The Best of All Worlds

Today we’d like to discuss a little more about certain issues which arise in traditional fundraising platforms, both online and offline.

Online platforms such as GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and others have been redefining the support industry for years. From individual people to large corporations, they gave causes and charities a way of raising money for projects, products, and services. The crowdfunding model has become huge in certain fields, and many others have found success appealing directly to supporters for investments.

However, there are many constraints built in. To start, the platform fees are enormous. GoFundMe takes 9.25% of funds raised for nonprofit causes. Kickstarter has some of the lowest, and they’re still at 5% of the funds raised, in addition to Amazon Payment transfer fees.

Additionally, there’s no way for businesses and merchants to really partner with these platforms. They can be advertised on a business’s website, or the cause can mention the company’s support on the fundraiser’s page, but that’s really about the extent of it. These kinds of fundraisers would and will benefit greatly from an integrated approach to support from other businesses.

Finally, there is no cryptocurrency support on any of the current popular platforms. This is an increasingly attractive way of doing business online, and it will certainly pave the way for how people exchange money in the future. And of course with cryptocurrency becoming more and more popular and widespread, it is necessary to offer support for it, to continue moving into the future.

Then there are traditional fundraisers. In a way, online fundraisers are the exact opposite. The overhead for offline drives depends on the cause, but they tend to be either very small or very large. A child raising money for a sports team will have relatively little overhead. As a child, I always loved the chocolate bars we sold in school, but, these particular ones are surprisingly some of the worst for overhead ($36 for 30 chocolate bars, sold at $2 per piece!), though remarkably popular. On the other hand, a phone-a-thon for disaster relief is going to need a large amount of money just to run the organization, rent space, and more.

Businesses, by their nature, are built around fundraising. In addition to securing their own funds, many companies of every size partner with and even organize fundraising campaigns. At a medium scale, many products have been branded with a charitable organization’s logo, with a certain amount of profits being set aside for each unit sold. Of course, there are examples of this at every size. The problem here is that only the one cause the business is currently supporting will get the money. If General Mills is partnering with the American Health Association, then buying a box of Honey Nut Cheerios can only go to support that specific cause — regardless of your feelings about it. This isn’t a problem,necessarily, as everyone benefits when there is an organization raising money for heart research. However, there are ways that this can be made better for you as a donor and supporter.

FundCru wants to make raising money even easier and much better by taking the best aspects of all of these fundraising models and incorporating them into a new platform. Online fundraising sites have been reaching all new audiences for the past few years, making donating money easier than ever for supporters, while giving them a wider range of causes to help.

Businesses are a central pillar in our model, and they’re free to support any and all causes they choose by offering special products and services, or discounts on their normal wares. Because the money is going directly to where it’s needed, the overhead is much lower than it would be using similar models and is taken on by the businesses, which profit in other ways. Additionally, it gives businesses a platform to innovate how they market to new audiences while supporting worthy causes. Finally, FundCru supports the cryptocurrency market, with an ICO coming soon.

Raising money for a worthy cause is a good thing. FundCru has looked at how other people have spread kindness in the world and built a platform which combines the best of all worlds.