The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding for Schools

At Chuffed.org, we love seeing parents, teachers,  students – people like you – coming together to support their local school. We’ve seen campaigners raise thousands for playgrounds, excursions, programs and plenty more.

To help you run the most successful school crowdfunding campaigns that you can, we’ve put together this guide that will step you through creating an effective crowdfunding page.  

The Crowdfunding Campaign page

A crowdfunding campaign page is the page on Chuffed.org where you’ll direct supporters, donors, friends and family. It includes the details of who you are, what you are trying to achieve and how you plan to do so. It’s the place supporters actually donate to your campaign.

Choosing the right options and including information in an easily digestible way is important and can be the difference between a good campaign and a great one.

A campaign page looks a bit like this example (below) from the Central Coast Montessori Primary School. The title is at the top, followed by the name of your organisation. To the left of the screen under the title is the campaign banner or video; on the right is the campaign target and counter. Under this is a box containing your campaign’s ‘pitch’ and buttons supporters use to initiate their donations. 

Beneath these is the main body text outlining your campaign’s story – the campaign description. The tabs can be switched to show comments from supporters, and names of supporters. On the right next to the main story are where perks are listed should you choose to have them.  

Click here to see the full campaign page. 

 

Setting up your campaign page

All the components of a crowdfunding campaign page are stepped out below alongside examples from successful school campaigns we’ve hosted on Chuffed.org.  

We’ve also created this handy Google Doc template that you can use to collaborate with your team. It contains some more examples from great campaigns.

To start setting up your crowdfunding campaign page, head to chuffed.org/start.

 

1. Campaign title

This is what your campaign is called. The title shows at the top of your campaign page and is shared with potential supporters when you share the campaign out via Facebook and Twitter – so the title (along with the banner image – more about that below) is the first thing people will see.

Good titles are less than 5 words long and are like the title of a book: memorable or catchy. You might include alliteration, a question, a play on words or unique spelling.

Some real examples from successful campaigns:

  • Graduate to Greatness
  • Education in a suitcase
  • Rocklands Book Nook Appeal
  • How Cool is Our School – a – thon 
  • Every kid deserves a slam dunk!

 

2. Target

All campaigns on Chuffed.org need to set a campaign funding target. You’ll receive your funds even if you don’t hit your target, but it’s important to set your target at an achievable level to build credibility with your supporters.

You should set your target based on three factors:

  1. Cost: What does it cost to deliver your project?
  2. Audience size: How many people do you have already in your database or email list?
  3. Available time: How much time do you have to prepare in the 4 weeks prior to the campaign and promote during your campaign?

As a rough rule of thumb, we find that the following is a reasonable way to set your target:

Email contacts are the most valuable, followed by Facebook friends and then Twitter or LinkedIn contacts.

 

3. Timeframe

On Chuffed.org, you can choose to either run your campaign for a fixed length of time (90 days or less) or ongoing with no end date in what we call Infinity Mode.

If it’s your first campaign, we generally find that you’ll raise the most when you run a 30-40 day campaign. The reason for this is that the time pressure forces your team to act, which drives momentum, which brings more people to your campaign. Campaigns that stretch on for a long period of time struggle to gain interest because supporters get distracted by other things in their lives.

 

4. Writing up your campaign

This is where you tell your supporters about your project: why your cause is important and what you are doing to make a difference.

 

Pitch

The pitch is short blurb to describe what you’re doing in 200 characters. It sits in a box just under you campaign target on the campaign page.

It is what potential supporters are likely to read first and helps them understand quickly what your project is about. Remember: they’re busy, and they’ll be skim reading, so the pitch is your chance to grab their attention and tell them why they should read your full campaign description. Be as succinct, specific and engaging as you can.

Here are some examples of good pitches used by real school campaigns on Chuffed.org: 

Please help Rocklands school to rejuvenate our library. Every penny will count, from furniture to books, we’d love your help! Please support our 73 children build their dream library.

We are raising funds for Crestmont, our beloved parent co-operative school in Richmond, California. We need a permanent home in order to sustain Crestmont’s legacy. Please consider making a donation today!

Montmorency Primary School needs your help… we’re hoopless!

And some not so great pitches:

Help us build a new building for our school.

We’re trying to produce and distribute books that inspire our children to become AMAZING people.

 

Campaign description

This is the larger block of text on your campaign page and it’s where you can go into detail about what you’re doing. The best campaigns use about 300-500 words, combined with pictures, to tell a story about the change they want to make and how they plan to do it. You can even embed images or videos that you might have (in addition to the main campaign banner or video – described below).

As your campaign progresses, you can keep editing your campaign description. It’s a great place to put in progress updates- like Edgar’s Mission did in this award winning campaign – so that supporters who are checking your page regularly have fresh content to enjoy. The folk at North Perth Primary School also did this really well in their campaign to build new outdoor play equipment.

Below is a simple structure you can use for your campaign description. The example we’ve used is a summarised version of the excellent North Perth Free-Climbing Dome campaign run by North Perth Primary School. Click here to see their full campaign page.

 

EXAMPLE CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION STRUCTURE

Section: Background

In this section:

  • Introduce your vision for change and/or the story of who you are.
  • Tell supporters briefly about the issue you’re addressing and why you want to do something about it.
  • Use first person stories over facts and numbers to paint a picture.

Example 

North Perth Primary School desperately needs more play equipment. So the P&C set out to find a solution. During our research we learned that imaginative physical play is proven to help children’s development: socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually.

 

Section: What we’re doing

This is where you should:

  • Describe your project in practical detail. If you’re building something, show drawings or images of what it’s going to look like.

Example

We found the perfect solution in the Explorer Dome – a multi-layered net structure developed in Germany – designed to provide unlimited opportunities for challenging, imaginative play.

We have the perfect place for it on the school oval, where our kids can enjoy the active play that we know helps build strong bodies, minds and hearts. And in that lovely grassy spot, all the children and families in the community can enjoy it after school and on weekends. It’s perfect.

 

Section: What we’ll do with the funds 

In this part you should:

  • Break down your target and talk about what exactly the money will be spent on.

Example

But large free-climbing domes that’ll last a lifetime don’t come cheap. The Explorer Dome will cost around $85,000. We’ve been working hard to raise the money for over a year now. The P&C has raised $25,000, the school has committed $10,000 and the City of Vincent has generously donated $10,000.

We just need the final $40,000 to make it happen. That’s around $88 for every student the school. 

 

Section: Who we are

People give to people. They want to supporter a person, not a faceless project. So:

  • Add a bio of yourself and your team.
  • Add quotes from well known people to build credibility.

Example

*North Perth Primary School use the visuals in their campaign video to show their school community at play.  

 

Additional sections 

You may also want to include sections in this main body text about:

  • Perks – Describe the perks that donors get back for donations at different donation levels. You can insert pictures that show them.
  • Media – Tell supporters about any media articles you get about your campaign. You can use the logos of the media outlets to build credibility.

 

Another example 

Another great example comes from Rocklands Community Primary School in Norfolk, who blitzed their £10,000 target (raising £12,731) to put towards a new library.  See their campaign page here. They take a different approach to the structure laid out above – presenting first information about the problem they have and then the solution and how donors can help.  

 

5. Banner image

The banner image is the main visual element of your campaign. It’s the first thing potential supporters see and it gets shared on Facebook and Twitter alongside the campaign’s title.

You want your image to:

  • Make your supporters feel inspired, entertained or curious, not guilty or shocked.
  • Be formatted to 684 x 385 pixels for optimal compatibility on our site.
  • Be in a normal image format – JPG, PNG or BMP.

