all, of your donations are going to come from your own social network, local network, and 2nd degree connections, I would go with Indiegogo Life over GoFundMe.
You’re going to be doing almost all of the leg work, then it makes sense to pick the platform with the lowest platform fees for this kind of crowdfunding campaign. But, I’d like to hear if you think differently in a comment below!
