in

School fundraising- 3 reasons to work with a fundraising company

The potential of fundraisers in India in the schools is something that is yet to be fully realised, but it is slowly catching up, at least in the schools with the big names. The internet is never a safe space, at least in India. Even the government’s databases containing crucial information regarding the common people are not immune from hacking. Then there is fraud. Also, the people don’t always know how these platforms which facilitate exchange and transfer of money actually work.

 

Keeping all these things in mind, one might want to resort to professional help to utilise the enormous potential of online help. Here are 3 reasons why schools may want to work with a fundraising company for their fundraisers: 

·       Working with a fundraising company makes it much safer. This, of course, depends on the reputation of the company or the platform. Remember that for online fundraising, the reputation most important, considering that school fundraisers often deal with a lot of money, and because the reputation of the school itself is involved. A company can become reputable only when it has conducted safe and efficient campaigns for quite some time for its customers. When you are employing that company, you are bringing in all those qualities to the table.

 

·       Fundraising companies have more contacts. This is another reason the bigger the company the better. Fundraising companies already have an established clientele and sponsors whom they can pitch in in order to make their new fundraising projects successful. In addition, they also have access to numerous channels in order to take care of the other things that are generally employed in new fundraising projects- for example, transacting money through channels that are best suited to the need or the cause, going to the right people for the right services, accessing the right social networks and the know-how to utilise them the best, etc.

 

·       Fundraising companies take a lot of load off your shoulders and help you concentrate on the fundraiser. For fundraising campaigns have to be built from scratch. So, while you may want to create an event, the company may look into the logistics. It would take care of the transaction details, look into the raw materials, etc.

 

Fundraising companies are at the end of the day really important to guide the new age Indian through the up and coming world of digital finances. It is true that companies like India Crowdfunding involve platform charges, but the schools that can afford them should definitely go for a more organised and hassle-free experience.

Crowdfunding platforms

 

Today, crowdfunding has emerged to be a booming business in India. There is a reason for that. While modes of crowdfunding, like equity crowdfunding are not yet allowed, the most popular ones like donation based and reward-based crowdfunding have allowed a lot of people in need with an alternative mode of help as opposed to the traditional ones like bank loans, resorting to help from money lenders, etc. as a result, there are numerous crowdfunding platforms at present in India, often with international connections, which offer a way out of the situation. And not all of them are reliable in terms of the services that they provide, or the legalities. And even among the reputed crowdfunding platforms, not all are equally adept at handling the same situation. So how do we go about choosing the platform that would be the best for us? There is a guide to that.

·         See if your idea is actually fit for crowdfunding.

 

Understand that crowdfunding works by empathy. That is the key to crowdfunding. A potential investor may back your idea only if they can relate to it. Even if you are somebody in the middle of a healthcare emergency, understand that there are thousands of others more like you or maybe even worse than you who demand the attention of a less number of people. So you need to carefully vet the ideas yourself if you want to make anything out of them.

Crowdfunding is about empathy, and also about rewards. This is why rewards-based crowdfunding tends to work best among the startups or small businesses, while peer to peer fundraising goes with the charity events.

 

·         You need to choose a platform that is the best for your niche

As has been already mentioned, not all crowdfunding platforms are able to handle all issues equally well. In fact, many of the crowdfunding platforms don’t even support beyond a particular type of crowdfunding project. While it is only of late that the major crowdfunding platforms are diverging out in terms of the services they offer, since crowdfunding platforms after all closely operate according to public demand trends because that is the modus operandi of crowdfunding platforms, those services often fall short of the demands of a niche group, for example. This is why of late there has been the rise of platforms that cater specifically to say, independent art. Among the major crowdfunding platforms in India, ImpactGuru has emerged to be the most popular for medical emergencies.

·         Check if the crowdfunding platform supports the model that is best suited for your project

As has been already mentioned, crowdfundi9ng works according to different models. Equity crowdfunding, the type of crowdfunding model that is the best suited for small business, is as of yet illegal in India.

But to bypass that, people either go for cash transfers after using the crowdfunding platforms as meeting grounds or go for alternate modes of crowdfunding like donation-based, peer-to-peer, etc. thing is, not all crowdfunding platforms offer all modes of crowdfunding. Because of this, you need to check if the crowdfunding platform you are going to choose offers the model that you need.

·         You need to check on the credentials of the crowdfunding platform.

This is the most important bit actually. There already are many shoddy crowdfunding platforms in existence. While choosing your platform, you need to keep in mind a few important things, like-

i)       The reputation of the platform. This is very important, because if a platform is reputed, that de facto takes care of things like reliability, exposure, and safety.

ii)        The way the transactions are carried out on the platform. You may want to know about things like the donor demographics, the

iii)       The way you can operate on the platform. Would you be able to link your website, post videos, organize events? Many crowdfunding platforms, at least the major ones, are diversifying nowadays. So much so that crowdfunding platforms now even offer people to come and work together. In the United States, many minority communities are benefitting from it. participation is the key to crowdfunding nowadays.

iv)       How the crowdfunding platform takes to sharing. There are many modes of sharing. Social media is not something that crowdfunding can ignore any longer. At the same time, you might need to check the comparative capacity of the crowdfunding platforms.

v)       See how transparent the crowdfunding platform is with you as a client. Donors may want to withhold information. At the same time, the crowdfunding platform might as well want to reveal the kinds of donors it allows, the privacy policies for different parties, etc. most importantly, if you are new at crowdfunding, you may want to check how helpful the support crew at the platform is, and you may even want to do a comparative analysis across platforms.

Keeping all these things in mind, choosing a crowdfunding platform should not be difficult. Remember that it is the crowdfunding platform whose services you would be availing, and not the other way round. So go for that platform which would suit your purpose, after careful consideration.

Report

What do you think?

101 Points
Participant

Written by Utkarsh Sharma

Leave a Reply

GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings

How to rent a Dumpster for your project

Smart Technology for Your Garden