For clarity, Chuffed.org is a guilt-free site. We reject campaigns that use guilt-imagery like dehumanizing photos of starving children to get donations, or graphic, disturbing images of animals.

This one comes from Merrylands East Public School’s campaign to raise funds for equipment and expertise for digital storytelling. View their campaign here.

 

6. Video

The best crowdfunding campaigns include a campaign video. This is a specific 2-5 minute video created for the campaign. Don’t use a generic promotion video designed for something else.

Campaign videos don’t need to be expensive or have high production value. It’s far more important that the video tells a compelling story than looks pretty.

Here are some tips:

  • People love seeing faces. Make sure the video includes relevant people talking at the camera at some point.
  • Keep it short. People get bored easily, so unless you’ve got an incredible storyline, don’t have a video longer than 3 minutes.
  • Be ridiculously enthusiastic. Not only do viewers feed off your enthusiasm, video has a weird way of taking normal speech and making it look like you’re bored senseless. If you act ridiculously enthusiastic, it looks completely normal on video.
  • Use narrative storytelling over facts. People share stories, not facts. An easy way of doing this is to follow one person’s story – which could be your own or a beneficiary.
  • Later model phone cameras and DSLR cameras take excellent quality videos. If you can pair that with a free movie editing package like iMovie on Mac, you can create fairly professional looking video for free.
  • If you do end up paying a production company for your video, budget at least $2,500/£1,500 for a 2 minute video.

All videos on Chuffed.org need to be uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo first. You then enter the URL from either service into the relevant field in the campaign editor.

Examples: For some inspiration, take a look at these amazing videos: 

 

7. Creating perks

Perks are things that you offer supporters who donate above a specific amount.

We get asked a lot about perks, especially about how important they are for crowdfunding success? Do I really need to offer perks? Won’t it stop people being philanthropic?

Our answer? Perks help. A LOT.

The reason for this is that perks give people a way of participating in your campaign. They tap into selfish motivations as well as benevolent motivations. And they let you access your supporters’ spending purse, not just their philanthropic purse — you can guess which of these is bigger.

So what perks should you offer?

Perks tend to fall into three categories:

  1. Pre-release products or services: ‘Selling’ products and services via crowdfunding is probably the most common type of perk. Whether it’s a cookbooka weekend away, tickets to your event, memberships, CDs, bee-hives or even crepes, forward selling products and services is a great way to get people involved in your project.
  2. Unique experiences: Most schools don’t realise it, but they can be well placed to offer unique experiences. It could be tickets to the campaign success party, bumper stickers or personalised pavers, through to seed packets or hand dyed wool made by the school students. Or even school merchandise
  3. Special recognition: A non-profit classic. Getting their name on or sponsoring a part of a project is still popular among many crowds. The key here is being creative on what can be sponsored. Edgar’s Mission had barns, rocks, rakes, posts, shelters and even a mountain. You could do new school buildings, sponsors’ names printed on equipment or sponsorship of tickets for a student to attend an event.

So, how do you come up with perks?

This might sound obvious, but the easiest way to come up with perks is to co-design them with potential donors. Edgar’s Mission ran a workshop with some of its key volunteers prior to its campaign to come up with their perks. Spacecubed – a co-working space in Perth – did the same with their members. It’s best to have a hypothesis on your perks as a starting point, as well as the levels you need perks at (normally $25, $50, $100, $250, $1000, $2500, $5000).

Some other considerations:

  • Have perks that are directly connected to your campaign These let people participate in your campaign or project and are far better than unconnected perks, e.g. Amazon gift cards.
  • Have an early bird offer on your perks This is a great way to build momentum. Spacecubed released a very limited number of highly discounted memberships in the first 24 hours of their campaign.
  • Some perks (drugs, anything illegal, raffles) are not allowed Make sure you check our terms to stay on the right side of the rules. 

Another option – impact levels 

If you can’t find appropriate perks, you might like to try what we call ‘impact levels’ where you can choose to show donors what impact different levels of donations make – think the classic £50 buys a goat for a farmer in Africa. It’s a bit old-school, but still works. Rocklands Community School in Norfolk did this well. 

8. Payment options

When you’re setting up your campaign, you’ll have to choose what payment options you give to your donors. Your two options are:

  • Credit/debit cards: Donors can use any domestic or international Visa, Mastercard or American Express card to pay directly on our site (recommended). To use this payment option, you’ll need to create an account with Stripe for the funds to be transferred to. If you’re running an Australian campaign then you’ll just need to give us your bank details so we can transfer credit/debit card donations to you there.
  • PayPal: Donors can pay using their PayPal accounts.

Tip: Donors find the credit/debit card payment system much easier to use than PayPal. The donation process happens entirely on the Chuffed.org site – they just enter their card details and it works. PayPal unfortunately is confusing for a lot of donors and regularly rejects valid cards and accounts. They may also unexpectedly restrict your PayPal account if your campaign is very successful. We recommend only using PayPal as a secondary option with the credit/debit card system.

The way that you receive the funds from the two systems depends on which country you choose for your campaign – this should be a country where you have a bank account:

(1) During the campaign creation process, you will need to create an account with our payment processing provider, Stripe.com. This is a very simple, one form process, which will take less than 5 minutes.

(2) To accept PayPal payments, you will need to create a Premier or Business PayPal account at www.paypal.com, prior to launching your campaign. The campaign will need to be confirmed and connected to a bank account. This can take up to 3 months.

 

9. Additional options  

On Chuffed.org, there are a number of optional customisations for your campaign page, including:

  • Collecting addresses from your donors: we’ll add an address collection form on the payment page if you select this. We only recommend collecting addresses when you absolutely need to, like if you need to post out a perk, as people feel weird giving about you their address.
  • Custom Thanks Message: you can customise the message that donors see immediately following their donation.
  • Custom URL Link: your can change the default URL link assigned to your campaign.
  • Custom default donation amounts: you can customize the default donation amounts that are shown on the donation box on your campaign page.
  • Offline donations: when supporters send you donations in cash or via cheque/check, you can add these to your campaign total by using our ‘offline donations’ function. You should limit the amount of offline donations to 50% of your total donations.
  • Tax-deductible receipting (US, Canada, Australia):  Available for campaigns in Australia, Canada and the US where your organisation is eligible (e.g. 501(c)3 in US, Deductible Gift Recipient for Australian charities). Every donor will be sent a receipt to meet requirements for them to claim a tax deduction.
  • Gift Aid (UK): Chuffed.org can collect Gift Aid Declarations on behalf of recognized charities or registered community amateur sports clubs (CASC) which you can then submit to HMRC to claim your Gift Aid

 

Submitting for approval

All campaigns on Chuffed.org have to be submitted to us for approval before they can go live. We check that they satisfy our eligibility requirements and that they have a decent chance of reaching their target.

The approval process usually takes less than 24 hours. You will get an email from us that either approves your campaign for launch, asks you to modify your campaign and resubmit, or rejects your campaign outright.

About 60% of campaigns are approved on first submission. Once you’ve had one successfully funded campaign on Chuffed.org, we auto-approve all future campaigns.

 

For more inspiring school campaigns check out…

  • Search the ‘School fundraisers’ and ‘Schools’ subcategories on our movements page. 

 

For more information and tips on how to crowdfund…

If you’d like to read more about how to crowdfund, view our full guide here. Or if you’re ready to draft your campaign, just head here

The Ultimate Crowdfunding Guide for Health Charities

At Chuffed.org, we want to see our awesome health campaigners – people like you – run the most successful crowdfunding campaigns that they can. 

