The Nonprofit’s Guide for Alternatives to GoFundMe

When it comes to online fundraising, crowdfunding is a popular choice for people looking to leverage their networks and raise money quickly. However, crowdfunding isn’t always a perfect match for nonprofits. Platforms like GoFundMe don’t offer comprehensive fundraising solutions for nonprofits who want to connect with their donors and engage their supporters on a new level. That’s why peer-to-peer fundraising might just be the crowdfunding alternative your organization is looking for! 

Crowdfunding vs. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising 

Many people view crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising as being very similar fundraising methods. While they may share some similarities, there are some core differences that set the two apart from each other. 

Crowdfunding involves collecting small donations from a large number of people for small projects, campaigns, or programs. It’s a great, simple option for raising money quickly and primarily depends on word of mouth via social media and online sharing for success. Each crowdfunding fundraiser has one online donation form that everyone will use to contribute to the campaign. 

Generally, crowdfunding is a great option for campaigns with smaller fundraising goals and for individuals who want to raise money for personal causes. Basically, it’s an accessible online fundraising option for the general public. However, when it comes to nonprofit fundraising, crowdfunding platforms often lack tools for supporters to get more involved in raising money. You’ll need an active and passionate donor base to ensure that your campaign gets shared online to reach a wider audience. 

As an alternative, peer-to-peer fundraising is a great option for nonprofits. While crowdfunding campaigns are generally led by one person or a small group of people looking to leverage their personal networks to raise money, peer-to-peer campaigns invite many participants to fundraise on behalf of the organization. Each participant has their own fundraising page, access to essential fundraising tools, and a dashboard with resources from a nonprofit. It’s an empowering fundraising method for your supporters who want to support your cause on a new level. 

Peer-to-peer fundraising is great for charitable organizations looking to raise any amount of money. It’s an extremely versatile tool for nonprofits big and small, and it’s a perfect fundraising method to tie to an engaging event like a walk or bowl-a-thon, or just as part of a general fundraising campaign. 

What is GoFundMe? 

GoFundMe is one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms out there. While they do allow individuals to fundraise on behalf of a nonprofit organization, they primarily help personal fundraisers raise money for things like medical expenses, emergency disaster relief, memorial services, mission trips, and more.  

As a platform geared towards individuals and the general public, GoFundMe may not be the right choice for your nonprofit’s next fundraising campaign. If you’re looking for solutions that can help your nonprofit engage your donors, here are some GoFundMe alternatives that will help you raise more! 

Best Peer-to-Peer Alternative 

Ready to kick crowdfunding to the curb and start raising even more? It’s time to check out peer-to-peer fundraising on Qgiv’s platform. With Qgiv, you’ll have access to plenty of tools that will empower your supporters to start raising money for your peer-to-peer campaigns. 

When you host a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with Qgiv, you’ll benefit from: 

• Personal fundraising pages for your supporters. Each participant in your peer-to-peer campaign can build out a personal fundraising page where they can collect donations from their family and friends. 
• Team fundraising and team pages. Add a bit of friendly competition to your peer-to-peer campaign to spice things up. Individuals can start and join fundraising teams to compete against other teams to see who can raise the most money. On their team pages, fundraisers can find updates on how much money their team has raised so far and where they stand on the leaderboards. 
• Fundraising tools for you and your fundraising supporters. With email and social media integrations like Facebook fundraisers, it’s easy for your peer-to-peer participants to share your fundraiser on their social media accounts and reach out to their networks to ask for support. Qgiv offers text fundraising support as well, so your fundraisers have additional outreach options. 
• A fundraising dashboard. Your dashboard is the main hub for your peer-to-peer fundraiser. This will be the go-to online home where your fundraisers can access email and social media post templates, branding guides, and any other fundraising resources your organization can provide. 

While Qgiv’s peer-to-peer software offers many benefits for online fundraising alone, you’ll also find that peer-to-peer event planning is a breeze with Qgiv’s event registration and ticketing software. From the registration process to post-event reports and analytics, Qgiv can help you streamline your event planning process by taking care of some of the most important parts of any successful event. With customizable event pages, social sharing options, flexible packaging options, and event performance reports, Qgiv will be your partner in event planning from start to finish. 

