Billions of dollars get spent on mobile apps. More of that money should be directed towards nonprofits via fundraising apps. It’s becoming almost second nature to pay for things on your phone. And there are more and more options to do it. You should be providing donors with more and easier ways to donate as well. These mobile apps for fundraising can help.
Let Donors Find You Via a Mobile App
Google One Today is Google’s mobile app that allows people to find causes and donate. Once you are in the Google for Nonprofits program, it could just be a click of a button and your charity could be on the app that makes donating simple. They choose one to be featured daily. There are also no transaction fees – a big benefit when you compare it to other apps.
There are many other apps for people to donate in different ways to nonprofits such as Donate A Photo or Charity Miles, but it’s more difficult to get into these programs.
Round Up Purchases for Donations
In a similar vein to One Today, there are other apps such as Coin Up or Give Tide or Change Up or Round Up or Gyve. They let people find nonprofits or let your donors donate via rounding up purchases.
Monthly giving can help nonprofits know roughly how much they will take in monthly and project income better. It’s difficult to know where and how you should spend money when you don’t know where, when and how much money will come in. While signing up for all of them might not be worth the time, you can pick one, try promoting it and see how your audience responds.
Shop and Donate at the Same Time
With Amazon Smile, Amazon donates .5% of select purchases. It may not sound like much, but it can really add up if you get a lot of people to buy into this. As a side note, Amazon is also looking to be a player in the donation payment space. They are letting people donate via Alexa.
There are more shopping and donation options in the UK such as Give As You Live, but in the US you can also try iGive for shopping beyond Amazon.
Accept Donations in Person
Do you need to accept donations in person? Perhaps you have an event where people need to donate to pay to get in. Or you have an auction looking for donations? Asking people to donate on the street? There are a number of options to add a device to your phone and get that donation for people that prefer cards over cash or check. PayPal Here is a great example and has info on how nonprofits can use it. DonorPerfect has an option for mobile donations as well.
Social Media Apps for Fundraising
There are social media management tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer to help you schedule posts about fundraisers or asking for funds. However, you should also look into fundraising directly via social media apps. And Facebook’s donation buttons are a get place to start raising money directly on social.
Create Your Own Fundraising App
Sometimes it’s not enough to use other’s apps. You want to build your own. While it’s getting a lot easier, it’s still not the easiest task. You should probably do some testing first with other apps or focus on a mobile optimized website to see if your donors respond well to mobile in general.
Givelify is built for helping nonprofits launch apps. There are many other app builders out there – Shoutem offers some insight into getting donations via apps and GoodBarber is another good app builder.
Fundraising Apps in 2019 Conclusion
There are many options for nonprofits to fundraise via mobile apps. It can be overwhelming. Choose one, invest in it for a month and see how it goes. Expand your fundraising toolbox, but don’t take on too many fronts at once.
If you need help choosing which mobile app is right to start, please contact us. We can help point you in the right direction based on your unique circumstances.