A round up of low cost or no cost fundraising platforms

Here’s a round up of a range of the low cost or no cost online giving platforms available, what they offer, their costs, and how they manage to keep their expenses low, or non-existent.   GoFundMe GoFundMe is focused on peer-to-peer crowdfunding and doesn’t currently offer Gift Aid functionality. Last month it announced the scrapping of its platform fee. Its payment processor fees of 2.5% plus 20p per donation still applies and it will now be relying on voluntary tips from donors to generate income. They said: "We made this move because we think more money should get to the causes people choose to support, it's as simple as that. GoFundMe is growing rapidly in the UK and we think that people will recognise our best in class security processes, customer support and commitment to giving people across the UK an easy, accessible, and great value way of helping other people."   Charity Choice With Charity Choice charities set up their own personalised microsite and donation facility, while fundraisers can also create their own personalised page. There are no registration or admin fees, just a 25p card transaction fee, which comes out of the total donation amount to the charity. However, it also gives donors the option of paying this fee on top of their donation in which case the charity receives 100% of the donation. From a £10 donation with £2.50 Gift Aid: £12.50 if the donor pays the 25p card fee. £12.25 if not. They said: "We do not charge the donor any additional admin fees and we do not take a percentage of Gift Aid for donating via Charity Choice. Charity Choice does not benefit in any way from the fees taken from donation – we are able to provide this for free as our funding for the platform comes from other services that Charity Choice offers. We are transparent about our fees and charges and work hard to help charities receive the maximum from each donation."   Wonderful.org Wonderful.org lets people set up their own fundraising pages and says it is the only online fundraising platform that ensures 100 per cent of money raised, and all Gift Aid, goes directly to the charity intended. No deductions are made to cover operating costs or card processing fees. Instead, these costs are met by the Wonderful Organisation’s philanthropic corporate sponsors. From a £10 donation with £2.50 Gift Aid: £12.50. Kieron James, Founder of Wonderful.org, said: “Every aspect of our operation is funded by our like-minded, philanthropic corporate sponsors. This includes ALL of our operating costs so when we say we have no fees, we really have no fees. This ensures that charities receive every single penny raised through the generosity of our fundraisers and sponsors – something that cannot be matched by other fundraising platforms, who deduct platform costs and use Gift Aid to cover costs and generate profit.”   Golden Giving For donors or fundraisers, there are no charges with Golden Giving, which supports registered and unregistered charities. Charities and social enterprises that use Golden Giving are charged for online payments only. Other tools are provided for free. It says that for a debit card donation, it charges a platform fee of 1.75% and 0.35%+0.07p card processing fee. This works out to a total of 2.11%+0.07p This works out as 70p for a typical donation of £30 and 28p for one of £10. They said: “We are a charity and do not include a profit margin on our fees. We do not have the same business functions that profit-making companies, such as GoFundMe and JustGiving, have to justify their fees. We are also supported by commercial providers, who offer their services at cost or at a reduced rate. For example, the low card-processing fee we can offer is because our card processing partners (AcceptCards and AIB Merchant Services) align with our charitable purpose.“   BT MyDonate BT MyDonate does not charge any commission fee, subscription fee or registration fee. The only charge made against donations is the credit/debit card charge from the bank so the charity gets the whole contribution as well as the Gift Aid with no fees beyond the card processing fee of 1.3% of donation on credit cards and 15p for each debit card transaction. They said: “MyDonate does not charge any set up fees or commission. Donors, will however, be subject to fees charged by the card companies (a 15p flat rate fee for a debit card transaction of any size or a 1.3% credit card charge). All other costs of running the platform are subsumed by BT as a part of our commitment.”   KindLink KindLink is an all-in-one platform specialising in small charities. It offers CRM software with integrated payment recording and automated Gift Aid reporting in the cloud, accessible from anywhere and lets charities to have a public donations page so anyone can make a donation. KindLink does not charge any commission on the online donations processed through it. It has a partnership with Paysafe, which enables it to charge just the 1.3% flat fee for UK and EU debit and credit cards. Currently, it says it is non-profit making but plans to become so at a later date by scaling up and building a marketing platform.   Givey Online fundraising platform Givey works with small charities, which receive 100% of every donation and Gift Aid. Instead of charging charities a fee to use the platform or deducting a percentage of the user's donation, it charges 5% on top of the donation amount, so a £10 donation would cost the donor £10.50 and with Gift Aid the charity would receive £12.50.   everydayhero Blackbaud’s everydayhero lets charities build their own branded fundraising sites to support campaigns, appeals and in memoriam giving. Members of the public can also set up their own fundraising pages, donate and volunteer for an organisation, and see and track the voice, time and effort they put in to those activities inside their account on their personal Giving Footprint. Registering for charities is free and there are no ongoing membership costs. Everydayhero charges a service fee plus a transaction processing fee. Donors are given the option of paying the fee themselves so that the charity gets all of the donation amount.   A range of the alternatives:   Charity Checkout Rather than being a fundraising platform, Charity Checkout provides the technology charities need to run their own fundraising platform on their website. It lets charities set up branded fundraising pages through a range of paid for packages: Essential, Premium, and Enterprise, depending on requirements. Charities pay a processing fee, calculated at 5% of the gross donation, which includes Gift Aid; and a payment provider fee, calculated at 1.4% + 20p of the net donation, which does not include Gift Aid. Founder Chester Mojay-Sinclare said: “Charity Checkout provides an alternative, which comes with a 5% fee, but allows charities to have a direct relationship with their supporters via their own custom branded platform. This has been shown to help increase donations by as much as 38% and in the long term will help charities build a long-term supporter base. We've seen charities invest millions in their own technology to achieve these results, but with Charity Checkout they don't have to - they can get all the benefits on a fair pay as you go model.”   Virgin Money Giving Virgin Money Giving has a one off set-up fee of £150 + VAT, and a 2% transaction fee is also charged. Fundraisers are able to personalise their fundraising pages, send out email alerts and manage their fundraising events. In addition to supporting individual and team fundraisers, Virgin Money Giving also supports Appeals, Corporate and In Memory fundraising. Charities incur a small transaction fee on donations processed and a payment processing fee to cover the costs of processing and to help Virgin Money Giving continue to invest and improve in its service. From a £10 donation with £2.50 Gift Aid: £12.15 Jo Barnett, Executive Director at Virgin Money Giving said: “Virgin Money Giving is a not-for-profit fundraising service that is free for fundraisers and people donating to charities. Over £590 million had been raised for charity through Virgin Money Giving since it launched in 2009. As a result an estimated £18 million more has been raised for charity because of the not-for-profit model.”   JustGiving One of the best-known fundraising platforms, JustGiving is a profit-making site with higher costs for charities. It charges a 5% fee on each donation along with a card processing fee. UK charities also pay a monthly subscription fee of £15 + VAT or £39 + VAT (depending on how much thy make through donations a year) for the service. From a £10 donation with £2.50 Gift Aid: £11.74.  

from UK Fundraising http://ift.tt/2sfSacW