You may be considering creating a Crowdfunding campaign, or have already conducted one in the past and have found poor results when it comes to overall funding. If this is the case, you may want to learn about the new trend of micro-donations, and how they are helping campaigns reach their goals. Learn about micro-donations and the facts behind why they can be successful.
What exactly are micro-donations?
Micro-donations are exactly what they sound like. A small monetary amount for a donation. For a long time, this was the type of donations typically received by charities or non-profits. Now, anyone can accept this form of donation through Crowdfunding. In fact, micro-donations work perfectly with Crowdfunding, after all, Crowdfunding utilizes the power of the crowd rather than a select few large donations. Crowdfunding is used to accumulate many smaller donations among a large crowd. This accumulation can result in large amounts of money raised for a cause, product or service. Recently, however, this has been taken into consideration for donations based Crowdfunding campaigns. Many campaigns have been relying on the rewards and earning larger donations from a big crowd of people. This has its drawbacks as not everyone can afford to donate $70 – $100 per donation. They simply cannot afford it in their daily budget. This is where micro-donations can come into play. Micro-donations can allow the majority of the population to donate to a campaign especially if they feel like it won’t at all affect their bank account. Although it may be a great idea to offer a t-shirt reward to your potential backers, they may feel like they are compelled to spend the extra money and not bother to take the time and donate to the campaign. You can see that micro-donations has worked for campaigns in the past. Now that you understand more about the reasoning behind the utilizing micro-donations, let’s dive deeper into the facts.
Learning about micro-donation facts
Micro-donations can come from anyone as it does not break the bank account to donate a dollar. The reason that these types of donations are becoming popular, is the logic behind the crowd. First, let’s look at the demographics. Millenials are surpassing the Baby Boomers in population. If you can empathize and understand your target market, you can better understand the motivation behind donating to the campaign. Fact: The Millenials + Gen X make up roughly 50% of the GoFundMe donations. A vast majority of these donations are coming from young adults, which do not necessarily have a lot of money to spend. Even though they do not have a lot of money to spend, they have enough for micro-donations. This may not be the backbone for a product Crowdfunding campaign, but for those looking strictly for donations, could use the power of micro-donations. It could be the driving factor for reaching the Crowdfunding goal. How does one receive micro-donations?
Gaining the micro-donations
To make your potential backers take the time to donate is not easy. We know that they can afford $1 for your Crowdfunding campaign the challenge, however, is capturing their attention and asking them to take the time to donate to the campaign. Your campaign needs to have the following elements to receive the desired micro-donations:
- There needs to be a sense of urgency: Give the potential backer a reason to donate now!
- Let them know what you are asking for: Ask for only a dollar, and show them that others are only donating small amounts of money.
- Reassure them that they can afford the donation: It does not hurt to let them know that they can spare a micro-donation to your campaign.
- Give value: You should let the backer know how much their micro-donation has helped you, or your cause.
If you use the following strategy for your personal or charity/non-profit campaign, you may find success! If the backers have felt like their small donation has made a difference, they may share the campaign on social media (as many young adults are a custom too) which can only lead to more donations.