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A common question GiveSendGo often gets is, “who will donate to my campaign?” and/or, “why am I not getting any donations to my campaign?”  

Bringing awareness to your campaign is the most crucial part in having a successful campaign. While GiveSendGo IS a free Christian crowdfunding site, most likely not just anyone who visits the site is going to be donating to your campaign. 

The best way you can get the word out about your awesome campaign is by sharing it with those you know and the people who are closest to you, such as your friends, family, co-workers, and community. They’re the ones who will come alongside you and donate to your campaign because they know and trust your heart (and therefore, your cause!). 

Social media is a great way to get the word out and raise awareness. On these platforms you can share your campaign with your family, friends, and other people in your circle. Another way you can share is by sending your campaign URL through emails and even through text messages to your family and friends. Also, ask them to share your campaign on their platforms and with the people closest to them! You never know who may see your campaign and want to give! 

But that’s not all! Find social media groups and blogs to also share your campaign with and have them share it too. You can also reach out to local news groups like newspapers and TV stations about what you’re doing through your campaign. You’d be surprised what they’re willing to cover in your area! The more people you can share your campaign with and the more you can get the word out the best chance you will have to propel your campaign forward. More awareness about your campaign typically means more money raised! 

We also have an Army of Givers who donate regularly to campaigns on GiveSendGo! However, there are 1,000+ campaigns for them to choose from, so 99% of the time it’s those in your circle who will give to your campaign. This means you need to share, share, share your campaign as much as possible with your loved ones! 

Here are some more tips on how to get the most out of your campaign! 

• Add an audio message to your campaign page. People want to hear about what you are doing, not just read about it. (Cover all your bases because people receive and process information differently.)
• Post daily on your social media pages (and be intentional with your posts).
• Tag givers on social media platforms to publicly thank the people who are supporting you. Also, give frequent updates on social media and on your campaign dashboard to keep people updated!
  • They’re donating to your cause because they care, meaning they probably want to hear about its progress too!
• The more the better! Crowdfunding works when you reach a crowd. Email, social media, news outlets are all ways to share your campaign. You never know who’s going to want to share your cause. 
• Make sure your campaign description tells a story, not just the facts. Let people know more than just the Who, What, Where and When. Make sure you emphasize the WHY! 
• Ask friends and family to share and pray over your campaign.
• Remember, the worst thing anyone can say is no, so keep getting the word out about your campaign to whoever will listen!

AGAIN, The #1 way for a campaign to be seen is to share it frequently with your social circles by email, text, social media. You can also invite friends and family to help you do that. The more a campaign is shared the more likely it will receive donations. 

For daily encouragement and more tips on how to get the most out of your campaign follow us on all of our social media platforms - Gab, MeWe, Facebook, etc.

And don’t forget to share, share, share your campaign! We love to see people succeed in their goals here at GiveSendGo! 
 

So, you started a crowdfunding campaign. You went through the 3 steps of building your campaign and connecting it to our processor and now have begun to share it.  Did you know you now have a whole dashboard for your campaign that offers options and extras that help you share,customize and track your campaign?  

First login to your GSG dashboard and hover over your campaign. Click on 'Campaign Dashboard' to go to that campaigns dashboard. Once there, you should see a menu of all the different options available to you. Lets go over them: 

You should first see your Weekly reports displayed on the dashboard. How many donors, amount raised, etc.  This is what is shown when the Analytics tab is clicked on.  Above the Analytics tab on the left hand side you can click view campaign to go to your actual campaign url, and above that is your name and an enabled/disable button that you can toggle back and forth to enable and disable your campaign. 

Underneath the Analytics tab is the Audio message. 
You can record a 60 second audio message from any desktop or laptop computer (mobile devices do not have this option to record, but they can listen to a recording)  This audio message will show on your campaign page under the header image with a little play button. You can change this message as often as you would like to give people a personal message or update when they visit your campaign. Its an unique feature to GiveSendGo and can make your campaign connect to even more people. Be creative in using this as people will be drawn back to your campaign if they know it has been updated. 

