Crowdfunding: It’s Just Fundraising, Right?

• Crowdfunding sites attract people — i.e., the crowd — who go there with the intention of finding projects they can help fund. Is your website ubiquitous enough to attract a sizeable crowd?
• Specialist crowdfunding sites have social-media integration built in. It's a crucial part of spreading the word, so your own website would need to have that too.
• Crowdfunding sites charge a fee — typically around 5 percent of the money raised (only if fully funded), plus the transaction processing fee, up to another 3 percent to 5 percent. Hosting your own project funding site would save the former.
• Data ownership — with a crowdfunding site you do not own the data. With your own site (subject to privacy and data protection policies), you could own and integrate the funder data into your donor database.

Robin Fisk is global fundraising product manager at ASI Europe.