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The best online fundraising platforms for charities
09 Nov 2024by Ioan Marc Jones
We list some of the best free and cheap online fundraising platforms for charities
Click to download our fundraising platform price comparison list.
There has been an explosion in the number of dedicated online fundraising platforms for fundraising, letting charities and their supporters quickly and effectively raise funds. 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 more than £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.
There are plenty of other platforms on the market, all of which offer different functionalities at different prices. The important thing for charities is to do the research and pick the best option for them. We hope the below helps.
We’ve purposely included some lesser-known platforms to give a broader view of the online fundraising landscape. The alternative 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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CAF Donate
Built by the registered charity, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), CAF Donate is an online fundraising tool helping over 8,000 small-to-medium sized UK charities raise £44m in 2020 alone.
CAF Donate allows you to build online donation forms and buttons which embed into your website, so donors are able to complete their donation without being redirected to a third party platform.
You can also set up regular giving options through direct debit, process donations received over the phone, and through the post, and choose CAF to claim Gift Aid on your behalf.
You’ll first need to sign up for CAF’s free reporting tool, CAF Charity Dashboard, before getting access to in-depth reports about your campaigns, donors and donations.
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 and £1.50 for paper direct debits)
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 3.6%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.05
Crowdfunder
Crowdfunder has raised over £200m for 267,000 projects. The platform has dedicated coaches to help fundraisers maximise the money they raise, and zero platform fees to charities. Gift aid is included as standard, so charities can receive a top up of up to 25% of their totals.
Fundraisers and charities can offer rewards to encourage donations and access a range of match-funding opportunities through Crowdfunder’s network of trusts and public bodies.
Crowdfunder’s charity credentials have blossomed in the past year as they strive to support organisations of all types working to help the world recover post-pandemic. This includes their VaccinAid partnership with UNICEF UK to deliver COVID-19 vaccines globally, and their upcoming partnership Nectar Donate, which will let Nectar customers spend their points with charities for the first time.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1.9% plus 23p + VAT per transaction
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None.
Total to Charity: £12.00
DONATE™
Registered charity National Funding Scheme, operating under the public-facing DONATE™ brand, provides a range of mobile and contactless fundraising tools for charitable organisations to maximise their fundraising.
Launched in 2013, DONATE™ is an integrated platform that provides convenient and effortless individual giving via SMS text, contactless and mobile web. Services also include a text-raffle and full charity auction capability. Its simplicity has delivered case studies demonstrating increases of 17x amounts raised.
The DONATE™ platform offers key benefits for charities, including real-time integrated reporting across text/web/contactless, case studies, fundraising advice and PR support, regular payments of donated funds to charities and much more.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 4.5%
Gift Aid: If applicable
Service Fee: None
Total To Charity: £9.55
Donr
Donr is a text giving service that has been built from the ground to support easy fundraising efforts. The platform prides itself on being easy-to-use and no fuss.
The service gives charities the ability to set their own custom keywords, which supporters can text to a short code mobile phone number to make a quick and easy donation.
Users can sign up to Donr in minutes, create their campaign with Donr Dashboard, add their keywords, and start fundraising. It’s as simple as that!
Donr claims that it is the only provider of Text Giving that doesn’t charge for keywords.
What charities get for a £10 text donation:
Processing Fee: None
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 5% of donation amount.
Total to Charity: £12.50
For card donations, donors need to pay an additional processing fee of 1.4% + 20p.
Enthuse
Rather than being its own platform, Enthuse 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.
Enthuse 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. Enthuse 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 Enthuse website.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
For donations product only:
Processing Fee: 0%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 0%
Total to Charity: £12.50
For fundraising and donations products together:
Processing Fee: 0%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 1.9%+20p
Total to Charity: £11.98
Evershare
Evershare is a new platform that arose to meet the demands of contactless payments, ensuring cashless donations. The platform has combined secure open banking technology with the QR scanning platform, offering a QR-enabled donation platform. Donors simply have to scan, enter their details, and donate.
For more information, visit the Evershare website.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 0.5% + 5p
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: Free to £15
Total to Charity: £12.40
Facebook Fundraising
Facebook has recently introduced its Facebook Fundraising option, which allows charities to create a fundraiser and receive donations directly from Facebook, Network for Good, or PayPal Giving Fund.
