Why fundraising is important for nonprofits

Charitable giving grew 4.1% over the past year, the 6th consecutive year of growth.

Fundraising does more than raise funds. It’s an opportunity for nonprofits to bring in donations and also a great way to raise awareness around a cause or bring in new volunteers.

When done right, fundraising can help nonprofits reach more people, run a better operation, build relationships, bring in foundation support and most importantly guarantee success for a longer period of time than just the current fundraising round.

How digital has changed the future of fundraising

54% of donors worldwide prefer to give online, and this number is growing every year.

The global pandemic has accelerated a trend that was already there: the increased popularity of online fundraising. Since the onset of COVID-19, most nonprofit organizations have pivoted to virtual events and digital fundraising.

As we continue to recover from the pandemic, there’s an unprecedented need for digital fundraising. The Status of UK Fundraising 2020 Report shows that approximately 60% of charities are trying virtual fundraising. Of those charities, 75% are doing it for the first time.

Raising pledges online allows to surpass geographical limitations, personalize the donor experience, drive more engagement, encourage recurring donations and are more cost-effective than traditional fundraising.

Web Spiders’ association with nonprofits

A purpose-driven, focused digital community can change the world in unprecedented ways. We know because we’ve helped some of the world’s biggest nonprofits grow, engage and inspire their supporter base. We’ve been associated with nonprofits in one way or another for more years than we remember.

Be it helping them pivot their in-person events to virtual, developing AI-powered chatbots to help them raise funds, build responsive websites or promote their causes on social media to raise awareness. We feel a certain sense of mission when it comes to nonprofits.

BCRF’s Hot Pink Evening 2020 Turned Into A Virtual Fundraiser

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization that works towards the prevention and cure for breast cancer. Every year, BCRF hosts “Hot Pink Evening” to raise funds for cancer research. It is a glitzy, celebrity-studded event and the centerpiece of their yearly calendar.

However, the 2020 edition of the event was in doubt due to the sudden outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. With little time in their hands, BCRF needed a virtual option that would be seamless, user-friendly and above all, ready to go in a matter of days.

BCRF decided to used e2m OnAir the video-first virtual event platform for quickly shifting an in-person event to a virtual experience. Our team worked tirelessly to deliver an event, worthy of the hype and glamour.

As a result, BCRF’s inaugural Virtual Hot Pink Evening was a vibrant event with more than 1200 registrants, raising more than $5.2 million as a donation.

Lucretia Gilbert, Chief Development Officer of BCRF had this to say about their experience with e2m OnAir:

"The COVID pandemic forced the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) to quickly pivot our plans from an in-person event for 1,000+ guests to an engaging, mission-driven, virtual experience. The e2m team worked closely with us to ensure we were meeting our goals, while being mindful of the end user experience. Their professionalism, responsiveness, and flexibility was second-to-none. We’re so fortunate to have a partner like them, particularly as we ventured into new virtual event territory."

BCRF’s Hot Pink Evening 2021: A Successful Fundraiser on ZOE

The Hot Pink Evening 2021 featured a dynamic live-stream with inspiring performances and special celebrity messages from Sir Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, Mandy Golzalez and many more.

BCRF used ZOE textbot to respond to donors in real-time with various information and payment queries. The textbot also ensured that the messages were checked and approved by the BCRF team in the backend so they could edit them if required. All published messages were displayed live during the event.

The evening raised $6 million and the event was attended by more than 700 guests. ZOE handled more than 200 donation messages in real-time. We were delighted to see that ZOE has helped raise huge donations to ensure BCRF’s vital research work continues without losing ground.

The event received positive responses from the attendees, with many of them appreciating the seamless digital experience. The user-friendly assistance by ZOE helped the event to receive donations from all over the world.

A Responsive Website for Dhamma Banga: The Vipassana Meditation Center

Dhamma Banga is a Vipassana Meditation Center in Kolkata, India. Built on approximately 4 acres of land, the meditation center accommodates around 80 meditators.

The meditation center approached Web Spiders to build a fully responsive website. Not only did they yearn for a user-friendly CMS, but also knew the website required a frictionless user experience.

Our web designers and developers saw this as a perfect opportunity to build a dynamic website based on Webflow CMS. It enabled us to dramatically shorten the development time, gave a stable website speed and offered a mobile-optimized website out of the box.

We thoughtfully mapped out the entire user journey so a cohesive story would be formed while navigating through the different pages on the site.

Webflow lets us code visually. We could drag our coded, fully responsive HTML elements onto the canvas and style them using visual tools.

Instead of sending static design mockups, Webflow CMS helped us send a responsive site for client review. We made real-time changes and pushed the site to live with a few clicks.

Using Webflow for design and development future-proofed Dhamma Banga’s website for easy and fast redesigns, updates and changes.