So – based on our experience with over 8,000 campaigns, we’ve put together this guide that will step you through creating a strong  crowdfunding campaign page to strengthen the foundations of your campaign.  

 

The Crowdfunding Campaign page

A crowdfunding campaign page is the page on Chuffed.org where you’ll direct supporters, donors, friends and family. It will include the details of who you are, what you are trying to achieve and how you plan to do so, and, it is the place supporters actually donate to your campaign.

Choosing the right options and including information in an easily digestible way is important and can be the difference between a good campaign and a great one.

A campaign page looks a bit like this example from Homeless Healthcare. The title is at the top, followed by the name of your organisation. To the left of the screen under the title is the campaign banner or video; on the right is the campaign target and counter. Under this is a box containing your campaign’s ‘pitch’ and buttons supporters use to initiate their donations. 

Beneath these is the main body text outlining your campaign’s story – the campaign description. The tabs can be switched to show comments from supporters, and names of supporters. On the right next to the main story are where perks are listed should you choose to have them.  

Click here to see Homeless Healthcare’s full campaign page. 

 

Setting up your campaign page

All the components of a crowdfunding campaign page are stepped out below alongside examples from successful campaigns run by health organisations that we’ve hosted on Chuffed.org.  

We’ve also created this handy Google Doc template that you can use to collaborate with your team. It contains some more examples from great campaigns.

To start setting up your crowdfunding campaign page, head to chuffed.org/start.

 

1. Campaign title

This is what your campaign is called. The title shows at the top of your campaign page and is shared with potential supporters when you share the campaign out via Facebook and Twitter – so the title (along with the banner image – more about that below) is the first thing people will see.

Good titles are less than 5 words long and are like the title of a book: memorable or catchy. You might include alliteration, a question, a play on words or unique spelling.

Some real examples from successful campaigns:

  • Let’s take concussion out of play!
  • In A Heartbeat … Prevent, Predict, and Detect Heart Disease
  • Cents for Senses
  • Project Piggy Paradise
  • Save Sawtell Cinema
  • Two Good Lunch

 

2. Target

All campaigns on Chuffed.org need to set a campaign funding target. Unlike other platforms, you’ll receive your funds even if you don’t hit your target, but it’s important to set your target at an achievable level to build credibility with your supporters.

You should set your target based on three factors:

  1. Cost: What does it cost to deliver your project?
  2. Audience size: How many people do you have already in your database or email list?
  3. Available time: How much time do you have to prepare in the 4 weeks prior to the campaign and promote during your campaign?

As a rough rule of thumb, we find that the following is a reasonable way to set your target:

Email contacts are the most valuable, followed by Facebook friends and then Twitter or LinkedIn contacts.

 

3. Timeframe

On Chuffed.org, you can choose to either run your campaign for a fixed length of time (90 days or less) or ongoing with no end date in what we call Infinity Mode.

If it’s your first campaign, we generally find that you’ll raise the most when you run a 30-40 day campaign. The reason for this is that the time pressure forces your team to act, which drives momentum, which brings more people to your campaign. Campaigns that stretch on for a long period of time struggle to gain interest because supporters get distracted by other things in their lives.

 

4. Writing up your campaign

This is where you tell your supporters about your project: why your cause is important and what you are doing to make a difference.

 

Pitch

The pitch is a short blurb to describe what you’re doing in 200 characters. It sits in a box just under you campaign target on the campaign page.

It is what potential supporters are likely to read first and helps them understand quickly what your project is about. Remember: they’re busy, and they’ll be skim reading, so the pitch is your chance to grab their attention and tell them why they should read your full campaign description. Be as succinct, specific and engaging as you can.

Here are some examples of good pitches used by real health related campaigns on Chuffed.org: 

The Black Puppy Foundation funds research into mental health issues affecting Australia’s youth. Support your stair climbing colleagues as we raise money for a wonderful cause!

Join Dr Jacobson as he strives to purchase a vital piece of equipment which will have a big impact on adults and children with head & neck cancers and life threatening airway obstructions.

We’re going out on a limb here – literally! Help us engineer an epic STEAM education opportunity for kids by using plastic waste to 3D print ROBOTIC PROSTHETICS for Australians in need. Let’s move!

And some not so great pitches:

We want to give those paralysed from Guillain Barre Syndrome the ability to communicate, join us as we make this happen using NeuroNodes. 

A virtual walkathon is about creating greater awareness and understanding of life with Dementia and Cell Activation Syndrome. Every $ supports The Dementia Society.

Raising money for a cure for dementia.

 

Campaign description

This is the larger block of text on your campaign page and it’s where you can go into detail about what you’re doing. The best campaigns use about 300-500 words, combined with pictures, to tell a story about the change they want to make and how they plan to do it. You can even embed images or videos that you might have (in addition to the main campaign banner or video – described below).

As your campaign progresses, you can keep editing your campaign description. It’s a great place to put in progress updates- like Edgar’s Mission did in this award winning campaign – so that supporters who are checking your page regularly have fresh content to enjoy. 

Below is a simple structure you can use for your campaign description. The example we’ve used is a summarised version of the excellent NRG Collective campaign to create  Rare Revolution Magazine – a resource made for and by children with rare health conditions. We recommend you read the full campaign description.

EXAMPLE CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION STRUCTURE

Section: Background

In this section:

  • Introduce your vision for change and/or the story of who you are.
  • Tell supporters briefly about the issue you’re addressing and why you want to do something about it.
  • Use first person stories over facts and numbers to paint a picture.

Example 

Our journey into rare disease started in 2012, when my son was diagnosed, with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP). Since then, we (sisters, Nicola Miller and Rebecca Stewart) have founded a dedicated XP charity which has grown to have global reach. Following our own frustrations with access to research and having our rare voice heard, we decided just over 12 months ago, to launch a not-for-profit, free subscription magazine and online community, and this has fast become a special place for adults affected by rare disease, from all walks of life so share their experiences and support each other.

But, what we know from talking to children and young people affected by rare, is that they feel under-represented and that their voice and opinions aren’t heard. They, and we, feel it is time that the balance is redressed.

 

Section: What we’re doing

This is where you should:

  • Describe your project in practical detail. If you’re building something, show drawings or images of what it’s going to look like.

Example

We have teamed up with the RARE Together Project by the BPSU and Larissa Kerecuk of Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Rare Disease Centre to create an innovative youth project.

Our youth project brings together a team of ten children and young people aged 8 – 22 years old to form our first ever youth editorial team, creating a dedicated rare disease publication for kids-by-kids.

 

Section: What we’ll do with the funds 

In this part you should:

  • Break down your target and talk about what exactly the money will be spent on.

Example

We have already been working very hard and secured some project partners and investment, but we need your help.

We need to raise a further £20,000 to make this project a reality and give our eager team of budding editors, journalists and creative writers the opportunity to create something very special for young people and carers who live with the challenges of a rare disease.

 

Section: Who we are

People give to people. They want to supporter a person, not a faceless project. So:

  • Add a bio of yourself and your team.
  • Add quotes from well known people to build credibility.

Example

NRG Collective is a not-for-profit organisation, founded by two sisters,Nicola Miller & Rebecca Stewart.

 

Additional sections 

You may also want to include sections in this main body text about:

  • Perks – Describe the perks that donors get back for donations at different donation levels. You can insert pictures that show them.
  • Media – Tell supporters about any media articles you get about your campaign. You can use the logos of the media outlets to build credibility.

 

Another great example comes from the University of Western Australia, who raised over $10,000 to fund research to validate the accuracy of a simple blood test to detect the risk of premature birth.  See their campaign page here. They take a different approach to the structure laid out above – presenting first their vision for the future, followed by how they intend to make it happen. 

