Boost Your Crowdfunding Campaign Strategy to Unite Donors Worldwide With Inspiration From Miry’s List

Each month, we invite you to get inspired by a unique and timely campaign that shows exactly how to use the Classy giving platform to the fullest.

Miry’s List’s Afghanistan Emergency Action Fund has unlocked generosity across the globe. The crowdfunding campaign supports their goal to help refugees from Afghanistan survive, hive, and thrive upon their arrival to the United States.

A timely and compelling call to action is crucial to the success of any fundraising effort, especially when you’re looking to capture donations through story-driven, time-bound appeals.

Miry’s List is a movement of neighbors and friends who are dedicated to providing critical resources to refugees. The organization is no stranger to the value of timely crowdfunding campaigns, and often leans on this trusted strategy to respond to the abrupt exodus of families seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries.

Miry’s List’s mission has become even more urgent as the world navigates the 2021 Afghanistan crisis. Today, we explore their approach to connect with donors who are passionate about giving to ensure every interaction results in a completed donation for their cause.

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Meet Miry’s List

Mission: Welcome new arrival refugee families into the U.S. through inspired crowdsourcing solutions

Cause Sector: Immigration & Refugees

Employee Count: 15

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Years on Classy: 4

Connect With Donors in a More Meaningful Way Through Crowdfunding

Use a strategic crowdfunding platform to connect with donors on a deeper level by showing the immediate impact of their donations. Help people understand and become supporters of your cause by telling your story in a compelling way that creates a sense of urgency with your audience.

Download the Guide to Nonprofit Storytelling

Miry’s List chose to do this through their use of captivating imagery, an engaging “About the Campaign” section, and a clear nod to the urgency of their fundraising goal. They lean on descriptive impact blocks to explain how each gift enables them to provide survival essentials to incoming refugee families and fulfill their wish lists in real time.

Organizations on Classy can create crowdfunding campaigns like this in minutes to respond quickly, elevate their overall giving experience, and offer a seamless donor journey along the way.

See a Strong Crowdfunding Campaign Strategy in Action

Get inspired by Miry’s List’s Afghanistan Emergency Action Fund campaign to advance your mission with a fresh crowdfunding campaign strategy.

How Classy Helped Bring This Crowdfunding Campaign to Life

Miry’s List looks to Classy’s giving platform to delight their donors with customized campaign pages, advanced design elements, and flexible payment options, among other features that make their fundraising efforts stand out. Let’s take a look:

Campaign Goal: Provide survival essentials and fulfill wish lists for Afghan families seeking safety in the U.S. after fleeing their country to escape the Taliban.

Method: Engage donors with a branded, mobile-optimized landing page that features a story-driven, time-bound appeal, customized impact blocks, employee matching opportunity, animated GIFs, personalized text on buttons, and compelling visuals.

Supporters receive a full picture of what they’re being asked to do and why it’s critical right now with an up-to-date tally of the number of families Miry’s List has enrolled in their 12-month program to exemplify the good work being accomplished with each new donation.

Tools to Make It Happen: Classy’s crowdfunding campaigns can be fully customized to relate to specific donor segments in just a few clicks. Nonprofits have the ability to select a branded hero image, showcase descriptive impact blocks, add custom text blocks without the need for any coding knowledge, and incorporate interactive design elements to catch donors’ attention and keep them engaged.

This campaign’s cohesive design, captivating colors, personal touches, and compelling storyline is enough to make any supporter confident in their decision to donate. Paired with the timeliness and increased levels of awareness surrounding Miry’s List’s cause, this crowdfunding campaign offers donors an immediate opportunity to get involved in something larger than themselves.

5 Tips to Get Your Crowdfunding Campaign Up and Running

Takeaways to Boost Your Nonprofit’s Crowdfunding Campaign Strategy

1. Lead with a timely call to action to ignite immediate support

When the world is in crisis, people naturally look for ways to get involved. Help these passionate donors take action right away with a seamless path to give.

Capitalize on the organic influx of traffic to your site when happenings in the world are directly impacting your beneficiaries. Whether it’s a current event, natural disaster, health crisis, or any other situation that connects to your cause, compel donors by highlighting the urgency behind your ask. Lean into brief, yet descriptive language that communicates the gravity of the situation.

Look for specific hashtags, groups, or conversations on social media to share your campaign with new audiences. Make sure your organization’s website clearly features your campaign for those who hear about it organically, and send timely emails about the ways you’re offering support.