Charities based in the UK can receive funds either directly from Facebook payments or through PayPal Giving Fund United Kingdom.
All donations are sent to the fundraiser creator’s personal current account through Stripe, Facebook’s fundraising payment processor.
More information on receiving funds can be found on the Facebook Fundraisers Page.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: None
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.50
Funraisin
Funraisin provides an all-in-one advanced whitelabel platform where supporters get fully branded, highly personalised experiences that ensures the highest conversion rates possible.
The platform focusses on advanced marketing and analytics tools combined with a leading marketplace of third-party integrations. Funraisin also offer a simplified user experience from multiple marketing pathways to keep audiences engaged and promote greater fundraising.
Funraisin provides the capabilities that put charities in control of their data and actionable platform insights with automated tools, which achieve the highest conversions in people signing up, fundraising, and donating.
The platform creates beautiful looking giving campaigns with next level digital fundraising websites including: crowdfunders, offline events, virtual events, peer-to-peer events, matched giving appeals, corporate giving portals, community fundraising hubs, DIY fundraising sites, and more.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: Stripe NFP rates
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 0% to charities and optional 6% to donor
Total to Charity: £12.50
GivenGain
GivenGain are a unique fundraising platform as they’re a not-for-profit themselves.
Subscription-free with leading features like split charity donation pages and live fundraiser/donor interaction, they enable charities to receive donations in multiple currencies, wherever they are in the world.
GivenGain take a 5% donation fee, which donors can opt to cover (98% do, according to GivenGain). This is the only fee they take which is used to cover their costs, improve the platform and donate back to the causes they support.
The platform charges no additional fees which extends to white label and custom requests. They provide 1-1 personal fundraising support, including free event sponsorship consultancy, corporate introductions, and more. GivenGain supports charities in 102 countries and has partnered with the Boston Marathon, WWF, and UNICEF among thousands more.
More information can be found here.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 2.9% + 20p
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 5% (though GG say 98% of donors cover it)
Subscription fees: None (for all packages)
Total to Charity: £12.00
Give as you Live Donate
Give as you Live Donate are an innovative fundraising platform that has raised more than £15 million in funds and has worked with big-name charities, such as the RSPCA, RLNI, Tearfund, Samaritans, and others.
The platform prides itself on supporting charities every step of the way.
Give as you Live Donate includes a free reporting system to see who is raising funds for you, easy to claim Gift Aid with a one-click report, a marketing toolkit, charity branded pages plus bespoke campaign pages, fully customisable donate button, and so much more. New charities joining Give as you Live Donate can benefit from 0% fees until 18th February 2022.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 2.9%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 1.9%
Total to Charity: £12.50
givestar
A new entrant to the list, givestar is one of the more innovative fundraising platforms in the sector, with a strong focus on engaging the next generation of fundraisers and donors. givestar combines cutting-edge technology with user-friendly features to help charities and fundraisers maximise their impact.
One standout feature is its built-in Boost Donate (tap-to-pay) feature, available on the free givestar app, enabling any fundraiser to collect contactless donations on their phone - without requiring a card machine.
Fundraisers can set up a page in under 60 seconds and collect donations both online and in-person, making givestar a great choice for grass roots fundraising, digital campaigns and events.
Both small and large charities (like Guide Dogs and CRUK) have found success using this approach, with fundraisers raising up to 50% more. All of the 200,000 charities available on givestar (across the UK, US, Canada, and Europe) are eligible for a free real-time data dashboard and free support, with no monthly subscription fees.
givestar has already made a mark as the official fundraising platform for high-profile events like Tough Mudder and RunThrough.
As a registered B-Corp, givestar runs an AllStars grant scheme that supports individual fundraisers to start unique challenges. Previous winners include the “Hardest Geezer”, who famously ran the entire continent of Africa.
For more information, visit the givestar website.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1.9% + 20p
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: Up to £12.11
There is no monthly subscription fee.
GiveWP
GiveWP is a Wordpress fundraising plugin that allows you to accept donations through your charity’s 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: None
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.50
Givey
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 from Givey’s data
Service Fee: None
Total To Charity: £12.50
GlobalGiving
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
GoFundMe
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: 1.9% + £0.20 per donation
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total To Charity: £12.06
Good Thyngs
Good Thyngs is a cashless donation and engagement platform that allows you to create, manage, and track online, in-person, and virtual campaigns, without the need for card terminals or any digital skills.
