GoFundMe is one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms of all time. And people use it widely and frequently when it comes to fundraising activities or charitable donations. But believe it or not, one of the most frequently asked questions is what are the GoFundMe alternatives available for crowdfunding. And in this blog, your questions will be answered thoroughly with much-researched data.
In General –
In order to get to the GoFundMe alternatives, we must understand the basic information about the companies. Crowdfunding is a way of raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, and this is usually done online. Rather than relying on a contribution from a very small group of wealthy sponsors or institutions, successful crowdfunders take advantage of the power of multiple small donors. Let’s dive into the basics of these crowdfunding platforms to know more about them.
1. GoFundMe – GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that focuses on personal crowdfunding. The company is a crowdfunding platform that enables people to raise money for various events, such as graduations and life-changing occasions. From 2010 to 2020, more than $9 billion has been raised through the platform. The company was founded by Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse. Both men previously founded Paygr. GoFundMe is unique to crowdfunding in that they are not an incentive-based crowdfunding website. Although it does allow projects that are meant to fund other projects for musicians, inventors, etc., the business model is set up to allow for donations to personal causes and life events such as medical bills.
2. WhyDonate – WhyDonate is one of Europe’s leading fundraising websites that allows both individuals and organizations to start fundraising through its website. This GoFundMe alternative platform is reliable and super easy to use. More importantly, it will barely cost you anything to get started, whereas the results will be pretty satisfying. WhyDonate was founded by Niels Corver and Daniel Boham in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 2012. The company only focuses on the growth of its crowdfunding efforts. The reason why WhyDonate is one of the best crowdfunding platforms and the best GoFundMe alternative is because it is super easy, simple and reliable for its users.
3. Doneeractie – Doneeractie is another Netherlands based crowdfunding platform that provides its services to both individuals as well as organisations. The company offers its services on a No Cure No Pay basis. It has made its donation process easy and transparent as possible for everyone to collect money online for their cause.
Similarities –
The best part about all these crowdfunding platforms is that they all cater to individual needs as well as organisations. Anyone can register and create their own fundraiser. Even for donors, they do not need to get into complications while donating to a registered charity.
- Registration – All three crowdfunding platforms allow the donors to donate without spending time in registration. Donors don’t need to register their data into the websites in order to donate to a cause.
- Anonymity – All three websites have the option to donate anonymously to a cause if the donor does not wish to reveal their identity.
- Donor Cost – There will be no additional costs apart from the donation amount selected by the donors that are charged by these crowdfunding platforms. There will be no other deductions apart from the chosen amount.
- Target Donation – It doesn’t matter if the fundraisers reach their targeted amount of donation, all three crowdfunding platforms allow their users to keep their acquired donations.
- Global Audience – Both GoFundMe and WhyDonate can be accessible from multiple countries.
- Fundraising Cause – Anyone can start fundraising via all three platforms by choosing their cause. Users can choose any cause that is important to them through these three crowdfunding platforms.
- Mobile-friendly – All three companies have made their websites mobile device friendly so that the users can start crowdfunding whenever and wherever they want.
- Customer Service – The users can experience great customer service from all three companies. Along with their great crowdfunding services, they all have amazing customer support systems to assist their users whenever they require help.
- Personalization – GoFundMe and GoFundMe alternatives WhyDonate and Doneeractie offer their users options to personalize their fundraisers according to their choice for an amazing experience.
- Transparency – There is a reason all three companies are popular because they are transparent about their procedures and they all are reliable crowdfunding platforms for fundraising activities.
Differences –
The basic purpose of these crowdfunding websites is to give individuals a platform to fundraise for their personal needs or any cause in general. Even if they all are great in their own way while being different from each other.
- Cost – While WhyDonate and GoFundMe have a 0% platform fee,Donate charges 7.3% of the platform fee. There are other charges that users have to pay while using the platforms. For WhyDonate, there are payment provider charges (1.9% + €0.25 , for GoFundMe there are transaction charges ( 2.9% + €0.25) , and Donation charges a transaction cost ( €1.03) for its donations.
- Dashboard – All three websites are pretty easy to use but WhyDonate has a more organized dashboard to guide its users.
- Target Audience – While GoFundMe caters to American users and WhyDonate and Doneeractie offer their services to European Union countries, they all are global platforms.
- Products – Among all three, WhyDonate offers great products like the digital collectin box for the fundraisers to receive hassle-free donations through the product. Users can also generate QR codes for their respective linked fundraisers for a great experience.
- Connected Fundraiser – Only through WhyDonate users can start another fundraiser connecting to their existing fundraiser. This makes WhyDonate a better GoFundMe alternative.
- Donation Plugin – Among all three websites, only WhyDonate offers its users the WhyDonate WordPress donation plugin for better crowdfunding experience. This button helps the users to access the embed fundraiser donation forms and widgets on their own website. The widgets and forms are connected to the fundraisers on Whydonate. Users can download the plugin from the ‘Plugin’ directory or straight away from the plugin page on WordPress.
Conclusion –
Crowdfunding is a place where users find day-to-day causes that are emotional and moving. The above mentions crowdfunding platforms are unique in their own way. They all cater to different audiences and have many success stories in their bucket. GoFundMe was previously popular and WhyDonate is one of the best GoFundMe alternatives while followed by Doneeractie on the list. Users can use all three crowdfunding platforms to achieve their fundraising goal and donate to their preferred charity whenever they like.