Crowdfunding is a process by which a lot of people come together to raise a large amount of money by contributing small amounts. Crowdfunding essentially harnesses the power of the crowd. It is a great way of raising money for a variety of reasons- medical, non-profit and for profit motives.
Crowdfunding is done through various crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe etc. These platforms serve as a trampoline for people who want to popularize their campaign. There are various ways in which a campaign can be popularized. Social media, personal connections etc. all serve to popularize your campaign.
Apart from this, there are various secrets to successful campaigns. In this post, I will try and give you some useful crowdfunding tip. Needless to say, all kinds of campaigns are not going to need the same kind of tricks.
Medical campaigns.
- Is the patient in an emergency room? If you immediately need finances, the best you can do is start a fundraiser.
- Make sure that the site allows you instant approval on your campaign as you are working on limited time.
- In order to make your campaign believable, make sure that you upload pictures, audio or video to back your claims. For example, pictures of the patient are really helpful. “Before” and “after” photographs might be useful too.
- Your fundraiser must be well written. It should not be too long. It should be just enough to explain your situation and a plea. The longer your fundraiser, the lesser are the chances of people actually reading it.
- Do not shy away from using a video component in your publicity and fundraiser.
Non profit campaigns
Let us say we are building a school for underprivileged children. Who will be interested in paying for it? Nobody is going to earn profit from this area, hence there is no chance of investment. Enter crowdfunding.
- How are you going to pick a crowdfunding platform? This can be tricky but with the right amount of work you can start understanding. Fundraisers in India are donation based mostly but you can take a rewards based approach too. Your crowdfunding site has to provide you with a campaign manager. It should also have the know how to host a non profit campaign. Go for a site with experience in your area.
- Make sure that you have a team of people to help you in your campaign. Long drawn out campaigns can be frustrating if done by one person only. A team of people running a campaign raises the chance of success.
- Make sure you have spoken to all the people who you think might be interested in your non profit campaign. If your campaign is for women’s rights, make sure you get in touch with all the people who you know have a definite interest in the matter.
For profit campaigns
This is slightly tricky as you have to look for investment in your crowdfunding campaign. Here are a few tips to how to seek out people.
- Make sure you have chosen the right platform who have experience in such campaigns. Be sure that they are valid.
- Make your crowdfunding pitch short and sweet. Many investors do not have the time to read long pitches.
- Make a campaign video. Your campaign video should not be too long and should be able to catch the investor’s interest in the first five seconds. It should effectively sum up your pitch as the pitch is often unread.
There are plenty of other things that you can do to make your campaign successful. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is at least a beginning.