You can collect cashless donations (with Gift Aid data) and much more using easily editable templates. For example, you could create a collectable trail, instant raffle, or selfie filter, and collect marketing opt-in or feedback on the go.
Everything you create generates a URL link and QR code, meaning you can reach your audiences wherever they are – and quickly, too. You can print QR codes onto anything, like posters and stickers, newsletters, and programmes.
The simple technology means that physical objects like collection buckets, medals, leaflets, and wristbands can fundraise for you, with donations crediting you immediately, even if you can’t be there in-person.
They can be captivating when used online too (in conjunction with a URL link), such as on social media posts, website banners, and emails. Good Thyngs aims to help you reach your fundraising goals with optimised donor journeys and supporter insight.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: Varies depending on processor
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: 2.5%
Total to Charity: £12.25 (minus processor fees)
InstaGiv
Founded in 2009, InstaGiv provides customers with the ability to collect one off SMS donations, monthly gifts, bulk fundraiser codes for SMS giving, competitions with an optional donation, free response keywords with no donation attached, and address capture. InstaGiv also have a built-in outbound SMS tool that can provide two-way comms.
InstaGiv offers four options for outbound SMS: charities can receive donations, receive regular giving sign-ups, capture supporter addresses, and receive responses.
InstaGiv have all of the additional tools and features to help charities enhance, monitor, and analyse their fundraising efforts, such as: channels for tracking, Gift Aid, scheduling features for call centre integration, additional response SMS for automated journeys, a fully compliant consent feature, sub-keywords, mobile history and an in-depth real time reporting function, to name a few.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 5%
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.40
JustGiving
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
KindLink
KindLink has worked with more than 2000 charities, including Prostrate Cancer UK, Age UK, and Mind. The platform is free to use for charities and their supporters. It does not charge a commission for online donations and pass 100% of the funds raised to charities.
KindLink keeps investing in improving and supporting the non-profit platform in order to help charities become more efficient and transparent.
The KindLink platform is embeddable on your charity website, allows payment processing for events, has automated gift aid integration, offers supporter and beneficiary CRM and strong donor engagement options, and several other functionalities.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1.45% +14p
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.21
Localgiving
Localgiving is a fundraising platform for charities, community groups, and non-profit companies. Organisations can receive one-time and monthly donations, raise funds for an unlimited number of projects and deliver crowdfunding campaigns. Individuals have the ability to set up fundraising pages for their favourite organisations.
It provides its members with small grants, regular match funds, fundraising competitions, free training opportunities and expert fundraising support. In 2020, Localgiving has provided over £2 million in extra funding for its members through grant programmes and match funding campaigns.
Membership fee: £80+VAT per year
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1% plus 16p for debit cards
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.11
The Big Give
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, Stripe.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing Fee: 1.9% + 20p
Gift Aid: Yes (4% fee)
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: £12.01
The Good Exchange
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
TheGivingMachine
TheGivingMachine is a charity supporting any UK- based good cause, no matter how big or small. The platform has worked with more than 10,000 charities, raising nearly £2 million. The platform has worked with, among others, Mind, The British Heart Foundation, Macmillan Cancer Support, and Prostate Cancer.
The platforms provide a range of fundraising options, including Donate Now, Shop&Give, and Giving Lottery. Each option aims to support good causes, their supporters, and caring businesses to raise money and make the world a better place.
What charities get for a £10 donation:
Processing fee: 2% + 22p charged per transaction
Gift Aid: Yes
Service fee: None
Total to Charity: £9.58
Total Giving
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: 1.3% + 20p
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total to Charity: up to £12.50
Wonderful
Another cost-effective alternative, the Wonderful Organisation re-launched in March 2021. The platform remains completely fee-free for charities, donors, and fundraisers.
Crucially, they use Pay by Bank technology for all donations. That means the tech is simple, fast, and secure. And, importantly, it offers huge cost-saving efficiency, with corporate sponsors of 90% for a typical donation and, since the processing cost is flat-fee, much greater savings for larger donations.
What charities get for a £10 donation.
Processing Fee: None
Gift Aid: Yes
Service Fee: None
Total To Charity: £12.50
Related Files
Fundraising platform price comparison chart.pdfPDF, 610 KB
Ioan Marc Jones
Ioan Marc Jones
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