Online Fundraising in 3 Easy Steps + Example

How to create an online fundraising page in 3 steps

Cheddar Up can be used for so many different things—events, group gifts, sales, registrations—and classic fundraising (and crowdfunding) is certainly among them. 

You can create an online fundraising page at zero cost to your organization in minutes. You’ll be able to share one link with your community that allows people to donate with zero friction. They’ll be able to simply click the link in your website, email or other communications, choose a donation amount and pay, without having to download an app or create an account.

Give your fundraiser a banner, name and description

After creating a Cheddar Up account, from your dashboard, click “Create a Collection”. Once in the collection builder, within the “Details” step, you can give your page a name and optional description and banner.

A description is a great place to describe your cause and how donations will make a difference. This is where you inspire your community to give! And don’t forget the banner—the perfect place to insert a logo or photo that will also spark compassion for your cause and online fundraising.

Add Items
An item on Cheddar Up is anything someone can pay for or contribute to. There are three types of items:
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Open Amount

The payer determines the amount — perfect for donations.
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Fixed Amount

You set the price of the item — perfect for giving levels that donors can select from or for selling fundraising products.
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Recurring Payment

Collect payments over a period of time based on a set schedule or frequency — perfect for monthly giving. Recurring payments is a Team feature.

For fundraising-related pages, you definitely want to include an “any amount” type of item. This allows people to give the amount they desire when contributing to your online fundraising.

You might also consider adding some fixed amount items at different giving levels that donors can easily select. Giving levels of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze, for example, are something we see often.

In addition, we strongly recommend adding a recurring item to your online fundraising page. Allowing donors to automatically give monthly or annually can be a gamechanger for ongoing and repeat giving. Go here to learn more about recurring payments. Check out this example online fundraising page, which uses all of the item types mentioned above.

Turn on important fundraising settings

Cheddar Up has built features that were designed specifically for online fundraising. Within your collection settings—the last step when building your collection page—be sure to check out: 

Add a fundraising goal

This is a new feature that allows organizers to set an online fundraising goal and lets your community see the progress in reaching it. This simple visual can be a huge driver of additional donations.

Echeck payment method

You’re hoping for some LARGE donations, right? If so, make sure you turn on the secondary “echeck” payment method. This will allow the lowest of transaction fees (a flat $0.59 on the Team plan, versus a percentage), which large donors often appreciate.

Flexible fee options

By default, Cheddar Up’s transactional convenience fee is passed on to the payer, which most organizers love. But sometimes, for fundraising-only pages, organizers are tempted to cover transactional fees for payers. While that’s a great option, keep in mind that we have a third option where organizers cover transactional fees, but then also give the donor the option to cover them during checkout.

Custom email receipt

Every time someone makes a payment on Cheddar Up, they automatically receive a detailed email receipt. For online fundraising efforts, many organizers love to use our “custom receipt” feature, which allows them to include an extra note of gratitude or the organizational tax ID for donors’ records. 

PRO TIP: Customize your online fundraising page URL

One last pro tip is to make sure you customize your fundraising page URL before you share or publish it with your community. Learn how to do that here
Fundraising with Cheddar Up

And, you’re done!

After you’ve created your online fundraising page and shared it with your group, the payments will roll in. Learn all about how to view and track payments from your Manage view. 

Want to see Cheddar Up in action? Have questions about your particular online fundraising needs? Attend a webinar or schedule a call. Our support team is here to help!

Collect for FREE

Whether you’re collecting dues and fees, fundraising, managing an event, creating a sign up, or selling something online or in-person, you can do it with a Cheddar Up collection.

You’ll want to ask your group’s organizer for a link. For privacy reasons, it’s not possible to search for this on Cheddar Up.

Learn more about paying on Cheddar Up

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