I want to introduce you to one of my new favorite tools for online fundraising: the Give Lively platform. According to their website, “Give Lively was created to build better online fundraising technology and give it away to nonprofits for free.” And, they definitely deliver, in my opinion. It’s pretty easy to get started, just three steps:

  • Sign up as a member.

  • Connect your payment processor.

  • Create a campaign page and start your online fundraising!

That’s really it! Like I said, there are a few requirements. You have to be listed with Guidestar (but you should claim your profile anyway). You also have to sign up for a Stripe nonprofit discount, but you can link a PayPal account to process payments. It’s easy and quick, although I don’t really understand why you have to sign up for Stripe.

*UPDATE* GiveLively appears to accept or link with PayPal, but in fact they do not. You must use Stripe as the payment processor, which is a bit of a disadvantage and can be really annoying when you have multiple donation acceptance platforms.  Nonetheless, the service is free, so there had to be a catch somewhere.

First up, the main page, showing the different customization menus along the side and a snapshot of the campaign:

Here’s the detail on the donation amounts and stories tab. You can use pictures in your stories, too, to help bring them to life.

Since gratitude is a huge part of retaining donors, the customized thank you function is a must for any platform. Here’s a peek at Give Lively’s:

Here’s what a finished campaign looks like, using the default template.

AND! Once you have your campaign page ready, you can embed a widget on your website!

That’s the basics of the campaign page that forms the foundation of your online fundraising campaign, but where Give Lively gets really cool are the extra functions, or the goodies as I call them.

All the Goodies

Since Give Lively is free, it’s a great place to experiment with different online and mobile giving tools, and it has the two biggies: text-to-donate and peer-to-peer functionality. Check them out:

Lots of nonprofits are experimenting with text to donate and getting great results. A free tool like Give Lively gives you a chance to try them out without a big investment.

As an added bonus, you can show a live display during an event to encourage text donations on the go from mobile devices.

One of the best ways to be successful in online fundraising is to engage your volunteers, board, and supporters as peer-to-peer fundraisers.

It’s easy to sign up and can exponentially increase your results.

I encourage you to experiment with new tools to improve your online fundraising and Give Lively is a great way to do that. I’ll let you know how our experiments work out!

*I just wanted to note that I don’t know anyone at Give Lively and they didn’t sponsor or request or even know about this post – I just like their platform!