GoFundMe Charity Reviews & Insights

We mostly use GoFundMe for disaster relief and special needs funding. It is a great platform for us to share a message of what our needs are and how much we support we are looking for. This is used across the whole organization and allows us to include marketing materials for a call of action. This addresses time management for us, whereas with other platforms we are required to put in more time to manage reports and payments.

GoFundMe is well suited for personal appeals where a story can be told and donors feel an immediate result or effect. It is less appropriate for larger mass appeals that are not targeted directly to a specific cause. For example, not good for companies to ask for funding for operating expenses.

We use Crowdrise as a peer-to-peer software and to set up certain fundraising pages. It has helped us raise thousands of dollars for our students in Kenya and has been a useful tool for our supporters to set up their own page. It allows supporters to set up their own page and does a lot of the communication and background work that we don't have to.

Crowdrise is great for small non-profits who do not have full-time staff to do the accounting work. It works well for those charities that are looking to get others involved and raise their own money. It has a very easy setup process and it's obvious that they are fully invested in helping all kinds of non-profits.

We currently use CrowdRise/GFM for the NYRR Half Marathon as a charity partner. It is being used exclusively by the development department (development manager and executive director). It was chosen for us by the company organizing charity partner fundraising for the half-marathon. it addresses event registration, fundraising, peer-to-peer fundraising, website direction, and includes thermometers/fundraising visualizations.

If you are looking for basic campaign management software, CrowdRise/GFM would work pretty well for you. Once you know how to work all the functions, it is easy to customize your campaign, integrate with Salesforce (I can't speak to other CRM integrations but I assume there are some) and invite people to join your campaign either through a direct link or social media. If you want a more robust peer-to-peer platform, I'd say GFM can get you about 50% of the way there before you'll need something more in-depth.