Support Campaigns for Crowdfunding

You might be wondering why a support campaign would be needed if there’s already a campaign page set up! There are so many great ways that support campaigns can be utilized.

• Working as a team
  1. If you have a group of people working with you, you may want to offer them the opportunity to each have their own support campaign. This enables them to be proactive in running their own page, giving them that independence and freedom, while all banding together for the same cause. It can enable them to feel more involved, to know they are valued and to feel more motivated to promote the cause if they are responsible for their own page.

• Fundraising events
  1. If you are running more than one fundraising event for your cause, you may want to have separate support campaigns for each event. This allows you to keep track of the success of each event and how much has been raised, as well as to promote each event individually.

• Team events
  1. If you’re running a competitive fundraising event, each team could have their own fundraising page. This can increase the motivation to ‘win’ and raise the most money for the main campaign, as well as allowing each team the tools to promote their own event separately. They can include their own story, monetary target and use GoGetFunding’s feature which allows them to display the name of each member of their team individually to ensure they each have their moment.

• A breakdown of costs
  1. If your cause has more than one requirement then you can break down the costs into individual support pages. For example if you are raising money for a charity to build a shelter for stray animals, there may be construction costs, materials, running costs, and so on.
  2. This not only allows you to keep track of how much you have raised for each individual requirement, it also allows the audience to see exactly where their money is going. Some people may prefer to donate specifically to one aspect of your campaign – support campaigns give them that freedom.

• Asking for extra help
  1. Online fundraising requires a lot of promotion to optimize success; often people may ask loved ones for help, or loved ones may actively want to assist. Allowing them to have their own support campaign to run can take some pressure away from you and allows them the freedom to do things their own way without needing to relay back to you for each decision. This means things can run smoothly for all involved, making it more fun and less stressful while allowing you to get the support you need.

• Reaching a wider audience
  1. When you are crowdfunding, most of the time your ‘crowd’ will be made up of people who know you. By allowing others to start support campaigns, you are also reaching their ‘crowd’, therefore expanding your reach.
  2. If campaigns need to raise a large amount of money and reach people outside of their social circle, for example a charity raising money for construction as in our earlier example, they can call on supporters far and wide, asking them within their ‘story’ section to add their own support campaign to their cause.
     

• Enabling support campaigns on your main page
  1. Allowing support campaigns to be created is easy and has lots of benefits. You simply need to click the ‘enable support campaigns’ option on your dashboard menu.

• Creating a support campaign
  1. If you want to set up your own support campaign, you simply click on ‘create a support campaign’ on the top right of the main campaign page and then follow the instructions which will pop up from there. It’s really quick and easy to get started.
  2. If you can’t see the ‘create a support campaign’ link, it may be that the main campaign owner has not enabled that setting. If you know the creator of the campaign personally you could contact them and ask if they would like to enable the option so that you can get involved. If you aren’t on personal terms with the main campaign creator, you could choose to contact our customer service team and ask if they can reach out on your behalf; the campaign owner may be open to extra help!

• The money part
  1. All the funds raised in a support campaign will be added directly to the main campaign page. Normal site fees apply but there is no cost to set up or run a support campaign. The main campaign page oversees withdrawing the funds and allocating them to the appropriate causes so you don’t need to worry about that. Both the support campaign owner and the main campaign owner will be able to see who has donated and how much.

Deciding to get involved to help someone raise money online can really make a significant difference in how successful their fundraising is. Here are some tips to enhance your support campaign’s chances of success:

• Share your point of view
  1. While you should explain what the main campaign is, your support campaign is your own. Share who you are and allow your audience to get to know you so that they can build trust with you. Explain why you’ve chosen to support the main cause and why it resonates with you. This can help your audience to see why they might empathise with the cause. Often seeing someone else getting involved can make potential donors more inclined to donate or even start a support campaign of their own.

• Link back to the main campaign
  1. Be sure to include a link back to the main campaign and signpost your potential donors there to find more information. The main campaign link will be displayed at the top of your support campaign and on the right hand side, but including it in the story section of your support campaign can prompt the reader to go and check it out and perhaps even look at other support campaigns from there.

• Ensure targets line up with the main campaign
  1. If the main campaign is targeted to raise a certain amount or has a set end date, ensure that your targets and time frame line up. If the main campaign is ongoing, you could consider allowing yours to be ongoing too.
  2. If you’re doing a specific fundraising event you may choose an end date even if the main campaign is ongoing, to increase that sense of urgency for potential donors.

• Personalise your page
  1. Remember that the support campaign is yours, and you can personalise it to reflect your tastes and personality. You can choose to add pictures and videos of yourself and any fundraising events you are running, as well as including some pictures related to the main cause. You can decide what colour theme you want to use, what title to pick, which font you desire and how you want to arrange things on your page.