Running a GoFundMe Campaign

When I was freelancing almost ten years ago, I ran all sorts of fundraising campaigns on Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Patreon and Indiegogo - the most effective crowdfunding platforms at the time.

I started and managed those campaigns for different people and causes, and never for myself. It's incredibly difficult for me to ask for help for myself, even in the hardest times. But for other people - no problem, especially when it's for a good cause. Although, I did run a couple of fundraisers for my son's theater group if that counts as self-interest.

In any case, all those campaigns saw their successful completion, and that was at the time when, for example, Kickstarter would pay out the raised funds only if the entire target amount was collected. I haven't run a Kickstater campaign recently and don't know if that rule is still valid, but it made me work the double time and effort pushing the campaigns then.

A lot of my time was devoted to promoting the campaigns through Facebook and Twitter and coming up with creative ways of drawing people's attention to them. Facebook was great for it in 2013-16 when I crowd raised the money, before it started to use algorithms to drive user engagement and push paid ads. Because all my campaigns had a benevolent purpose and were for people and organizations I cared about, I really enjoyed the challenge and felt good when I brought them all to completion.

Fast-forward a decade. At the end of last year, just before my semester ended and I was about to leave for the winter break, my dear friends had a fire in their Erie house. I volunteered to set up and run a GoFundMe campaign for them. I couldn't even imagine how much harder it would be this time.

I thought it would be easy: Who would not want to help a blind couple with two guide dogs and three cats that experienced fire in the house and had to evacuate right before another big snow storm was about to hit Erie again, right (my snow trip to Toronto started at their house)? It's a great noble cause and I thought raising funds for my friends would be a breeze, silly me. My campaign for them has still not collected the target amount.

But it's definitely not about people not wanting to give money. It's about attracting attention to the campaign, through social media, which is a lot harder these days than it was in 2013. Based on my experience, here are some of my observations that might be useful for you if you ever need to run a crowdfunding campaign.

1. Facebook is no longer your friend for this. The current FB algorithm is all about engaging people inside FB and not letting them leave to outside sites, even for noble and charitable purposes. If you make a post with a direct link to the campaign, it will be suppressed and pushed into oblivion.

Here are some suggestions to overcome this:

- Post a one-line appeal in big font and provide the link to the campaign in the first comment. Even with that, there's no guarantee that your post will be noticed;

- Post often so that people who are on FB at different times of the day and week can have a chance to see your call for help. Don't overdo it, however, so that your entire timeline does not look like one big and long pitch for the GoFundMe campaign;

- Post your appeal in the groups where your campaign target would be the best fit. I've found that after I posted the link in a group my friend started and was active in received a good response.

2. Work your personal connections even more. Email, Messenger, DMs - anything that you can use, especially with people who know your campaign heroes personally. I've got a lot more response from personal appeals than from social media, and that could be seen almost directly and immediately after people donate.

3. If you have an opportunity to tag a big BlueSky account, use it. I am so new on BlueSky that don't have a large following there, so it didn't work for me but I would think that since that platform is similar to early Twitter, your campaign would get good exposure and response from a big account support.

4. Post regular updates on the campaign itself, thanking those to already donated and asking them to share the campaign. The updates don't need to be daily (you don't want to overwhelm people who already donated with constant appeals), but they are really important to keep the donors informed. Also, every time a new donation comes in, thank the donor as soon as possible with a short message of appreciation.

5. Don't get discouraged by low and slow response. Keep posting appeals everywhere you think it is appropriate and appeal to people's generosity and empathy. Don't assume that people don't want to contribute, just assume that they haven't seen your appeal yet and even if you know they have, assume that they have forgotten to contribute immediately, lost the link in their timelines, and need another reminder. This mindset makes your efforts as a fundraiser a lot easier.

If you ever ran a crowdfunding campaign, I'd like to hear about your experience. Was it similar to what I described? What were your ways to push the campaign to completion?

And finally, if you are able, please help the fellow Vocal author who is fighting cancer. The campaign set up by his brother is stalling and needs a push. Even the smallest amount will help: