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September 25, 2012

FirstGiving – Raise Money For Your Nonprofit

Successful online fundraising campaigns don’t just happen. They’re the result of careful planning, strategic execution, and creative thinking. FirstGiving is a tool that makes online fundraising an easy, effective, and ultimately fun process for nonprofits and other charity organizations.

Nonprofits and individuals can use the FirstGiving to raise money for their causes, and more than $1 billion has already been raised through the platform since its debut. To start organizing a charity fundraiser for your own nonprofit organization, you’ll need to create a fundraising hub. This hub is where potential donors will visit to read information about your cause, see related events, and view information about all the supporters and teams who’ve donated so far. Create a registration page to collect donor information and get people signed up for whatever fundraising events you’re hosting. Once that’s complete, you can start collecting funds right away. In addition to collecting money through the FirstGiving platform, you can reconcile checks and account for other revenue that comes in offline, as well.

Individuals can also use FirstGiving for peer-to-peer fundraising. Just select a nonprofit to fundraise for, build a personal fundraising page, and begin sharing your page with friends and family via Facebook, Twitter, and email. FirstGiving will notify you as money starts coming in, and that revenue will be sent directly to whichever cause you’ve chosen to support.

Practical Uses:

  • Organize a 5k race for charity
  • Raise money for breast cancer research
  • Get your grassroots nonprofit group off the ground
  • Encourage family members to donate money to your favorite cause

Insider Tips:

  • Nonprofits can accept donations through their websites and Facebook pages
  • FirstGiving offers custom branding options for nonprofit groups
  • Reporting features can be used to track offline donations
  • FirstGiving offers email management tools for nonprofit groups

What we liked:

  • FirstGiving can be used by nonprofits or individuals
  • Fundraisers can keep track of how much money they’ve brought in
  • Individual donation pages are easy to share through social networking sites
  • FirstGiving handles all aspects related to the collection of donations

What we didn’t like:

  • FirstGiving takes a percentage of each donation gathered through the platform

Alternatives:

Company Info:

Costs:

  • $500 annual fee for organizations
  • FirstGiving takes 5% of each donation, plus a 2.5% credit card processing fee
  • Event organizers are charged a 4.25% registration fee for events organized online

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