21 proven practices for a successful crowdfunding event

Confidential document: Kimbia Inc. 2014

Hi!

Miriam KaganSenior Fundraising Principal

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Omni-Channel FundraisingTM Solutions


Why Crowdfunding?

• It’s here to stay

• Drives significant new revenue

• Recruits new high value donors – up to 60%

• Engages major donors

• Sustainability


• A time-limited (in most cases 12-24 hours) online fundraising competition

• Bringing together your communities (donors, participants, advocates, alumni, corporate partners, etc.)

• Raising money for your community, nonprofits, programs, institutions

• A single online donation campaign

• Driven by a sense of urgency around matching funds and/or prizes

Giving Days: What Are They?


• Increase revenue from a new revenue stream (across channels) -- it’s not just online

• Attract new donors and appeal to more hands-on fundraising demographic

• Generate buzz and excitement in the community, with sponsors, and on social media

• The long-tail effect: successful days may inspire major donors to give matches, endow future programs, etc.

• Increase lapsed participant, donor, alumni participation-new exciting way to engage

During a Dean’s reception held by Columbia College, one major donor was so excited by the results of the

prior year giving day he enthusiastically declared he was going to match the $1.2 million

raised by Columbia College that day.

During a Dean’s reception held by Columbia College, one major donor was so excited by the results of the

prior year giving day he enthusiastically declared he was going to match the $1.2 million

raised by Columbia College that day.

Giving Days: Why Do They Work?


• Nonprofits and communities across a wide variety of verticals are getting started, with Foundations and Higher Ed leading the way.

Giving Days: Will It Work For Me?


Yes!!!Compelling Demographics

Omni-Channel Engagement

Long-Tail Effect

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Do Crowdfunding Events Lead to More Giving?


Give Local America May 6, 2014

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- $53 million

- 120 Communities

- 7,000 Nonprofits

- 305,000 donations


Higher Education Events

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- Columbia University: $7.8 million in donations (Activated, reactivated donors represented 40% of total donations)

- Boston University Giving Day: $1,109,692.07 raised during first event

- Notre Dame Day: $918,000 raised during first event


Community Foundation Events

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- North Texas Giving Day: $28.2 million raised in its 5th year (26% of donations from first time donors)

- Give to the Max Day: $17.1 million

- Give Miami Day: $3.27 million raised in its 2nd year


21 Practices

in 4 Phases


1. Create a Project Plan

• Document all tasks

• Assign each task to someone

• Set completion dates for each task

• Assign a project manager


2. Choose a Crowdfunding Model M

OST

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Choose a Crowdfunding ModelH

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• Major Donors

• First Time Donors

• Influencers

3. Define Your Audience


4. Compelling Value Proposition

• How you solve a problem

• Why you

• Show impact

• Use the language of your supporters

• Highly visible

• Use images


Compelling Value Propositions Pay Off

• Sci-Port received 156 gifts totaling over $107,000 during Give Local America

• They were third overall in dollars raised

Sci-Port Value Proposition

“Louisiana’s Science Center provides a fun, educational environment for people of all ages to explore and actively engage in the world of mathematics, science and technology. Sci-Port serves to spark curiosity about the world around us, provides hands-on tools for using scientific discovery in everyday life, and encourages a passion for life-long learning.”


5. Strategic Promotion

Your plan should include:

•Target audience

•Best channels to reach audience

•Messages that resonate

•Target number of impressions

•Monitor and measure

•Two-way communications


Get Creative With your Communications

• Ask volunteers and board members to email key people

• Advertise at events

• Enable partners to embed forms

• Reach out to radio, TV

• Recruit corporate sponsors


6. Set Explicit, Measurable Goals

Set SMART Goals: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound

•What is your overall fundraising goal?

•Are those goals realistic and attainable?

•Are they relevant to your Crowdfunding event?

•Can you set goals for specific times of the day?


7. Recruit Online Ambassadors

• Consider board members, staff, volunteers, partners

• Schedule “workshop-style” training

• Review:

- Brainstorm

- Goals and timeline

- Draft letters to potential donors

- Strategize on donor outreach


8. Incentive Structure• Create prize & match opportunities

• Incentivize healthy competition

• Prizes include:

- First project/program to reach goal

- Most donors in given period

- Most referrals from given partner

- Fund with most international donors


9. Customize Messaging

Create specific talking points for specific audiences based on:

•Giving levels

•Giving frequency

•Giving focus

•Giving recency

•Channel preferences

•Demographics


10. Criteria for Choosing a Crowdfunding Platform

• Protects your brand

• Provides you with donor data

• Features real-time leader boards

• Makes forms easy to share

• Gives you peer-to-peer functionality

• Offers mobile-responsiveness

• Reduces form abandonment

• Assures scalability

• Includes multi-currency, multi-language and multi-country settlement


11. Key Elements for Success

• Optimize forms for conversion and reducing friction

• Provide clear, prominent calls-to-action

• Make forms easy-to-use

• Keep forms short

• Prominently feature your crowdfunding event

• Give contextual reasons to give

• Provide suggested donation amounts

• Mobile-optimize your site

The University of Maryland featured personal video stories of scholarship recipients alongside donation forms


12. Communications & Social Media Training is Critical


13. Event Day HQ

• Sufficient staff to field questions

• Community outreach

• Real-time communications


14. Social MediaLeverage social media to amplify crowdfunding buzz and outreach:

•Use tracking codes to measure effectiveness

•Build a “spread the word” page

•Leverage Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and others


15. Real-Time Updates

• Feature real-time results on home page

• Leverage social media, youtube, email to amplify results


16. In-Person Events

• Farmers markets

• Potlucks

• Concerts

• A flash mob

• Evening of wine, hors d’oeuvres and jazz

• River parade

• Stream a live conference


17. Leverage Peer-to-Peer Communications


18. Say “Thanks”


19. Enable Post-Event Giving


21. Plan Your Next Event


Kimbia’s Crowdfunding Solutions• A scalable and secure giving day website – owned by you and

hosted by Kimbia – that is proven capable of handling 392 transactions per minute

• Your brand, donor data and funds remain in your hands – not your vendor’s

• Social media training and access to online fundraising strategies and tactics

• Donation forms for each fundraising entity (nonprofits, partners) that can be copied and pasted on their site in under 2 minutes

• Nonprofit donation tracking URLs and real-time on-demand progress report

• Access to nonprofit data via GuideStar or a community foundation database

• Real-time Leaderboards to track progress and generate excitement

• Complete project planning and management, including dedicated event day support


Want to Get Started?

• If you want to do your own crowdfunding event - email [email protected]

• If you want to do a crowdfunding event with others - contact your local community foundation. We can provide you with presentation materials. Contact [email protected]


Q&A

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www.kimbia.com@kimbiainc

[email protected]@miriamkagan

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Thank you!

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21 proven practices for a successful crowdfunding event

Government & Nonprofit