Crowdfunding

Why Crowdfund?• Online, community-based fundraising

– Small donors band together for big impact—billions raised to date.

• To help fund CEM as it grows– More educators, more countries, more stakeholders, more platforms– Put the event on a permanent footing, allow us to support connected

education year-round

• Needs to become something we get really good at—and not just for CEM– A natural use of our skill set--requires many of the same qualities that

made educators pioneers in online community-building– Can be used to pull resources from well beyond our community, effect

change—beyond CEM– Opportunity for us (orgs, individuals) to learn these skills together, from

each other and from Crowdrise…

Why Crowdrise?• Founder (Edward Norton) a strong supporter

of educational causes• Built exclusively for non-profits

– With a specialty in successfully supporting events

• Lead backer the original investor in Kickstarter– Number of users/month has more than doubled in the last year

• Provides the most support for campaigns– Working with us, sharing their knowledge every step of the way (b/c

they believe in our cause & community)– Allows for flexible goals, provides contest support, automatically

generates receipts (for tax deductions), etc.

Why Crowdrise?• Has a team-based fundraising structure

– Ideal for a community-based event like ours– Also means donors hear from groups and individuals they know and

trust about the cause– Interface is simple, up-to-date, and fun

• Relationship is non-exclusive– We’ll likely be running campaigns on other platforms over time as we

seek to help you develop a full range of skills in this area

How To Help Raise Money

Check out this example live here

Here’s a typical Crowdrise event home page

Here are some of the teams raising money for

this event…

How To Help Raise Money

Check out this example live here

To help raise money, you just click this button (ours

says Help Fundraise)

Starting A Crowdrise Team

To start a team for your org, you click “start your

own fundraiser”

Users can either join an existing team or start

their own

How To Help Raise Money

How To Help Raise Money

You give your team a name, typically the name of your org

+ the cause

A team URL is automatically generated, which you can

modify. This URL allows you to direct your org’s members directly to your team’s page so they donate to your team

How To Help Raise Money

You set a fundraising goal, which you can increase or

decrease at any time— everything is editable except

the team title)

You describe what you’re raising money for and why—we’ll give you

starter text you can use, but again, we think you’ll get better results if at least some of the description is in your own

words. Crowdrise also recommends you keep it short, or at least have 1-2 lead

sentences that make the case in a nutshell

How To Help Raise Money

You add a picture—375x375 or larger, e.g. your logo or a

people photo, or a combination of the two—any

image you’ve found compelling/clicky in your online work in the past

You can also just skip this step and come back to it later (though we’d recommend

you add a picture as soon as you can)

How To Help Raise Money

If any of this seems daunting, you can always just

give us your info and we’ll set your team up for you (but

we’re almost done)

How To Help Raise Money

In our case, the charity will be defaulted to the American

Institutes of Research (the non-profit collecting the money for

CEM) and won’t be editable (this insures no one can pretend to be raising money for CEM, but really

be raising it for themselves)

You choose a charity the money is going to..

Starting A Crowdrise Team

Like everything else, sign up is really simple…

If you haven’t logged in or you don’t have a Crowdrise account, you’ll be asked to

login or create one…

Note: if you’re creating a team for an organization, you’ll want to put your group’s name in the

first name/last name fields rather than your own name (so

your team’s fundraiser is identified as your org’s

fundraiser, not just yours)

How To Help Raise Money

So let’s take a look at a completed team page, e.g. Brigham & Women’s

Hospital…

How To Help Raise Money

How To Help Raise Money

Here’s a typical team page, the URL you’d be sending your members to

Your members are also encouraged in multiple places to join your team,

and if you scroll down this page..

A Donate button is prominent, as is

the amount you’ve raised so far vs.

your goal and an honor scroll of

donors

How To Help Raise Money

…your team members get recognized (in order of how much they’ve

raised), each with their own page

How To Help Raise Money

At any point, and from multiple locations on your team page, your members can join your team (as

well as join directly from the overall event page…

How To Help Raise Money

…If this were your team’s page, you’d see the same set of editing

and management buttons here that individuals get when they join your

team—but with more powerful capabilities…

Donating (in 30 seconds)

To donate, all your friends and colleagues have to do is click the Donate button on your team or individual page…

Donating (in 30 seconds)

Donating (in 30 seconds)

The donation automatically gets credited to you (w/no option for donor to change

this)

They choose how their name appears in donor scroll –by

default they’re included, but can also give anonymously…

Donating (in 30 seconds)

They can also add comments to their donation, e.g. if it’s in

memory or in tribute…

Donating (in 30 seconds)

…and they can indicate if it’s a gift (and send a free eCard) or opt-in to email updates from

you…

Donating (in 30 seconds)

…then typical billing info is collected…

…they’re given the option to bump their donation up a little to cover the processing fees so that their original full donation goes to the cause—and they’re done (in 30

seconds). Crowdrise sends them a receipt for their tax records

Ideas For Your FundraiserA lot of folks get creative on

Crowdrise in order to raise even more money than a great cause and their good name can bring

in alone…

You could ask for donations for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. If

your team is for an organization—organizations have birthdays, too!

Maybe there’s an activity that your whole team can participate in, like running a race, climbing a mountain, even eating pancakes, and use to get pledges based on

their performance…

Ideas For Your Fundraiser

…Consider getting your company, organization, or local businesses in your area to match some or all of what you raise—a very time-

tested technique…

Ideas For Your Fundraiser

…contests are a great way to motivate your team and donors, and Crowdrise has found them so

powerful they’ll run yours for you…

…prizes that are creative, unique, and especially experiential

(deliver a great experience of some kind) are usually the most effective. Here are some ideas…

Ideas For Your Fundraiser

Other Tips/TricksFrom Crowdrise…

• Social media is great, but email is king– Email better for driving donations b/c it’s more likely to be seen, read, and taken

seriously

• Use Crowdrise tools– Message your team multiple times/week; update your donors at least once a week– Put the Crowdrise widget on your site

• Focus on building your team, not just on getting donations– In fact, team-building should be a higher priority early on

• Get a couple of big donations early, to set the tone– Most actual fundraising takes place in the last weeks of the campaign, after lots of

seeding and pump-priming

• Use physical events as fundraising opportunities whenever you can

• Be passionate and have fun

Join Us?

Join Us?

Our home page URL is https://www.crowdrise.com/ConnectedEducatorMonth

Interested in starting a team with us? Let us know!

Got prizes you can offer to help raise money for the

cause? Let us know!