How to create a Crowdfunding Website?
Raising funds for a venture is a tricky business. Although, loaning money is an option but crowdfunding can give you another dimension to raise capital if your cause is something that could be supported by the crowd.
Crowdfunding is a good way of collecting funds from the masses and helping yourself with financing a new project or venture.
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Let’s learn a bit more about crowdfunding
Whilst talking about crowdfunding, another term that pops up in the mind is ‘fundraising’. There is a fine difference between crowdfunding and fundraiser.
Fundraising is basically funding for emergencies which could be medical or disaster emergencies. One doesn’t get time to prepare or plan for setting up a fundraising event as money is needed as soon as possible. Such kind of fundraising is basically done via social media alerts or sending emails requesting for the same.
Coming to crowdfunding, it is raising funds for the masses for a particular venture like a campaign, charity, financial help, startup, etc. Simply something which is not that urgent and can be done with time.
Types of Crowdfunding Models
Before jumping into how you can create your own crowdfunding website, let’s see what are the different crowdfunding models and examine in which category you belong to.
Personal Crowdfunding
When you are raising funds for personal finances, your friend or family then it belongs to the personal crowdfunding model.
Business Crowdfunding
Raising funds to execute a project, startup or anything that is business-oriented will fall under this model.
Non-Profit Crowdfunding
Raising funds for charity, contribution towards free educational schools or charitable organizations belongs to this crowdfunding model.
Choosing a Platform
The foremost step to build a successful crowdfunding website is to find a perfect platform.
Though not all platforms are paid, the benefit of paid platforms over the free ones is that you can ask for customizations. Moreover, if something or the other goes wrong, you can always step up and ask for support.
This is one good reason for going with a SAAS based platform as they provide real-time support. And talking about a SAAS based platform, Shopify is the way to go!
Depending upon the platform, you can go ahead and set up the payment gateway. This is another crucial step when it comes to setting up a crowdfunding website.
Talking about Shopify, you can set up Shopify Payment gateway or even other payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, etc.
For the most secure payment, go for PayPal as it is one of the largest and most well-known payment processors out there.
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Install the Add-on
It’s important to have an add-on that will seamlessly convert your normal website into a crowdfunding website. But this is not enough. Go for an add-on which will help you create multiple projects at a time, let you provide rewards to your donators as gratitude and much more.
Check out the Crowd Funding app for Shopify by Webkul.
The best solution to start fundraising from the masses for a project/venture.
User Guide: Crowd Funding Blog
Tell your story
A good influential story will help you make an impact on your audience to make the donation.
Just like the Crowd Funding app which lets you add a description to your crowdfunding project. You can try to make your story/description as enthralled as you can. Give it a human touch so that people can really relate to it.
Moreover, you can add images and videos to your project. Apart from that, you can also add the risks and the challenges that you’ll face or are facing while running the particular crowdfunding campaign. These are some good ways to gain the attention of your audience.
Reward your Donators
A good way to make your audience come again is to reward them for contributing towards your cause. This will not only help you gain a new audience with enthusiasm to donate but will keep your current donators intact.
Just like the Crowd Funding app which lets you add rewards for donating a certain amount.
Promote your Cause
All done with the launching now is the step to promote your crowdfunding campaign. Make the audience aware of it so that they can come and donate.
You can use social media platforms to spread awareness. Notify your previous donators with an email. Make sure that the cause is strong enough to make them think that you are actually making a difference. Something that is actually worth the donation.
Ready to raise money but don’t have a Shopify store?
Visit Shopify and start your 14-days free trial today!
Moreover, go ahead and install the Crowd Funding app to turn your simple website into a fundraising one.
If you have suggestions to make something better, do let us know.
Furthermore, in case of any query, create a ticket at Webkul UV Desk.
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Until next time. 👋