Your Questions ANSWERED – Crowdfunding and Marching Band Fundraising

iStock-541832870.jpg

While our FAQs are a great source of information, we thought a blog post covering the most common questions we come across would be helpful.

FansRaise is making marching band fundraising easy and tremendously effective.

So here we go:

How Does FansRaise Work?

Why is FansRaise Different Than Other Crowdfunding Platforms?

What Are the Costs and Fees?

How Does FansRaise Make My Job Easier as a Band Director or Ensemble Director?

How Does FansRaise Make My Job Easier as a Band Booster or Arts Supporter?

Can I Customize the Messaging That Is Sent Out to Students and Prospective Donors?

What Happens to Our Contacts After the Campaign Ends?

Do You Sell Contacts To Third Parties?

 

How Does FansRaise Work?

FansRaise is an online fundraising system targeted towards performing ensembles, marching programs, instrumental/vocal ensembles, and drama programs. The needs of these performing arts programs are quite a bit different as these activities tend to be very under-funded and under-supported, and these activities use expensive equipment and instruments while travelling a great deal.

FansRaise uses a combination of automated email marketing (using lists derived from student members) and social media integration to achieve campaign donations faster than other platforms. Additionally student participants love the system and get involved directly in the campaign’s success.

FansRaise.

Why is FansRaise Different Than Other Crowdfunding Platforms?

Here’s where we talk about our ‘secret sauce’…

Other platforms (such as GoFundMe, CrowdRise, DonorsChoose, etc) only work when the campaign organizer (you) do all the work.  You have to send out emails, put together all of thesocial sharing and write all of the copy for the campaign. From an ensemble director standpoint – no one has time to do that and do it really well!

Individual student financial requirements – such as activity fees, band trip costs, uniform deposits, etc – can be met using our flexible campaign formats. Campaigns can be set up a capital campaigns, individual student campaigns, or a blend of the two. No other platform will allow you to manage this.

Also unique to FansRaise – we allow you to set up multiple rosters inside of your Organization. For example, this would come into play when you run a campaign for your high school marching band in the late summer or early fall, and then add additional rosters for your indoor guard and drumline programs, jazz band, and your all-school musical. Users can set up multiple campaigns that involve different rosters of students, even in cases where students are active in more than one activity at the same time! We know music and arts students are over-achievers and likely to be commited to multiple ensembles during the school year.

FansRaise also uses a system of marketing automation to deliver email directly to prospective donors provided by student members. We only know of one other platform that is currently using a model similar to ours but are executing on this poorly.

Student members play a large role in the success of campaigns, in that they are charged with putting together the initial donor lists to get a campaign started. FansRaise has built elements of ‘gamification‘ into the platform as a way to get student members involved, excited, and positively contributing to campaigns.

Savvy directors can wrap incentives into student participation, but FansRaise graphically illustrates various campaign metrics in dashboard form. By shining a light on which members and sections are excelling, the net effect is more results and less time.

What Are the Costs and Fees?

FansRaise does not charge any upfront fees, and FansRaise only generates revenue when your campaign is generating funds.

While FansRaise is neither the highest or lowest when it comes to fees, no other system offers the tools and resources, the automation, or the expertise to connect with performing organizations and donors alike.

FansRaise takes a fee of 15% from campaign proceeds as they come in. This pales in comparison to some crowdfunding platforms that can upwards of 30%. The payment gateway that we use assesses a fee of 2.9% + .30 per transaction, much like any other credit card processing service.  Organizations can set campaigns up to give donors the option of covering this fee or cover the fee via campaign proceeds (we can set it up either way).

We believe that better campaigns yield better results, and that FansRaise will deliver much more benefit and total donations than any other crowdfunding experience available.

FansRaise Comparison InfoGraphic – Click to View

How Does FansRaise Make My Job Easier as a Band Director or Ensemble Director?

All ensemble directors have one thing in common – there is nowhere near enough time to get everything done that has to be done, let alone the things that you might like to get done.

FansRaise has created easy Org and campaign tools that automate just about all of the daily management of a crowdfunding campaign. Campaign details and progress are available at-a-glance, and making changes ont he fly is easy.

The FansRaise platform reminds your students of tasks to complete or posts to share, so chasing and hounding them becomes a rarity. To put it plainly, there isn’t a better way to raise significant funds quickly, while placing your program in front of a massive amount of potential donors and supporters.

How Does FansRaise Make My Job Easier as a Band Booster or Arts Supporter?

Marching band boosters and other arts supporter groups will find that FansRaise makes their lives easier too. Campaigns can have multiple administrators, and ensemble directors can delegate to whomever they wish. 

FansRaise will also provide breakdowns of which members have raised what funds, making bookeeping a snap. FansRaise is so easy to use that non-technical-types can immediately have success. 

FansRaise.

Can I Customize the Messaging That Is Sent Out to Students and Prospective Donors?

Short answer is “yes” – although we doubt you’ll need to.  We have pre-created excellent communication templates that are specific enough to the activity, yet general enough for just about every situation. 

What Happens to Our Contacts After the Campaign Ends?

The contacts that your student members enter ALWAYS belong to your organization. On subsequent campaigns, the majority of your members will start with lists close to 20, and can then build larger lists to widen your campaigns. Incoming new members start at zero, but by the time those members become seniors those contact lists can become very deep.

Do You Sell Contacts To Third Parties?

Absolutely NEVER.

Number 1 – that would be RUDE!

Number 2 – it would be against our stated Privacy Policy.

Leave a Comment