 

5. Banner image

The banner image is the main visual element of your campaign. It’s the first thing potential supporters see and it gets shared on Facebook and Twitter alongside the campaign’s title.

This one comes from the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation’s campaign to raise funds to purchase surgical equipment for life-saving ear, nose and throat procedures. View their campaign here.

You want your image to:

  • Make your supporters feel inspired, entertained or curious, not guilty or shocked.
  • Be formatted to 684 x 385 pixels for optimal compatibility on our site.
  • Be in a normal image format – JPG, PNG or BMP.

For clarity, Chuffed.org is a guilt-free site. We reject campaigns that use guilt-imagery like dehumanizing photos of starving children to get donations, or graphic, disturbing images of animals.

 

6. Video

The best crowdfunding campaigns include a campaign video. This is a specific 2-5 minute video created for the campaign. Don’t use a generic promotion video designed for something else.

Campaign videos don’t need to be expensive or have high production value. It’s far more important that the video tells a compelling story than looks pretty.

Here are some tips:

  • People love seeing faces. Make sure the video includes relevant people talking at the camera at some point.
  • Keep it short. People get bored easily, so unless you’ve got an incredible storyline, don’t have a video longer than 3 minutes.
  • Be ridiculously enthusiastic. Not only do viewers feed off your enthusiasm, video has a weird way of taking normal speech and making it look like you’re bored senseless. If you act ridiculously enthusiastic, it looks completely normal on video.
  • Use narrative storytelling over facts. People share stories, not facts. An easy way of doing this is to follow one person’s story – which could be your own or a beneficiary.
  • Later model phone cameras and DSLR cameras take excellent quality videos. If you can pair that with a free movie editing package like iMovie on Mac, you can create fairly professional looking video for free.
  • If you do end up paying a production company for your video, budget at least $2,500/£1,500 for a 2 minute video.

All videos on Chuffed.org need to be uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo first. You then enter the URL from either service into the relevant field in the campaign editor.

Examples: For some inspiration, take a look at these videos: 

  • Jewish Care Victoria – Cents for Senses campaign to raise funds to build a sensory stimulation room for children with disabilities; 
  • NeuroKinex Charitable Trust – Redefining Possibilities for Kids with Paralysis campaign  to provide rehabilitation resources for children with paralysis. 
  • Hope for Health – Restoring Our Health campaign to train female elders from East Arnhem Land in life-restoring nutrition science to help their communities improve their health.  

 

7. Creating perks

Perks are things that you offer supporters who donate above a specific amount.

We get asked a lot about perks, especially about how important they are for crowdfunding success? Do I really need to offer perks? Won’t it stop people being philanthropic?

Our answer? Perks help. A LOT.

The reason for this is that perks give people a way of participating in your campaign. They tap into selfish motivations as well as benevolent motivations. And they let you access your supporters’ spending purse, not just their philanthropic purse — you can guess which of these is bigger.

So what perks should you offer?

Perks tend to fall into three categories:

  1. Pre-release products or services: ‘Selling’ products and services via crowdfunding is probably the most common type of perk. Whether it’s tickets to your event, t-shirts or chopping  boardsmemberships, bee-hives or even crepes, forward selling products and services is a great way to get people involved in your project.
  2. Unique experiences: Most charities don’t realise it, but they are well placed to provide special or unique experiences. It could be a personalised guided tour, workshops on a farm, tickets to an opening party, or even a chance to swim with whales.
  3. Special recognition: A non-profit classic. Getting their name on or sponsoring a part of a project is still popular among many crowds. The key here is being creative on what can be sponsored. Edgar’s Mission had barns, rocks, rakes, posts, shelters and even a mountain. Making a documentary film? Offer sneak previews of the script or a donor’s name in the credits.

So, how do you come up with perks?

This might sound obvious, but the easiest way to come up with perks is to co-design them with potential donors. Edgar’s Mission ran a workshop with some of its key volunteers prior to its campaign to come up with their perks. Spacecubed – a co-working space in Perth – did the same with their members. It’s best to have a hypothesis on your perks as a starting point, as well as the levels you need perks at (normally $25, $50, $100, $250, $1000, $2500, $5000).

Some other considerations:

  • Have perks that are directly connected to your campaign These let people participate in your campaign or project and are far better than unconnected perks, e.g. Amazon gift cards.
  • Have an early bird offer on your perks This is a great way to build momentum. Spacecubed released a very limited number of highly discounted memberships in the first 24 hours of their campaign.
  • Some perks (drugs, anything illegal, raffles) are not allowed Make sure you check our terms to stay on the right side of the rules. 

If the challenge of generating appropriate perks for your health campaign is too great another alternative, that can add value, is using ‘impact levels’. These show donors what impact different levels of donations make – think the classic £50 buys a goat for a farmer in Africa. It’s a bit old-school, but still works. Perks and impact levels are treated differently within the Chuffed.org campaign editor – so skip past perks and use the impact levels section to define yours. 

 

8. Payment options

When you’re setting up your campaign, you’ll have to choose what payment options you give to your donors. Your two options are:

  • Credit/debit cards: Donors can use any domestic or international Visa, Mastercard or American Express card to pay directly on our site (recommended). To use this payment option, you’ll need to create an account with Stripe for the funds to be transferred to. If you’re running an Australian campaign then you’ll just need to give us your bank details so we can transfer credit/debit card donations to you there.
  • PayPal: Donors can pay using their PayPal accounts.

Tip: Donors find the credit/debit card payment system much easier to use than PayPal. The donation process happens entirely on the Chuffed.org site – they just enter their card details and it works. PayPal unfortunately is confusing for a lot of donors and regularly rejects valid cards and accounts. They may also unexpectedly restrict your PayPal account if your campaign is very successful. We recommend only using PayPal as a secondary option with the credit/debit card system.

The way that you receive the funds from the two systems depends on which country you choose for your campaign – this should be a country where you have a bank account:

(1) During the campaign creation process, you will need to create an account with our payment processing provider, Stripe.com. This is a very simple, one form process, which will take less than 5 minutes.

(2) To accept PayPal payments, you will need to create a Premier or Business PayPal account at www.paypal.com, prior to launching your campaign. The campaign will need to be confirmed and connected to a bank account. This can take up to 3 months.

 

9. Additional options  

On Chuffed.org, there are a number of optional customisations for your campaign page, including:

  • Collecting addresses from your donors: we’ll add an address collection form on the payment page if you select this. We only recommend collecting addresses when you absolutely need to, like if you need to post out a perk, as people feel weird giving about you their address.
  • Custom Thanks Message: you can customise the message that donors see immediately following their donation.
  • Custom URL Link: your can change the default URL link assigned to your campaign.
  • Custom default donation amounts: you can customize the default donation amounts that are shown on the donation box on your campaign page.
  • Offline donations: when supporters send you donations in cash or via cheque/check, you can add these to your campaign total by using our ‘offline donations’ function. You should limit the amount of offline donations to 50% of your total donations.
  • Tax-deductible receipting:  Available for campaigns in Australia, Canada and the US where your organisation is eligible (e.g. Deductible Gift Recipient for Australian organisations). Every donor will be sent a receipt to meet requirements for them to claim a tax deduction.
  • Gift Aid (UK only): Chuffed.org can collect Gift Aid Declarations on behalf of recognized charities or registered community amateur sports clubs (CASC) which you can then submit to HMRC to claim your Gift Aid

 

Submitting for approval

All campaigns on Chuffed.org have to be submitted to us for approval before they can go live. We check that they satisfy our eligibility requirements and that they have a decent chance of reaching their target.

