How to Collect Donations

With Crowded, you can raise funds for your organization in 2 ways:

  1. Fixed Amount: You set an amount to charge donors. This can be great for fixed-price fundraisers like raffle tickets, t-shirts, bake sales, etc. 
  2. Fundraise: Donors decide the contribution amount 

The good news is that you don’t need to pick just one. Create unlimited collection links of either type for your organization, and watch the payments roll in!

This guide will focus on the second option, for a step-by-step run-through of the first option, see Guide to Collecting Payments.

Need help creating a fundraiser? See here a complete rundown of the process. Or watch this walkthrough video by Rachel the Product Marketing Manager!

Step 1: Select Collection Type

To give donors a variety of donation amount options, select “Fundraise”.

Step 2: Allow for Recurring Payments

This option allows your donors to opt into making repeated donations on an annual or monthly basis. Make sure the switch is turned on to get maximal funding!

Recurring Donations is a Pro feature, but can also be enabled during a free trial!

Step 3: Name the Collection

This name will allow you to identify the purpose or event that you are fundraising for. Be sure to choose a clear & descriptive name that will be easily recognizable to your donors.

Step 4: Add a Fundraising Goal

Let your donors know how much your organization is raising, to help motivate them to donate higher amounts to hit your goal. Skip this step if you’re not interested in adding a goal.

add a goal to your fundraiser

Step 5: Add a Description

Give donors context to your fundraiser, an overview of your organization, or add a personal note. Skip this step if you’re not interested in adding a description.

Step 6: Add an Image

Attach an image to give a visual to your donation page – pictures are worth a thousand words! We recommend that the image has a ratio is 16:9, is a JPG or PNG, and is under 10 MB. This is also optional, skip if not desired and add later.

add an image to personalize your fundraising

Step 7: Share the Collection!

The collection is now created and ready to accept donations!

There are a few ways to share this collection:

share your fundraising and dues collection with your community

1. Email:

If you’ve uploaded donor lists or member lists as contacts to Crowded, you can use our built-in email feature to send the link to your payers. See here for a guide to uploading contacts.

Tip: If you only want to send to a certain subsection of your organization, use tags to categorize, and only send to tagged contacts.

2. Copy n’ Paste:

Copy the generated collection link and paste it into your preferred communication channel with your donor community, such as email, messaging apps, or social media.

3. QR code

Share your collection link with a QR code. Download or screenshot the QR code and share with your payers. 

Tip: Place the QR code on a printed poster or card to allow sharing of your link offline

share qr crowded

Now all there is to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy the incoming donations. Track all incoming donations, send reminders, edit collections, and share with additional contacts from the Collections dashboard.

Check out our 5 Tips to Raise More to optimize your fundraising!

In this guide