Page 34 - Vol46-No02-Summer-2023-inLeague

Data Shows GoFundMe Campaigns Work Well and Offers

Insights for Online Fundraising

By Rasheeda Childress

A new report sheds light on best practices for charities raising
money online with such information as which social-media site has
the highest conversion rate and how to turn first-time donors into
recurring supporters. It also offers data on something nonprofits
have long wondered about: crowdfunding campaigns for individuals
on GoFundMe.

GoFundMe, which allows people to raise money for individuals in
need, bought the Classy fundraising platform last year. “The State

of Modern Philanthropy 2023,” a new report written by Classy pulls
data from the 34 million donors that use both platforms.

The report found that GoFundMe campaigns shared more than six
times in the first few days are three times as likely to raise more
donations than those shared less often. Traditional nonprofit
fundraisers should apply this information when crafting their own online campaigns, says
Michelle Boggs, executive nonprofit industry adviser for Classy.

“It goes back to the urgency that inherently is built into a GoFundMe campaign,” Boggs says.
“Oftentimes, it’s built around a disaster or a timely event. I think traditional nonprofits can take
some of that and think of ways to drive more urgency, especially when it comes to that peer-to-
peer fundraising.”

Boggs describes peer-to-peer fundraising as anytime a supporter asks friends or colleagues to
donate. That could be someone using social media to ask friends to make a charitable donation
in lieu of a birthday gift or seeking out donors to support them during a walkathon. The
combination of nonprofits highlighting the urgency of the need and peers sharing the appeal

could improve campaign performance, Boggs says.

“It’s still really early,” Lamp says. “Based on what we know right now, once we see you give, we
actually see you give to lots of organizations and causes. We see you giving to individuals, and
we see you giving to nonprofits. Our early hypothesis is,
no, those two groups are not different types of givers.
People who give, give.”

Other highlights from the report are:

Social Media. Facebook was the most popular site for
charitable campaigns, with 84 percent of all campaign
traffic. But Facebook didn’t have the highest conversion
rate — just 13.4 percent of people who clicked through

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