The best online fundraising platforms for charities
We list some of the best free and cheap online fundraising platforms for charities.
This piece has been updated as of 20/04/2020
There has been an explosion in the number of dedicated online fundraising platforms for fundraising, letting charities and their supporters quickly and effectively raise money. But not all of them are free to use, or as cost effective for charities. JustGiving was one of the first online fundraising platforms, having collected over £4 billion for charities since its launch in 2001.
As of March 2019, the company waived its 5% platform fee in favour of donors making a voluntary contribution in support of the platform’s operations.
The other go-to platform, Virgin Money Giving, has helped 18,000 UK charities and 890,000 fundraisers raise more than £685 million online. However it charges a £150 fee to register.
We’ve purposely included some of the lesser-known platforms that charities may not know about, to give a broader view on the online fundraising landscape. These alternatives platforms often have different donation models, are aimed at different types of fundraising and often take a much smaller cut from donations and do not charge a subscription fee.
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As mentioned, Just Giving was one of the first platforms for fundraising online and remains one of the largest. It currently has 22 million users worldwide.
UK charities pay a monthly subscription fee of £15 + VAT or £39 + VAT. Fees vary depending on country, but below reflects the UK charges.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1.9% + 20p
Gift Aid: Yes (5% charge)
Service Fee: none
Total to Charity: £12.11
Virgin Money Giving is a non-profit platform created by Virgin Money to help charities raise more money online. So far, they have helped 18,000 UK charities and 890,000 fundraisers to raise more than £685 Million. The Virgin platform offers 5 key benefits for charities:
- A full event fundraising service
- Promotions and marketing activity
- Weekly payment of donated funds to charities
- Reports and fundraising data
- Help desk service and account management
There is a one-off membership fee of £150.00, as well as a 2.5% processing fee, and a 2% processing fee.
However, as of September 2019, they allow donors to cover 100% of charity fees. They claim that around 80% of donors take this option.
Membership fee: £150 + VAT one-off
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 2.5%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 2%
Total To Charity: £12.05
GoFundMe has partnered with PayPal Giving Fund to deliver funds. Donations are processed by PayPal and GoFundMe before being sent to the PayPal Giving Fund – a non-profit organisation which collects and distributes them to the chosen charity. All charities registered with the Charity Commission in the UK are listed in GoFundMe’s charity directory and funds are passed automatically to the charity by PayPal Giving Fund.
Since starting in 2010, GoFundMe has raised over $5 Billion benefiting over 2 Million individual giving campaigns.
Unlike many competitors, 100% of Gift Aid goes to the charity. In November 2017, GoFundMe announced that it was no longer charging a 5% fee per donation for US, Canada, and UK individual campaigns, and instead rely upon tips left by donors to support the website. Many other platforms have since followed GoFundMe’s example and dropped these fees.
The platform offers smaller teams the opportunity to set up fundraising campaigns quickly and easily. The GoFundMe free-to-use charity fundraising platform has recently been launched, with ‘donate anywhere’ button integration for ease of payment, which could well see the platform offer even greater benefits to charities in the future.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 2.9% + 25p per transaction
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total To Charity: £11.96
Givey is a fundraising platform that exclusively focuses on smaller charities, with a focus on social giving. It lets supporters donate to UK-based charities through social media such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Vimeo.
Smaller charities make up 95% of the sector. Yet 90% of donations go to larger charities. This platform seeks to level the playing field, by helping smaller organisations to reach a like-minded supporter base.
The platform is joint-best for money given to charities, with a £10.00 donation (with Gift Aid) raising £2.50 for charity. Businesses can run match-funding schemes where they can match each employee donation up to double the amount raised, and the platform offers free marketing support for charities.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: None
Gift Aid: Charities can claim it themselves from Givey’s data
Service Fee: None
Total To Charity: £12.50
Global Giving is a non-profit organisation that allows people to build free fundraising webpages, as well as connecting charity projects with corporate fundraising opportunities and CSR initiatives. The platform provides corporate and match-funding opportunities, plus training, support and tools for charities.
In 17 years, the platform has raised over $421 Million for over 24, 000 projects. The community is free to join, with no application or subscription fees. Instead, they retain a 5-12% non-profit support fee on donations, plus a 3% processing and transaction fee. This means that a donation of £10 (with Gift Aid) would raise £11.25 for charity.
Global Giving do make a commitment to raise more money than they take in fees from your organisation. For every $1 that goes to Global Giving in fees, they raise an average of $2 for your cause through matching funds, corporate partner donations, bonus rewards, marketing efforts and gift cards.
Membership fee: None
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 3%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 5-7%
Total to Charity: £11.25
The Good Exchange is a non-profit bringing projects requiring funding to those with grants to give via transparent automated matching with corporate foundations, businesses and individuals. Each project can also receive public donations.
