Tis the Season… for Cheap and Easy - and Distributed – Online Fundraising Tools

ChipIn started the buzz with their tool for online community fundraising. The premise was simple: ChipIn allows anyone to add to their website or blog a simple interface that requests money for a goal and shows the money raised to date. While straightforward, this is a very powerful idea: if it’s easy for anyone to do, anyone can be a fundraiser for your organization. Organizations who have a strong base of supporters who are blogging or using social networking can engage these supporters in creating their own individual campaign in the organization’s name.

For instance, let’s say I’m interested in the wildlife in Maine, and I have a blog devoted to information about local plans and animals that has attracted a following among bird watchers and hikers in the area. It’s very natural – and likely very effective – for me to ask my readers to contribute to a holiday campaign to support an environmental cause. ChipIn lets me do just this.

ChipIn started us off, but Network for Good followed close on their heels, with a virtually identical widget. They sweeten the pot by allowing anyone to create a widget for any nonprofit in Guidestar, and thus fundraise for them on their website. Not to mention a $50,000 bounty (or at least a matching grant) from Yahoo for the organization that has the most donors by the end of the year.

And now, announcements from GetActive, Kintera, and Convio: they now all offer the same thing to organizations who are already using their service. (thanks to Confessions of a Nonprofit IT Director for the tip)

Either this was an idea whose time had come with a vengeance, or one or two people had an idea so good and so easy to implement that everyone’s copying it. Either way, it’s great for the sector. These tools are touted as a way to tap into the participatory media culture, like blogs or social networking tools – and they are, no question about it. The ability to let supporters essentially run their own campaign for you on their own website is a powerful thing. I don’t say it often, but here it is: this hype is warranted.

And this trend to make fundraising tools that are easy to install on any website has a great side benefit as well: it makes it easy for small nonprofits to add them to their own site to get started with online fundraising. Tools like ChipIn and Network for Good’s widget look like a great and easy way for nonprofits to get started with online credit card capabilities and a campaign progress meter on their own website. Network for Good has always been a great online donation option for nonprofits, but ChipIn is also well worth considering for those looking for inexpensive and easy options.