Need a GoFundMe charity alternative? Here’s what to know

If you’re looking for a fundraising platform to replace GoFundMe Charity, compare these options that have more to offer your nonprofit.

No doubt you’ve heard of GoFundMe — it’s one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms for individual fundraisers. And for a while, nonprofit organisations had access to industry-level features like recurring donations, third-party integrations, and downloadable data. This service was known as CrowdRise until it was rebranded as GoFundMe Charity.

But unfortunately, a ton of nonprofits were left scrambling to find new solutions when GoFundMe Charity shut down in September 2021.

If you were using GoFundMe Charity before September 2021, you may still be trying out alternatives and looking for fundraising software that fits your nonprofit’s needs.

Ready for some clear answers so you can get back to doing what you do best? Read on to learn more about your options and see how they compare.

What Happened to GoFundMe Charity?

Shortly after GoFundMe Charity was shut down, the company bought another nonprofit fundraising software company called Classy. A press release from GoFundMe stated that “Classy [would] continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of GoFundMe.”

Now it looks like GoFundMe functions mostly as a personal fundraising service. According to a Help Centre article on GoFundMe.com, they’ve created a dashboard “where charity representatives can access donor and fundraiser data across all of GoFundMe, and we now have dedicated charity pages that allow donors to give directly to a charity aside from specific fundraisers.” For users who rely on innovative campaigns and recurring gifts, this solution isn’t sufficient.

Nonprofits with GoFundMe Charity accounts were allowed to access their data until the fundraising site fully shut down in January 2022. You can contact GoFundMe representatives directly to request information and reports from your old account.

What Else Is Out There?

The good news is that a handful of other nonprofit fundraising platforms are similar to GoFundMe Charity — including Raisely, which we’ll discuss in more detail below! Let’s take a look at how some of these online fundraising software solutions compare.

Classy

As the new charity fundraising solution replacing GoFundMe Charity, Classy is a mobile-responsive crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising platform. This open API software offers recurring donations and some donor management features.

But because Classy integrates with CRMs and analytics software, it doesn’t have as many of these functions as some other platforms do. Advanced users should know that Classy doesn’t have a coding option, and some of the templates lack flexibility.

Fees are on a sliding scale, and Classy asks users to fill out a form for an individualised quote. The professional plan is $299 USD/month, and all of Classy’s plans include a 4% transaction fee.

Donorbox

Donorbox has a lot of the same core features as other peer-to-peer fundraising software. Embeddable donation forms and CMS integrations make this platform a bit different. So it’s a great choice for web-based content, but not as great for mobile-first campaigns.

Reporting, automation, and social media integration are somewhat limited on Donorbox. The Zapier integration makes up for some of these functions. Donorbox integrates with a few different payment processors and virtual wallets to accept bitcoin and other currencies.

The basic Donorbox plan is free, but a standard 1.5% platform fee applies to every donation. The premium plan offers automated workflows, text-to-give, and advanced data analytics for $375 USD/month (billed annually) or $399 USD/month (billed quarterly).

Givebutter

Givebutter is one of the few options that has a built-in CRM (like Raisely), open API, automation capabilities, and advanced reporting features (so does Raisely!). You can accept all major credit cards and most payment processors like PayPal and Venmo through Givebutter. They also have a long list of third-party integrations.

Givebutter is free with a 2.9% + 30-cent USD standard payment “processing fee” for all transactions that you may choose to pay or pass on to your donors. If you leave the processing fee to your supporters, it may cause some confusion about where their donations are going.

Raisely Has GoFundMe Charity Features

We’re always working to improve user experiences for both you and your supporters. Our platform has more third-party integrations and reporting features than GoFundMe Charity, as well as recurring donations and much more!

Recurring Donations

Recurring giving is a critical way to keep a steady flow of online donations coming into your nonprofit. With Raisely, supporters can choose to give on a weekly, monthly, 4-weekly, fortnightly, quarterly, or yearly basis. The process is easy to manage, and it includes automatic emails and automatic retries of failed payments.

Third-Party Integrations

Between Raisely’s open API data set and Zapier integration, we’re an incredibly flexible solution for nonprofits of all sizes. Other popular integrations include Salesforce, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and more.

Export Your Data

Raisely makes it easy to import and export the specific donor data you need. Create custom reports in our visual report builder and schedule them to export to .CSV at key moments in your campaigns.

… And More!

A free Raisely account gets you access to our entire platform with an intuitive campaign page builder and custom CSS. Users really love our built-in CRM, which allows you to tag and segment donors and manage their subscriptions to emails and SMS.

Enjoy these additional features when you switch to Raisely:

• Matched giving
• SMS and automated emails
• Customise everything for a professional, branded experience
• Add fun leaderboards, progress bars, and gamification
• Free templates
• Accept 130+ currencies

The Lowest Pricing, Bar None

Raisely was founded in 2016 specifically because our leaders wanted to help nonprofits access the tools they need to survive in today’s high-tech world.

Pricing for a basic Raisely account is free forever for our fundraising suite, and it includes all the features you need to run a successful fundraising campaign. Raisely runs on optional tipping, and processing fees are collected by your payment processor of choice.

You may decide to upgrade with a messaging add-on for $39/month USD that goes above and beyond the automated transactional messages in the free plan. Our internal CRM is free for up to 2,000 records and $99/month USD after that.

Explore More Ways to Fundraise on Raisely

So what’s possible for your nonprofit organisation with a free Raisely account? Take a look at the different kinds of fundraising campaigns we support:

Peer-to-Peer Campaigns

Turn your supporters into volunteer fundraisers. Peer-to-peer fundraisers take a lot of careful planning, but the results are worth it! This social fundraising method gets your nonprofit in front of new people and builds lasting connections for long-term donor relationships.

Community Fundraising

Got supporters who love to get creative? Empower them to build their own DIY fundraisers with Raisely’s community fundraising hub. Help your community make your organisation a part of their life.

Active Events

The familiar 5k fun run has evolved a lot during the pandemic! Run an asynchronous activity-based fundraiser with our easy-to-use template and Strava integration.

Fundraising Events and Tickets

We just unveiled our new ticketing feature for virtual, in-person, and hybrid events. Add custom fields to your sign-up form for things like T-shirt sizes or meal choices.

In Memoriam, Appeals, and Giving Days

How do your supporters love to give? Use our library of free templates to create campaigns for almost any occasion in minutes.

Switch to Raisely Today

We built Raisely to be a high-quality, affordable solution for teams of all sizes. We’re in it for the little guys, and with this approach, everybody wins!

Get your free Raisely account today and start planning your next campaign.