The approval process usually takes less than 24 hours. You will get an email from us that either approves your campaign for launch, asks you to modify your campaign and resubmit, or rejects your campaign outright.

About 60% of campaigns are approved on first submission. Once you’ve had one successfully funded campaign on Chuffed.org, we auto-approve all future campaigns.

 

For more inspiring health check out…

 

For more information and tips on how to crowdfunding…

If you’d like to read more about how to crowdfund, view our full guide here.

And if you’re ready to try drafting a campaign – just head here

 

The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding for Environmental Charities

At Chuffed.org, we want to see our awesome environmental protection and conservation campaigners – people like you – run the most successful crowdfunding campaigns that they can. 

So we’ve put together this guide that will step you through creating a strong campaign page to strengthen the foundations of your campaign.  

 

The Crowdfunding Campaign page

A crowdfunding campaign page is the page on Chuffed.org where you’ll direct supporters, donors, friends and family. It will include the details of who you are, what you are trying to achieve and how you plan to do so, and, it is the place supporters actually donate to your campaign.

Choosing the right options and including information in an easily digestible way is important and can be the difference between a good campaign and a great one.

A campaign page looks a bit like this example from Environment Tasmania. The title is at the top, followed by the name of your organisation. To the left of the screen under the title is the campaign banner or video; on the right is the campaign target and counter. Under this is a box containing your campaign’s ‘pitch’ and buttons supporters use to initiate their donations. 

Beneath these is the main body text outlining your campaign’s story – the campaign description. The tabs can be switched to show comments from supporters, and names of supporters. On the right next to the main story are where perks are listed should you choose to have them.  

Click here to see Environment Tasmania’s full campaign page. 

 

Setting up your campaign page

All the components of a crowdfunding campaign page are stepped out below alongside examples from successful environmental protection campaigns we’ve hosted on Chuffed.org.  

We’ve also created this handy Google Doc template that you can use to collaborate with your team. It contains some more examples from great campaigns.

To start setting up your crowdfunding campaign page, head to chuffed.org/start.

 

1. Campaign title

This is what your campaign is called. The title shows at the top of your campaign page and is shared with potential supporters when you share the campaign out via Facebook and Twitter – so the title (along with the banner image – more about that below) is the first thing people will see.

Good titles are less than 5 words long and are like the title of a book: memorable or catchy. You might include alliteration, a question, a play on words or unique spelling.

Some real examples from successful campaigns:

  • Where have all the Grasswrens gone?
  • Build Farmwalls with us!
  • Project Piggy Paradise
  • Save Sawtell Cinema
  • I came by boat
  • Two Good Lunch

 

2. Target

All campaigns on Chuffed.org need to set a campaign funding target. You’ll receive your funds even if you don’t hit your target, but it’s important to set your target at an achievable level to build credibility with your supporters.

You should set your target based on three factors:

  1. Cost: What does it cost to deliver your project?
  2. Audience size: How many people do you have already in your database or email list?
  3. Available time: How much time do you have to prepare in the 4 weeks prior to the campaign and promote during your campaign?

As a rough rule of thumb, we find that the following is a reasonable way to set your target:

Email contacts are the most valuable, followed by Facebook friends and then Twitter or LinkedIn contacts.

 

3. Timeframe

On Chuffed.org, you can choose to either run your campaign for a fixed length of time (90 days or less) or ongoing with no end date in what we call Infinity Mode.

If it’s your first campaign, we generally find that you’ll raise the most when you run a 30-40 day campaign. The reason for this is that the time pressure forces your team to act, which drives momentum, which brings more people to your campaign. Campaigns that stretch on for a long period of time struggle to gain interest because supporters get distracted by other things in their lives.

 

4. Writing up your campaign

This is where you tell your supporters about your project: why your cause is important and what you are doing to make a difference.

 

Pitch

The pitch is short blurb to describe what you’re doing in 200 characters. It sits in a box just under you campaign target on the campaign page.

It is what potential supporters are likely to read first and helps them understand quickly what your project is about. Remember: they’re busy, and they’ll be skim reading, so the pitch is your chance to grab their attention and tell them why they should read your full campaign description. Be as succinct, specific and engaging as you can.

Here are some examples of good pitches used by real environmental protection campaigns on Chuffed.org: 

Help us to share the Climate Choir message! Over 600 singers from community choirs across the country will join to urge action on climate change in the lead up to the UN Climate Conference in Bonn.

Every day the small team at Wildlife Queensland puts its heart and soul into correcting biodiversity loss in Queensland. YOU CAN give us the tools to keep up the good work for our wildlife in 2018!!!

We’re going out on a limb here – literally! Help us engineer an epic STEAM education opportunity for kids by using plastic waste to 3D print ROBOTIC PROSTHETICS for Australians in need. Let’s move!

And some not so great pitches:

We are a volunteer driven not-for-profit organisation that aims to empower communities across the region to address our climate challenges together. Help us support in this work.

An elephant is poached every 15 minutes for their ivory leaving behind many orphans. Help support us to save them and re-integrate them into the wild.

The idea is to start a recycling workshop and involve local and international artists to create art by reducing plastic waste.

 

Campaign description

This is the larger block of text on your campaign page and it’s where you can go into detail about what you’re doing. The best campaigns use about 300-500 words, combined with pictures, to tell a story about the change they want to make and how they plan to do it. You can even embed images or videos that you might have (in addition to the main campaign banner or video – described below).

As your campaign progresses, you can keep editing your campaign description. It’s a great place to put in progress updates- like Edgar’s Mission did in this award winning campaign – so that supporters who are checking your page regularly have fresh content to enjoy. 

Below is a simple structure you can use for your campaign description. The example we’ve used is a summarised version of the excellent Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife campaign to save a colony of Little Penguins. We recommend you read the full campaign description.

 

EXAMPLE CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION STRUCTURE

Section: Background

In this section:

  • Introduce your vision for change and/or the story of who you are.
  • Tell supporters briefly about the issue you’re addressing and why you want to do something about it.
  • Use first person stories over facts and numbers to paint a picture.

Example 

The penguin colony: Amongst the hustle and bustle of Australia’s biggest city, a group of charming and unusual locals have set up home in the popular suburb of Manly.The Manly colony of Little Penguins in Sydney Harbour is the only mainland breeding colony left in New South Wales. This special and unique colony was listed as an endangered population in the 1990s.

But there’s a problem… During June, a fox discovered this colony and devastated the population of Little Penguins at Manly. In just over two weeks, 27 helpless Little Penguins were killed by the fox.

 

Section: What we’re doing

This is where you should:

  • Describe your project in practical detail. If you’re building something, show drawings or images of what it’s going to look like.

Example

In response to these gruesome discoveries, a special team of field officers, National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers, experts and volunteers are keeping watch on the nesting penguins day and night, to protect them from further attacks. At the same time an operation to trap the cunning creature continues.

Foxes are a huge threat to our native fauna and it is highly likely that other foxes in the future will attempt a similar attack. This is why we need your assistance, to help the volunteers and NPWS monitor and protect Manly’s Little Penguins from any future attacks and to help rebuild their endangered colony.

 

Section: What we’ll do with the funds 

In this part you should:

  • Break down your target and talk about what exactly the money will be spent on.

Example

In order to outfox the fox, more specialised equipment is needed as well as additional nest boxes. Here are some of the items FNPW are fundraising for:

  • $10,000 for 20 motion sensing cameras to monitor the area
  • $5,000 for a thermal camera that can detect the heat given off by penguins and predators
  • $450 for 5 fox lights that are triggered by movement and give off bright, flashing lights to scare away foxes
  • $1,000 for 10 nesting boxes to help the penguins rebuild their population

 

Section: Who we are

People give to people. They want to supporter a person, not a faceless project. So:

  • Add a bio of yourself and your team.
  • Add quotes from well known people to build credibility.