Next we have the Recipient Details tab. 
Under this tab you will see who was set up as the recipient of the campaign and whether they have connected successfully to our processor. You can also login to the processor from this page if you want to check your balances and payout schedules etc.  At the bottom of this page you will see a place for a secure upload of verification documents. This is not needed often. Only upload a document if you have been in communication with someone from the GSG team they have discussed needing you to upload additional verification. 

The Campaign Edit tab will allow you to edit all the steps you went through when creating your campaign. Your goal amount, your campaign title, header image/ video, campaign story. This tab will open up and will look just like what you saw during set up. 

The Comments tab will show all the comments people have made on your campaign. The encouraging words, prayers and more. We have filters on comments to keep out bad language etc, but please let us know if any ever get by the filter. Only people who have given to your campaign can write a comment. It is not just for public commentary. 

The Coupon code tab is something we are still developing as we are working with processors to try to negotiate lower rates so we can offer those to you or your organization.  

You should really stop by the Custom Thank you tab to edit your thank you that gets sent out to every donor.  A generic thank you email goes out unless you customize the Thank You email in this tab.

The Donation list tab is self explanatory as it give you a list of all the donations that have been given to your campaign. 

Donation Reports is a little different as it gives you the option to view the reports for both donations you have made ( as long as you used your same email address)  and it will show received donations and then in the third tab it  will give the option to Download reports.  There is also a place here to download the email address of the people who have clicked the pray now button and submitted a prayer for your campaign. 

Donation settings lets you customize what shows on your campaign page under recent donations. You can make all your Givers name show as anonymous if you would like, You can turn on/off allowing people the ability to comment when making a donation and the option to just show Giver names and not the donation amounts given.  Default is that anonymous is off, comments are on , and donation amounts are shown. 

You can choose to set an End Date on your campaign on the next tab. That will remove the Give Now button and disable your campaign when that date comes to pass. 

If you want to add more images to your header so it becomes a scrolling header, you would add and remove images under the Gallery Images Tab.

Mailing Address allows you to collect mailing addresses of your Givers. This is set as default to off as people want to give as little information about themselves online . You do not want to discourage givers if they do not want to add a mailing address. But we also understand that you may need to collect addresses so you do have the option of requesting your givers to fill out their address after giving the donation. (We do make it optional even if you request it.) 

Offline Donation is a place to put any donations you have received that has not been processed through your campaign. Maybe someone gave you a check for $200 and you want to make sure it shows in your campaign total. Fill out the Offline Donation tab and it will show on the campaign page.  You can fill as many or as few details. If you put an email address the Giver will get a thank you and a receipt for their gift. 

Private Settings is usually counter intuitive to how crowdfunding works as usually you want every one to find your campaign, but we realize occasionally there may be a private fundraiser that you only want to share with certain people and not the world . You can then turn this on and only people with the link will be able to find the campaign. It wont be seen in searches etc on GSG. 

You can turn off the ability for people to send you prayer messages. Just click Prayer Messages and toggle allowing prayer messages on or off. 

Add Prayer Requests to your campaign page to let people know specific things they can be praying for.  They will show in the prayer request box underneath your campaign story. 

When your campaign has ended or you have reached your goal, visit the Success Story tab to share a testimony of what you were raising fund for and how your fund raising went. We love to hear the stories of how God used you! 

The Teams tab is not yet fully functional, but we are working to figure out the best way to allow you to fundraise as a team! 

The Updates tab allows you to post updates and share them with your friends and followers. Post often to allow Givers to continue to be a part of your story. 

Click Widgets to get a snippet of code to embed on your website or blog to share your campaign there. 

And last but not least, we have the delete tab, just in case you need to delete your campaign for any reason. 

Like I said, we have so many features and options. Now stop just reading about them and go check them out! 


Happy Fundraising!
Shine Brightly! 
 

Many people think "easy money" when they think of crowdfunding. That if they just start a campaign, money will automatically start flowing in, especially if it's for a good cause or for something they’re passionate about. 

If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Yes, there are campaigns that raise thousands of dollars in a matter of hours. Is that typical? No, it’s not. Those are just 1% of the campaigns we hear about. 