16 Free Email Templates to Retain Crisis Donors

2. Pull in donors with emotional appeal and defined impact

Connect each dollar to a tangible object, service, or feeling it will help provide to your beneficiaries through the use of impact blocks.

Provide a brief, clear description with a high-resolution photo or graphic to articulate the impact of each gift. Get specific by communicating how far each dollar will stretch. Consider language like “Feed a child for a week for just $25” and customize the section header above your impact blocks to speak to your organization’s unique mission.

Remember, telling a compelling story can bring your work to life and establish an emotional connection with your donors that so often drives giving.

3. Keep your audience engaged with custom visuals

Get creative about what you feature on your campaign page to catch supporters’ attention and ensure they don’t abandon the donation process. Think about how you could successfully pique a person’s interest if all they did was glimpse at your page. That immediate draw is crucial to conversion.

Add animated GIFs to your Classy campaign page by simply saving it as a .gif file and uploading it to the image field in any of the following locations:

• Header logo
• Footer logo
• Text blocks
• Header image
• Headline image

Learn How to Save Animated GIFs to Your Computer

If your organization’s own media library is running dry, find other images for your campaign page with Google’s “Usage Rights” filter. Select “Creative Common licenses” from the drop down menu and explore the search results. The photos that populate from this query will have license information attached to them, which makes it quick and easy to identify whether they’re free to use or require a purchase fee.

Images with Creative Common licenses are typically free of cost if you adhere to the particular licensing provisions for the photo. In most cases, this means crediting the source by including the photographer’s name or a link to the original location of the image.

While these general guidelines usually apply, be sure to review the specific licensing requirements for all individual images before including them on your campaign page.

4. Offer an employer match opportunity

A simple way to boost funds with minimal effort is to allow your donors to double eligible donations through employer matching gift programs.

While over 18 million individuals work for companies that offer matching gift programs, an estimated four to seven billion dollars in matching gift revenue goes unclaimed each year. Knowing that mentioning matching gifts during the donation process results in a 51 percent increase in donation amount, this opportunity is worth exploring.

Easily offer an employer match on your Classy donation form with our Double the Donation integration. When supporters view one of your pages, they will see an employer match checkbox. When they mark the box, they’ll be able to search for an employer or sponsor to match their donation.

Classy donation forms also allow you to capture employment information, giving you the ability to follow up with donors about matching gift opportunities.

5. Provide supporters with additional ways to get involved

To meet the needs of all supporters, provide alternative options for them to show their support.

Miry’s List does a great job of this by linking out to their volunteer page and virtual merchandise shop. Consider connecting your campaign landing page to a DIY peer-to-peer campaign, or include a recurring giving option for donors who are looking to make their impact go further.

Boost Your Fundraising With the Ultimate Guide to Recurring Giving

Provide sharing assets like sample emails and social media templates to help supporters spread the word about their donation and compel others to do the same.

6. Deliver a payment process that reflects a modern e-commerce checkout experience

Avoid missed donation opportunities from donors who step away from your page to find a credit card or wait until they’re in front of a computer (if they remember to go back to your page at that point).

More than 98 million Americans prefer digital wallets because it eliminates having to carry around physical cash and credit cards. Align with your donors’ preferences and eliminate the friction of entering a card number manually by offering digital wallet payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Venmo.

Classy’s State of Modern Philanthropy 2021 report reveals the strong ROI our customers see when they incorporate these convenient payment options into their checkout flow. This includes an 11 to 14 percent increase in mobile conversion rates and 55 percent larger recurring gifts.

Click Here for the Full Report: State of Modern Philanthropy 2021

Drive Your Mission Forward With Compelling Crowdfunding

Every fundraising campaign starts with a good story. Whether you’re raising money to support Afghan refugees, achieve your Giving Tuesday goal, or just grow your general donation fund, the key to conversion is appealing to your donors’ emotional side.

Kick off a strong crowdfunding campaign the next time your nonprofit is looking to accept general donations, raise money for a specific project, or drive support for a time-based initiative.

As you brainstorm where to start, keep Miry’s List top of mind as a stellar example of how to create a giving experience that excites and motivates donors to become a part of your community.

Until then, check out 50 of Classy’s top campaigns across five key fundraising categories to inspire your next idea.

Explore Classy’s 50 Most Successful Fundraising Campaigns

For more ways to expand your reach, amplify your impact, and advance your mission, here are a few crowdfunding campaign resources we created just for you:

• Your Donation Page Checklist
• Your Crowdfunding Campaign Checklist
• The Simple Blueprint for Crowdfunding Campaign Success