The 4 Best Fundraising Event Giving Solutions

Nonprofits get most of their funding from donations, and fundraising events are huge attention-grabbers that help them maintain their operations. Having a practical giving solution in place during these events is crucial to their success. Which option is right for your organization: kiosks, text to give, online giving, a mobile app, or some combination? Take a look at the pros and cons of each before making a final decision.

1. Giving Kiosks

Traditional event giving methods, like pledge cards and donation bins, no longer fit the needs of the modern charitable donor. People rarely carry cash or checkbooks these days. Giving kiosks are one way to give your old school donation bin an upgrade.

Kiosks enable donors to give with credit or debit cards while attending your fundraiser. This is of course a welcome solution for those who don’t have cash on hand and are moved to give. But kiosks do have some serious drawbacks. They are a slightly better giving solution, but not the best one available to you.

Depending on the size of the crowd at your event, long lines could potentially form at your kiosk. Donors may decide to skip making a donation if they don’t have the time or energy to wait in line. Also, donors must be physically present in order to give through a kiosk. What about the people who were unable to attend? Wouldn’t you like to give them the option to support your cause, too?

2. Text to Give

One solution that enables absent supporters to participate in giving is text to give. With this option, donors can use the texting feature on their phones to send funds to your organization. While the mobile nature of texting does enable giving from any location, this giving method does bring other problems to the table.

First, donors are required to know and enter a special code in order to use text to give. If they are unable to remember the code, they can’t complete their donation. Additionally, text to give providers often require donations to be made in certain amounts, like $10 or $20. What if your supporters want to give a higher amount, but get bored of making multiple text donations?

Text to give was once the most state-of-the-art giving solution on the market, but its drawbacks make it more outdated than modern.

3. Website/Online Giving

Online giving, which involves making donations through a website, is a great option for most fundraising events. This allows donors who are not present at the event to give from their home computers, or even via their mobile phones.

While online giving is helpful, it should not be the only fundraising solution you offer. In an ideal world, all sites would work quickly and smoothly on mobile devices — but in reality, slow page load times and sites that aren’t optimized for the mobile layout tend to make the process difficult for your supporters.

What you really need is a giving option that works well any time, anywhere. Your supporters should be able to give effortlessly whether they are on-site or located far away.

4. Mobile Giving Apps

The best modern giving option brings together the perks of all of the previous solutions, without all of the drawbacks: mobile giving apps. Take a look at how the experience can improve for both you and your supporters:

• Instead of renting kiosks that can only be used by one person at a time, put a “miniature kiosk” in every donor’s hand with a mobile giving app.
• Rather than forcing your supporters to memorize a complicated text to give code, allow them to simply locate your organization automatically based on their current location — or by searching for it by name.
• Instead of driving donors to a website that may or may not load on their phone, let them use an app that was specifically designed for such devices.

Plus, mobile giving apps like Givelify also allow you to put giving buttons and links on your website, social media accounts, and email newsletters. Suddenly you have two of the best event giving solutions, all in one package. A free download, Givelify makes donations fun, and your supporters will thank you for the convenience.