Does that make crowdfunding a waste of time? No, and we want to give you some tips to increase the success of your campaigns. 

We at GiveSendGo.com have broken things down into 4 P's: Pray, Plan, Partner and Persevere. 

Pray: As you begin to decide the what, when, where and how much of your campaign, it can be very exciting. It’s easy to plow forward with the excitement of the adventure. 
Make sure you take time to talk to the Lord and ask Him for wisdom, guidance and blessing. He wants to be your Friend and your Partner. Spend time with Him. God will be the best supporter you could have. Ask others to lift up your campaign in prayer as well. 

Plan: Before you even raise your first dollar, a successful campaign takes planning. If you decide within an hour to make a campaign, write a quick story, upload a picture and launch, you will probably not accomplish the results you were hoping for. 
So, as you sit down to PLAN your campaign, ask yourself these questions:

What am I inviting people to invest in?
Why would they want to? 
What results do I hope to see if I raise this money?
If the media was to write a story on me, what headline would capture peoples’ attention?

Then start writing your story. Start with your campaign title. Make it compelling. What will draw people in to hear your story? Then, as you begin to write your story, don’t just give the who, what, when, and where. Make sure you give the why. 

Let people know how their money is going to make a difference. Let them know the impact that they’ll have on someone or something in this world. The more specific you can be about what the funds will be used for, the better. 

Then, ask someone to proofread. Feedback is always important.   

Next, find an image or video. This is important. As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words. You want to be able to convey your story through your image/video. So, pick carefully and do not enable your campaign until you find the image that works best. 

And lastly, decide on a reasonable amount of funds needed to raise in a realistic timeframe. Yes, you might want to raise $100k but that will look like a daunting task to your givers. Pick a goal that you think is within reason for the people you KNOW will give to your campaign (friends, family, etc). 

People want to give to something they feel will get accomplished. Giving $10 to your $100,000 campaign doesn’t seem worth it. You can always change your goal, if needed, during your campaign. 

Partner: Crowdfunding will not work without partners. You need to have friends, family and more who want to partner with you in your endeavor. Before you even launch your campaign, make a list of PARTNERS. Include their email, Facebook, Twitter, phone numbers and any other contact points. Then, when you go live, use this list often to share what’s happening with your campaign. Use all different forms of contact and reach out to people individually. 
As shared earlier, don’t forget to personally invite 10-20 First-Day Givers. Crowds are more likely to follow what they see other people doing. If they notice that you have early, excited Givers, they’ll be more likely to give to you too. 

Don’t stop with only the people you know. Be creative. Use the internet to reach out to others that might be interested in what you’re doing. Use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to find groups, pages and more, of people that are passionate about what you’re doing. Invite them to partner with you.  

Look for media sources that might want to share your story. From Newspapers to radio, blogs, press releases and more, there are lots of avenues to spread the news about your campaign. Do a Google search on key words in your campaign and see what comes up. 

Crowdfunding is all about finding partners that believe in what you are doing and inspiring them to take part in giving and spreading the word.

Persist: Crowdfunding is not for the weak of heart. Posting once a week on Facebook will rarely bring about the outcome you desire. It’s not necessarily because people don’t want to give. Most people are busy and constantly in a state of information overload. Consistently work at getting the attention of potential givers.

People must see your campaign an average of 8 times to decide to give, and need to see others giving to make it even more compelling. PERSEVERE. Don’t give up. Use different forms of communication to ask people to donate. 

Share with others as much as you can from your heart about what you hope to do. Continuously let people know what you’re doing and why, compelling them to join you.  

And lastly, remember you have the ultimate PROVIDER on your side.

Be diligent, follow through, pray, plan, partner and persevere. Never doubt that you’re on a mission and the God of the Universe is cheering you on. Money is no option for Him. Ask God to guide your steps and give you wisdom in your endeavor. Follow His guidance in everything you do and you are guaranteed success!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.    

Proverbs 3:5-6
GiveSendGo.com for your next crowdfunding campaign!