Example

The Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife has a long history of supporting the endangered colony of penguins in Manly. Since 1999 the Foundation has been helping fund equipment for volunteer wardens, nest boxes, signage to warn people about the presence of these vulnerable birds, and much more.

FNPW working in partnership with the local NPWS rangers, Taronga Zoo, Manly Council, Manly Environment Centre and the Office of Environment & Heritage has helped keep the Little Penguins in Manly safe up until now.

 

Additional sections 

You may also want to include sections in this main body text about:

  • Perks – Describe the perks that donors get back for donations at different donation levels. You can insert pictures that show them.
  • Media – Tell supporters about any media articles you get about your campaign. You can use the logos of the media outlets to build credibility.

 

Another great example comes from Farmwall, who raised over their $30,000 target to build aquaponic farming systems in Melbourne restaurants that will start to address the environmental impact of the way cities eat by reducing the distance between where food is grown and eaten.  See their campaign page here. They take a different approach to the structure laid out above – presenting first their vision for the future, followed by how they intend to make it happen. 

 

 

5. Banner image

The banner image is the main visual element of your campaign. It’s the first thing potential supporters see and it gets shared on Facebook and Twitter alongside the campaign’s title.

This one comes from 350.org Australia’s campaign to raise funds to oppose the Adani coal mine. View their campaign here.  

You want your image to:

  • Make your supporters feel inspired, entertained or curious, not guilty or shocked.
  • Be formatted to 684 x 385 pixels for optimal compatibility on our site.
  • Be in a normal image format – JPG, PNG or BMP.

For clarity, Chuffed.org is a guilt-free site. We reject campaigns that use guilt-imagery like dehumanizing photos of starving children to get donations, or graphic, disturbing images of animals.

 

6. Video

The best crowdfunding campaigns include a campaign video. This is a specific 2-5 minute video created for the campaign. Don’t use a generic promotion video designed for something else.

Campaign videos don’t need to be expensive or have high production value. It’s far more important that the video tells a compelling story than looks pretty.

Here are some tips:

  • People love seeing faces. Make sure the video includes relevant people talking at the camera at some point.
  • Keep it short. People get bored easily, so unless you’ve got an incredible storyline, don’t have a video longer than 3 minutes.
  • Be ridiculously enthusiastic. Not only do viewers feed off your enthusiasm, video has a weird way of taking normal speech and making it look like you’re bored senseless. If you act ridiculously enthusiastic, it looks completely normal on video.
  • Use narrative storytelling over facts. People share stories, not facts. An easy way of doing this is to follow one person’s story – which could be your own or a beneficiary.
  • Later model phone cameras and DSLR cameras take excellent quality videos. If you can pair that with a free movie editing package like iMovie on Mac, you can create fairly professional looking video for free.
  • If you do end up paying a production company for your video, budget at least $2,500/£1,500 for a 2 minute video.

All videos on Chuffed.org need to be uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo first. You then enter the URL from either service into the relevant field in the campaign editor.

Examples: For some inspiration, take a look at these two campaign videos made by the Conservation Council of Western Australia (Video 1; Video 2) and this one from Environment Tasmania

 

7. Creating perks

Perks are things that you offer supporters who donate above a specific amount.

We get asked a lot about perks, especially about how important they are for crowdfunding success? Do I really need to offer perks? Won’t it stop people being philanthropic?

Our answer? Perks help. A LOT.

The reason for this is that perks give people a way of participating in your campaign. They tap into selfish motivations as well as benevolent motivations. And they let you access your supporters’ spending purse, not just their philanthropic purse — you can guess which of these is bigger.

So what perks should you offer?

Perks tend to fall into three categories:

  1. Pre-release products or services: ‘Selling’ products and services via crowdfunding is probably the most common type of perk. Whether it’s a weekend away, tickets to your event, memberships, CDs, bee-hives or even crepes, forward selling products and services is a great way to get people involved in your project.
  2. Unique experiences: Most environmental protection organisations don’t realise it, but they are nearly always an amazing repository of wonderfully special, unique experiences. It could be a personalised guided tour, workshops on a farm, tickets to an opening party, or even a chance to swim with whales.
  3. Special recognition: A non-profit classic. Getting their name on or sponsoring a part of a project is still popular among many crowds. The key here is being creative on what can be sponsored. Edgar’s Mission had barns, rocks, rakes, posts, shelters and even a mountain. Making a documentary film? Offer sneak previews of the script or a donor’s name in the credits.

So, how do you come up with perks?

This might sound obvious, but the easiest way to come up with perks is to co-design them with potential donors. Edgar’s Mission ran a workshop with some of its key volunteers prior to its campaign to come up with their perks. Spacecubed – a co-working space in Perth – did the same with their members. It’s best to have a hypothesis on your perks as a starting point, as well as the levels you need perks at (normally $25, $50, $100, $250, $1000, $2500, $5000).

Some other considerations:

  • Have perks that are directly connected to your campaign These let people participate in your campaign or project and are far better than unconnected perks, e.g. Amazon gift cards.
  • Have an early bird offer on your perks This is a great way to build momentum. Spacecubed released a very limited number of highly discounted memberships in the first 24 hours of their campaign.
  • Some perks (drugs, anything illegal, raffles) are not allowed Make sure you check our terms to stay on the right side of the rules. 

 

8. Payment options

When you’re setting up your campaign, you’ll have to choose what payment options you give to your donors. Your two options are:

  • Credit/debit cards: Donors can use any domestic or international Visa, Mastercard or American Express card to pay directly on our site (recommended). To use this payment option, you’ll need to create an account with Stripe for the funds to be transferred to. If you’re running an Australian campaign then you’ll just need to give us your bank details so we can transfer credit/debit card donations to you there.
  • PayPal: Donors can pay using their PayPal accounts.

Tip: Donors find the credit/debit card payment system much easier to use than PayPal. The donation process happens entirely on the Chuffed.org site – they just enter their card details and it works. PayPal unfortunately is confusing for a lot of donors and regularly rejects valid cards and accounts. They may also unexpectedly restrict your PayPal account if your campaign is very successful. We recommend only using PayPal as a secondary option with the credit/debit card system.

The way that you receive the funds from the two systems depends on which country you choose for your campaign – this should be a country where you have a bank account:

(1) During the campaign creation process, you will need to create an account with our payment processing provider, Stripe.com. This is a very simple, one form process, which will take less than 5 minutes.

(2) To accept PayPal payments, you will need to create a Premier or Business PayPal account at www.paypal.com, prior to launching your campaign. The campaign will need to be confirmed and connected to a bank account. This can take up to 3 months.

 

9. Additional options  

On Chuffed.org, there are a number of optional customisations for your campaign page, including:

  • Collecting addresses from your donors: we’ll add an address collection form on the payment page if you select this. We only recommend collecting addresses when you absolutely need to, like if you need to post out a perk, as people feel weird giving about you their address.
  • Custom Thanks Message: you can customize the message that donors see immediately following their donation.
  • Impact Levels: instead of giving out perks, you can choose to show donors what impact different levels of donations make – think the classic £50 buys a goat for a farmer in Africa. It’s a bit old-school, but still works.
  • Custom URL Link: your can change the default URL link assigned to your campaign.
  • Custom default donation amounts: you can customize the default donation amounts that are shown on the donation box on your campaign page.
  • Offline donations: when supporters send you donations in cash or via cheque/check, you can add these to your campaign total by using our ‘offline donations’ function. You should limit the amount of offline donations to 50% of your total donations.
  • Tax-deductible receipting:  Available for campaigns in Australia, Canada and the US where your organisation is eligible (e.g. Deductible Gift Recipient for Australian organisations). Every donor will be sent a receipt to meet requirements for them to claim a tax deduction.
  • Gift Aid (UK only): Chuffed.org can collect Gift Aid Declarations on behalf of recognized charities or registered community amateur sports clubs (CASC) which you can then submit to HMRC to claim your Gift Aid

 

Submitting for approval

All campaigns on Chuffed.org have to be submitted to us for approval before they can go live. We check that they satisfy our eligibility requirements and that they have a decent chance of reaching their target.

