What to Pay Attention to When Running a Crowdfunding Campaign
💸 Fundraising Goal
There’s no such thing as “too little” or “too much” when it comes to your campaign goal. The only way to find out what’s right for you is through experience. As a starting point, I recommend aiming for a conversion rate of about 0.1–0.5% of your planned reach. Multiply that by your average donation amount—say, around 500 rubles or 10 euros, depending on your audience. In other words, you can hypothesize that every thousandth to two-hundredth person who sees your campaign will make a donation.
👯 Audience
The more your target audience feels like “your people,” the higher your conversion rate will be. But keep in mind, you can usually reach your core supporters without a campaign. If you’re trying to reach people who don’t know you yet, your conversion rate will be lower—but if you keep working with them, they can gradually become your people, too.
📈 Launch Sequence
It’s a good idea to share your campaign first with your core community or major donors. If they contribute early, it helps get the ball rolling—people are psychologically more likely to donate when they see others have already given.
🐌 Pace of Fundraising
If you reach your goal too quickly, you can always raise the target—there’s nothing wrong with that! For example, if you quickly raise enough for a week’s work, why not try to fund two weeks?
It’s important to choose a fundraising purpose that allows for partial closure. For instance, if you say, “If we don’t raise 10,000 by the end of the week, someone will die,” but only raise 5,000, that’s a problem (RIP). But if you’re raising funds for “another month of our project,” then every quarter of the goal is another week of work. You can communicate this clearly, thank everyone who contributed, and encourage others to chip in so you can reach the next milestone.
🏁 Timeline
It rarely makes sense to run a campaign for more than 2–3 weeks. If your campaign lasts a month, people might think, “I’ll donate after payday,” and then forget about it. 10–20 days is usually optimal.
📯 Communication
Your campaign needs to have events and updates around it. It’s not enough to just say, “We need money.” You need to repeat the message regularly, in different formats, both on your own channels and with the help of partners. The key is variety—don’t just say “give us money” over and over.