Charities complete a single online form: outlining details of the project. Once submitted and approved, the campaign is published on the platform, and the giving begins. Live projects will be shortlisted for funding and automatically matched with organisations based on their specific grant-giving criteria.
Over 1,500 charities are registered with the platform, which has raised a total of £11,904,041 for charitable causes.
As of 1st October 2019, The Good Exchange has now removed fees for donors and funders –read more in our news story here.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: None
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity £12.50
Localgiving is a fundraising platform aimed specifically at local charities, with the ability for fundraisers to set up their own pages, and for local charities to engage businesses for funding partnerships.
It provides its members with regular match funds, fundraising competitions, free training opportunities, expert fundraising support and a small grants programme. Localgiving also says it actively advocates for the needs of the local voluntary sector through its report and work with sector infrastructure bodies.
The platform offers a small grant-giving programme called ‘Magic Little Grants’, which has raised almost £300, 000 for community groups, encouraging folks to be physically active.
Membership fee: £96 per year
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1% plus 10p for debit cards
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 5%
Total to Charity: £11.67
Built by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), With CAF Donate you can create online donation forms and buttons and easily add them to your website, emails and Facebook pages. You’ll first need to sign up for CAF’s reporting tool, CAF Charity Dashboard, but then you get access to in-depth reports about your campaigns, donors and donations.
More than 5,000 (mainly small-to-medium) charities use CAF Donate to fundraise and process donations. In 2018 alone they raised over £27 Million for UK charities.
They offer a slightly-different fee structure to other platforms, with no monthly charges. Instead, they levy a staggered donation fee depending on the type of donation.
The 3.6% processing fee is for one-off donations only. The processing fee is reduced to 2% for regular donations (plus £1 set-up fee for each new direct debit)
Membership fee: None
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 3.6%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.14
Rather than being its own platform, Charity Checkout allows charities to run their own fundraising platform on their website, and set up branded fundraising pages with their own custom branding.
It lets charities set up branded fundraising pages through a range of paid-for packages, allowing charities to have a more direct relationship with their supporters, which the company says significantly increases the donations charities receive.
Charity Checkout charges some extra fees for access to its online fundraising technology, which vary according to whether you are setting up a hosted website or integrating donations with your existing website. Donors have the option to cover some of the transaction fee. the platform allows charities to set up customisable fundraising pages through a range of paid-for packages. Tools and features vary between Premium and Enterprise price options. At a minimum, Charity Checkout gives charities complete branding autonomy for their fundraising pages, as well as bespoke data management, event fundraising management, customised corporate fundraising and an inter-connected community fundraising portal.
For a full list of fees, visit the Charity Checkout website.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 0%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 0.5% + 20p
Total to Charity: £12.13
Founded in 2007, Everyday Hero helps charities around the world and so far, 5,689 have benefited from the Blackbaud-backed platform. Used by charities such as Oxfam or British Heart Foundation, Everyday Hero is more than just a fundraising platform as supporters can also volunteer to the cause whilst seeing their real time impact via the Giving footprint.
Charities first need to register on the platform for free- there are no membership fees. They can then build their own fully branded fundraising websites. The platform has the option for the donor to pay transaction fees, so the charity will then receive 100% of their selected amount.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 4.25% + credit card fee between 1.6% and 2.8%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: No
Total to Charity: Depends on payment method
Currently, 13,000 charities are registered with Total Giving and use of the platform is completely free to charities that are signed up. It claims no sign ups or ongoing fees and separates itself from some other fundraising platforms by removing the ‘middle man’ aspect. Instead, funds donated through Total giving are sent directly to the charity itself.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: No
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: No
Total to Charity: up to £12.50
The Big Give – Charity Checkout
The Big Give is a match funding platform and have worked with over 10,000 charities in the UK. They help these charities to raise vital funds, develop their skills and build their profiles to accurately reflect their cause and encourage people to give.
They run the UK’s biggest online match funding campaign, The Christmas Challenge. An account is free to set up and there are no monthly charges. Donation fees are processed through their website via their payment processor, Charity Checkout.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1.9% + 20p
Gift Aid: Yes (4% fee)
Service Fee: No
Total to Charity: £12.01
Crowdfunder have helped 80,000 individuals, charities, businesses and community projects to raise over £70 million so far.
Crowdfunder can be used by a variety of people and organisations to raise money for any cause and therefore has varying fees to reflect that. For charities, the platform waives any processing fees, so fundraisers set up for or by charities are free and donors are encouraged to donate extra to cover costs.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: none
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: £3
Total to Charity: £9.50
GiveWP is a Wordpress fundraising plugin that allows you to accept donations through your charities own Wordpress site. Charities are free to design their donation page as they wish and can offer a variety of payment methods. The platform also allows users to keep track of donors, have multiple donation pages for different products and more.
They charge an annual fee for using the platform and offer a variety of packages, starting at $240.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: No
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: No
Total to Charity: £12.50
Chloe Green
Chloe Green
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