The approval process usually takes less than 24 hours. You will get an email from us that either approves your campaign for launch, asks you to modify your campaign and resubmit, or rejects your campaign outright.

About 60% of campaigns are approved on first submission. Once you’ve had one successfully funded campaign on Chuffed.org, we auto-approve all future campaigns.

 

For more inspiring environmental protection campaigns check out…

 

For more information and tips on how to crowdfunding…

If you’d like to read more about how to crowdfund, view our full guide here.

 

Or if you’re ready to draft your campaign, just head here

The Top 10 Animal Welfare Crowdfunding Campaigns

At Chuffed.org, we are privileged to see amazing campaigns launch every day. Our favourite thing is when campaigns take off to raise bucket loads for their cause or blitz through their fundraising targets.

Here are the Top 10 Animal Welfare Crowdfunding Campaigns – the ones that have raised the most money for their awesome projects and initiatives. 

 

1. Help Us to Help Them: Bring White Rhino to Altina – $197,503

In 2016, the staff at Altina Wildlife Park in the New South Wales Riverina (in Australia) took their passion for animal conservation one step further, deciding to import three Southern White Rhinos – Mtoto, Mango and Tatu – as part of a global breeding initiative.

They raised a substantial amount of cash – $197,503 – to move, feed and house the animals in the biggest animal campaign yet on Chuffed.org. 

Check out the campaign page here.

 

2. Duke’s Place Called Home – £90,360

Duke the Bullock, who was born a dwarf and sustained debilitating pelvic injuries while young, was rescued by a UK family and taken into their North Yorkshire home, along with countless other farm animals that were no longer seen as valuable by their former owners. Soon their kind-hearted endeavours became CALF Sanctuary and the family and animals all required a new home – one more suitable for Duke and his friends. 

When they asked, the community rallied and contributed a huge £90,360 for the purchase of a suitable property and the relocation of all the animals to their new home. 

Check out the campaign here

 

3. Raising the Roof – $162,458

Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary houses rescued farm animals on 153 peaceful acres in Victoria, in southeastern Australia.

Named after founder Pam Ahern’s first rescued pig – Edgar Alan Pig – the sanctuary’s first Chuffed.org campaign went bananas, raising $162,458 to build bigger and better lodgings for all its animals. This included goat mountains and jungle gyms, a purpose built duck pond complete with waterfall and a chicken barn called the ‘Barn Mahal’.    

Check out the campaign here

 

4. Create a Vegan – £82,096

What is Veganuary? The UK-based charity encourages people to try out a vegan diet in January (and at other times of the year too!) to reduce the number of animals in the farming system, our impact on the planet and improve our health all at the same time. They find a huge 67% of people who participate in January, stay vegan throughout the year.   

Their #CreateAVegan campaign raised £82,096 to spread the word about Veganuary via advertisements on public transport in four cities across three countries: London, Manchester, Boston and Sydney. 

Check out the campaign here

 

5. Project Piggy Paradise – $132,031

Another awesome campaign from our friends at Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary – this time to build a swanky new home for the sanctuary’s rescued pigs. One that not only provided shelter, shade, warmth, showers, veterinary treatment areas and the like, but could also inspire change in the way pigs are viewed in our wider society. 

Edgar’s raised $132,031 for the new facility which will allow the public – who can book in to visit – to see the unique and endearing personalities of pigs shine through, and come to a better understanding of these quirky creatures as much more than the before of a ham sandwich. 

Check out the campaign here

 

6.  $120,000 Kindness Challenge! – $128,172

Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary were at it again! They asked supporters to help them raise $120,000 – which they outdid in a $128,172 raise. 

The appeal saw them able to buy essential to get through the winter including over 1 tonne of fruit and veg, 100 new tools, 50 fruit trees, over 500 bales of hay, 5 new shelters, solar panels and a 4WD Utility Vehicle.

Check out the campaign here

 

7. You Can Save The Lives Of Homeless Dogs! – $83,495

Stray and mistreated dogs are a sad reality on the streets of Thailand’s cities and in other parts of Southeast Asia and the US-based charity Soi Dog Foundation has been doing something about it since 2003.

In 2015, the Foundation raised $82,495 towards the cost of building an animal hospital at their shelter in Phuket.   

Check out the campaign here

 

8. Raise the Roof – £40,395

After the move to a property suitable to housing Duke the Bullock and his mates, Sharon and her family at CALF Sanctuary returned to Chuffed.org in 2016. They raised £40,395 to build a new barn to house the (increasingly social) Duke and: 5 cows, 5 pigs, 4 goats, 30+ sheep and lambs and a smattering of turkeys and chickens.   

Check out the campaign here

9. Build a New Home for Mountain Lions – $53,655

The Center for Animal Research and Education (CARE) in Texas provides a safe forever home to big cats and other exotic animals no matter what their history or needs. The CARE property is currently home to 50 animals including mountain lions, African lions, tigers, black and spotted leopards, bobcats, ring-tail lemurs, llamas, and a coati. 

When asked by the Dallas Zoo to take in two new mountain lions they stepped up and raised $53,655 to build them a proper home. 

Check out the campaign here

 

10. Help PetRescue Fix the Pound – $63,347

PetRescue partner with over 750 animal rescue groups and shelters all over Australia – helping them to re-home hundreds of thousands of unwanted, lost or abandoned pets each year. This campaign – which raised $63,347 – helped them to reach out and partner with more Council-run pounds, only 1% of whom were using PetRescue’s free rehoming services at the time, and where, sadly, the majority of unwanted animals are still put down.  

Check out the campaign here

 

But wait, there’s more!

If you’d like to check out all of the Animal campaigns we’ve hosted on Chuffed.org, you can search them all at our Discover page. 

*Campaigns on Chuffed.org raise money in their local currency. This list is ordered by campaign size in Australian dollars. 

The Top 5 Environment Crowdfunding Campaigns

At Chuffed.org, we are privileged to see amazing campaigns launch every day. Our favourite thing is when campaigns take off to raise bucket loads for their cause or blitz through their fundraising targets.

Here are the Top 5 Environment Crowdfunding Campaigns – the ones that have raised the most money for their awesome projects and initiatives. 

 

1. Save Australia’s Heritage from Industrial Pollution – $86,300

In late 2017, the Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA) raised a massive $86,300 to protect the world’s largest collection of rock art on the Burrup Peninsula in the Murujuja National Park.

The money raised will be used to independently monitor the effects of  nearby natural gas, iron ore and ammonium fertiliser and explosives industries on the ancient art and put hard evidence behind protection lobbying efforts.

Check out the campaign page here.

 

2. Help EDO Qld fight for a safer climate – $74,489

The Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland has run almost a dozen giving campaigns on Chuffed.org and has achieved some amazing wins with 5 of them reaching our list of top grossing environmental campaigns! The second highest grossing of them, this appeal raised $74,489

The EDO’s campaigns help them continue their important work helping ordinary folk stand up for the natural environment, advocating for stronger laws to protect nature and running legal challenges in Australia’s court system to hold industry and government to account. 