Best Crowdfunding Alternative 

If crowdfunding is an important part of your fundraising strategy, check out platforms like Fundly and DonorsChoose for nonprofit-oriented crowdfunding solutions. 

Fundly 

With Fundly, you can create customized, mobile-optimized online donation forms to raise money for your organization. With video and photo galleries, you can add engaging visuals to showcase your organization’s mission for anyone that visits your donation form and wants to make a gift. Fundly also offers social media and email integrations so your supporters can share your crowdfunding campaign with their own networks. 

DonorsChoose 

For schools and classrooms, DonorsChoose is the best crowdfunding option. Teachers can start fundraising campaigns on the DonorsChoose platform to raise money for any classroom project that needs extra support. Donors can go to the website and find a specific school and a specific classroom project to support. Once a project has been fully funded, DonorsChoose will purchase any supplies or materials that the teacher has requested and will ship them straight to the classroom. 

Best Donor Management Software 

Hosting effective fundraisers and creating a successful donor retention strategy is difficult without the help of donor management software.  

DonorPerfect 

Nonprofits everywhere use DonorPerfect to better engage their supporters and facilitate growth. As a nonprofit CRM solution, you can use DonorPerfect to create customizable online donation forms, process recurring and one-time gifts, and raise money both online and off. DonorPerfect also automatically organizes and updates your donor database every time someone makes a gift with their integrated payment processing tool. 

Bloomerang 

Bloomerang is a donor management software that helps nonprofits cultivate long-lasting connections with their donors. With Bloomerang, you can manage anyone involved in your nonprofit’s work, including donors, volunteers, sponsors, grantmakers, and more. With innovative tools, such as interactive dashboards, wealth screening, and data segmentation, you can easily organize your donors and create an effective donor retention plan. 

Best Matching Gifts Software 

If you don’t know about matching gifts, chances are, you’re missing out on a significant fundraising source. With matching gifts software and integrations, you won’t ever miss out on future matching gifts from any donors. 

Double the Donation 

With Double the Donation’s comprehensive matching gifts database, you can easily find out whether a donor’s employer offers a matching gifts program. To make the process even easier, you can embed a Double the Donation widget into your online donation form so donors can find out if their gift is eligible to be matched as they’re in the process of donating. Double the Donation also offers a tool called 360MatchPro which automates the matching gifts process. With 360MatchPro, Double the Donation automatically sends the appropriate materials to eligible donors so they can easily submit a matching gifts request to their employer. 

HEPdata 

HEPdata is another matching gifts solution that can help donors double the impact of their gift. This is a great resource for nonprofits and higher education institutions who are looking to amplify their fundraising efforts. With detailed profiles in their database, HEPdata has information about matching gifts programs and their minimum/maximum gift size, match ratios, application deadlines, distribution dates, and more. 

Best Special Events Software 

Spice up your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with a fun event for your participants. Whether you want to host a virtual event or an in-person occasion, there are plenty of software solutions available to help you make your peer-to-peer event planning a breeze. 

Eventzee 

With Eventzee’s virtual events software, you can plan one-of-a-kind challenge-based events to go with your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign and drive donor engagement. Design fun scavenger hunts for your peer-to-peer participants with a mobile-friendly interface. Then, gather together in person or host an event that everyone can participate in no matter where they are in the world and let the fun commence! 

Fun Team Events 

With Fun Team Events, planning an exciting peer-to-peer event is easy! Fun Team Events offers engaging virtual and metaverse events like team trivia, bingo, improv workshops, and more. You can also create a custom event experience tailored to your supporters’ interests. Fun Team Events’ event planning expertise and intuitive client-facing interface ensures that all of your peer-to-peer participants have a memorable experience! 

Additional resources 

For more nonprofit solutions to aid your fundraising efforts, check out these resources: 

• Qgiv’s Guide to Top Online Donation Tools 
• Qgiv’s Guide to Top Fundraising Software 
• Qgiv’s Guide to Top Nonprofit Software