Fundraising platforms are a subset of crowdfunding where the payoff is in some type of reward, such as early access to a product or service, insider information, meet-and-greets, educational experiences, or swag. We can help you find the best site for your fundraising campaign.
Choosing the Best Fundraising Platforms
There are many possibilities for entrepreneurs as far as fundraising platforms. To choose among them, you might want to decide your criteria regarding what you’re willing to give away and which sites seem to match proposals like yours. Here are four ways to narrow your choices of fundraising platforms
Fundraising Platforms by Niche
What is your niche? Look for a fundraising platform that attracts the most business in that niche. Many of the larger sites cover many niches, but sometimes you can tell which ones they do particularly well on. For example, suppose your project is arts-based, such as raising or investing money to produce a play or musical or buying supplies as a painter. In that case, you’ll find that some fundraising platforms do particularly well in this business.
Do you want a small niche-based rewards-based crowdfunding website or a larger one covering many niches, including yours? The difference here is if you wish to attract the attention of investors who may not have set out to fund a project like yours but could potentially be interested or if you want to start being surrounded by investors interested in your niche.
Fundraising Platforms by Guidance
How much will you need support and education as an investor, entrepreneur/artist? If you’d prefer a site that gives a lot of guidance or is at least well-known for providing excellent customer service, you might look for that attribute as you search for the best platform. The more advice and education you need, the more it may cost to list your project there, and you have to decide whether that will be worthwhile.
Best crowdfunding sites and cost
What are the fees and other costs? While there may not be considerable differences in the fees or percentages taken, this can still provide a tiebreaker if you choose among several rewards-based crowdfunding websites. Similarly, you may want to see how much it costs to get “featured” by the site or get increased notice.
Best sites’ by Types of rewards
Finally, you may want a more extensive and well-rounded website if you think you might end up moving to a different type of crowdfunding – maybe you are starting with a rewards-based pitch but might eventually move to an equity-based offer or a peer-to-peer loan. As an investor, you might choose a site like this to keep all your investment options open.
Best Fundraising Platforms by Type
The following are some of the best crowdfunding sites for rewards by major niche.
Best crowdfunding sites for schools
The best school crowdfunding sites charge low fees, attract investors who want to give to an educational cause, and are reasonably easy to use. Usually, school systems do not have the resources to put a lot of time and effort into their pitch, and often they want to design something they can send out to their current constituents. The best crowdfunding sites for schools are often white-label – not connected to a more significant site at all, but rather something that can be built as a stand-alone, and the school can send people to it. Search engine optimization, for example, may take a back seat.
Best crowdfunding sites for writers and artists
The best crowdfunding sites for writers and artists allow for expressing the person’s talent so potential investors can see what they might be contributing. Often a larger site that offers many different possibilities which can be attractive to investors is a good choice. And an easy way to communicate back and forth is often desired. In some cases, artists are doing something similar to schools in that they are sharing information with their networks already, and in those cases, SEO is not as important. Still, in other cases, the hope is that the ask attracts people unknown to the artist.
Best crowdfunding sites personal
The best crowdfunding sites for personal projects allow you to fully express your need and attract people who share your mission or are intrigued by it. Again these may be sites where you are merely telling your network and others where you are trying to attract visitors you don’t know.
Conclusions and Our Work with Personal Crowdfunding
Note that we do not list the best crowdfunding sites for business, whether start-ups or established companies, given that usually these opportunities involve some equity. Even the ones that will not be equity-based are on our best crowdfunding websites page.
Again, the above list is not comprehensive, and other best crowdfunding sites exist. It is designed to help you see the range of choices with strong examples of each possibility for the best fundraising platforms for your purpose.