Check out the campaign here

 

3. Help EDO Qld fight climate change in court – right now! – $70,827

Another of the Queensland Environmental Defenders Office‘s regular campaigns to protect the state’s natural assets – this one saw $70,827 raised to support their climate change litigation.  

Check out the campaign here

 

4. Together we can reshape Queensland’s environmental laws – $70,248

The fourth in their set of campaigns on Chuffed.org, this Environmental Defenders Office campaign raised $70,248 for stronger legal protection of iconic places like the Great Barrier Reef and the Cape York Peninsula. 

Check out the campaign here

 

5. Save the Mapleton Acadian Forest Trail from Clearcutting – $48,546

Not far from Montreal in Canada there is a forest of hemlocks, spruce, birch and beech that Quebec’s Elgin Eco Association raised $48,546 to protect in 2016.

Thanks to their work, the 65 hectare Mapleton Acadian Forest Trail Nature Preserve is now protected in perpetuity in partnership with the Nature Trust of New Brunswick and contains a 3 km nature trail with interpretive signs, footbridges, an observation platform, and a traditional sugar shack for nature lovers to enjoy. 

Check out the campaign here

But wait, there’s more!

Environmental protection campaigns on Chuffed.org consistently raise large sums of money. Here are the next five top earning environmental campaigns:

6.   350.org Australia raised $44,366 with their campaign:  EthicalJobs.com.au wants to match your donation to #StopAdani 

7.   The Conservation Council of Western Australia raised $43,705 with their campaign: Supreme Court Action to stop Yeelirrie uranium mine 

8.   The Environmental Defenders Office Queensland raised $42,834 with their campaign: Help EDO Qld keep fighting for your future

9.   Climate for Change raised $41,754 with their campaign: Climate for Change Crowdfunder

10.   Environment Tasmania raised $41,635 with their campaign: Help keep Tasmania Truly, Deeply Wild

 

If you’d like to check out all of the Environment campaigns we’ve hosted on Chuffed.org, you can search them all at our Discover page. 

*Campaigns on Chuffed.org raise money in their local currency. This list is ordered by campaign size in Australian dollars. 

How to Run a Campaign so Successful You Hit Two Stretch Goals

Case Study Campaign Artwork

Do you wish you could share your passion with the world?

That’s exactly how Nat Panzarino and Fer Wicker felt. Both knew the struggles of greyhounds, and wanted to spread the message they lived out by volunteering for local greyhound rescue.

To do so, they decided to collaborate on a children’s book called Pointy Pembleton—written by Nat and illustrated by Fer—raising awareness about greyhounds in an appealing way. They’d also donate a portion of the book’s sales to greyhound rescue.

Their campaign required $15,000 to get the book to market, and it took off quickly. Once they noticed the success, Nat and Fer extended the goal to $20,000—then met it. They set a stretch goal of $25,000—and met it as well.

By the end of the campaign, they had raised $28,871 for the Pointy Pembleton campaign—almost twice as much as their original target.

Pointy Pembleton Campaign Page

But of course, the magic was behind the scenes.

Nat and Fer used three specific techniques to garner interest in the project and draw support.

Let’s jump in!

Tactic 1: Use videos to engage supporters

Throughout the entire campaign, Nat and Fer used videos to inform and rally supporters. The videos were vital to the campaign’s success, and really made it stand apart and develop relationships with readers.

To succeed with this medium, Nat and Fer followed a few principles.

  1. They kept the videos positive and encouraging. Instead of including startling images of abused dogs, they chose to tell the story through uplifting stories of rescued greyhounds and Fer’s illustrations from the book. In the videos, they specifically asked people to share the project with friends to help the dogs.
  2. They provided plenty of background information. To Nat and Fer’s surprise, they learned that many people didn’t know the background of abandoned greyhounds. The campaign explained everything in simple, concise language. “You don’t want to leave people with questions at the end,” Nat says, “so you want to try and answer all of their questions right there.”
  3. They made the videos personal and informal. While the main promotional videos have a high production value, most of the videos Nat and Fer created for the campaign were casual, smartphone-filmed snippets of them and their dogs. Nat calls the videos she posted on Facebook groups “overly cheesy,” and some of the more popular video showed them working behind the scenes.

Tactic 2: Consistent communication

Nat and Fer were strategic with how they communicated to supporters, and it paid off big time.

Here’s how they succeeded.

  1. They chose channels that already worked for them. Nat knew that Twitter wasn’t a strength for her and wasn’t as popular in Australia, so she focused just on Facebook and Instagram. A month before the launch, Nat and Fer created a Facebook page for Pointy Pembleton, and focused most of the promotion there.
  2. They posted regularly. They posted a minimum of one time per day on Facebook and Instagram. But these weren’t all just requests for support—they gave behind-the-scenes detail and entertained followers with humorous and interesting videos.
  3. They reached out to influencers. Every day, Nat spent about an hour messaging and posting to Facebook groups and pages to related organisations in the dog rescue and children’s book spaces. Only about one out of every 100 influencers responded, but those that did shared it themselves or encouraged her to promote to their followers.

You can check out all of their Facebook posts and videos here:

Pointy Pembleton Facebook Page

Tactic 3: Leverage your connections

One of the biggest factors leading to the success of the campaign was the large body of support Nat and Fer had before beginning.

Here are a few of the ways they rallied support with those who had already expressed interest before the campaign.

  1. Enlisted volunteers to help. They already had 100 volunteer connections, and weren’t afraid to leverage them to join the cause. These volunteers helped spread the word and helped with some of the manual labor required to get the campaign going.
  2. They used their follower’s content in their campaign. Nat created a guide for other to create their own videos for the campaign, and included those videos in the promotion. This built up a community and encouraged others to participate.
  3. They encouraged existing followers to join the cause. Nat and Fer chose to not be shy about their request from support with their followers. After launching their Facebook page, they encouraged their existing 20,000 social media followers on the Greyhound Rescue page to like Pointy Pembleton. Nat also personally messaged her friends asking them to share the campaign.
  4. They didn’t underestimate the funding of their existing supporters. Instead of expecting funding to come exclusively from others new to the campaign, Nat and Fer reached out to those who had closer ties to the campaign in the same way as those new to it—and it paid off! The biggest donor was an existing volunteer, and the second-biggest donor was Nat’s father-in-law.

Volunteer Video

Lessons learned…

Along the way, Nat and Fer also learned a number of strategies they weren’t expecting.

  1. You don’t need experience to succeed at crowdfunding. Despite being brand-new to the crowdfunding space, Nat carefully studied the Chuffed.org campaign strategy videos. “I probably watched them like a half a dozen times,” Nat says.
  2. Build as large a team as you can. Even with the sizeable number of volunteers helping them, Nat and Fer would have built an even bigger team in hindsight. Once the campaign started, they could have used even more volunteers to manage the huge volume of communications.
  3. Promote to influencers early. Most of the bloggers and influencers Nat emailed didn’t get back to her for 2-3 weeks. “If I had to do it all over again,” Nat says, “I should have started attacking sooner and got them kind of on board before we wanted to launch.”

Nat and Fer learned a lot in the campaign process, and inspired countless others to their cause of helping rescue greyhounds.

With a strategic use of video, powerful communication, and an effective use of their connection, Nat and Fer led a project that surpassed all expectations.


Start your campaign on Chuffed.org today. We provide free mentoring and support for anyone looking to crowdfund a social cause project.

Pointy Pembleton is now available for pre-order. Head to their website for more information.