Can you Really Raise Funds for Free?

Crowdfunding helped numerous businesses to grow and achieve their goals. But a whole lot of difficulties we can easily see, due to platform and some other technical glitches. How to fight with those difficulties? Which is the perfect platform to raise crowdfunding? These are some common questions among every growing business entrepreneur when they think of crowdfunding.

We spoke to Chet Jain, CEO & Founder Crowdera, to understand the industry and how technology is helping.

Could you please elaborate on the current crowdfunding landscape, and how technology is helping?

Crowdfunding has evolved to be the most sought after alternative funding source for many projects, especially in the developed economies. Countries like India and China are also scaling up with crowdfunding very fast. However, the lack of information and confusion over the regulatory framework, the speed has dampened in India. But thanks to the new high-tech donation and rewards based fundraising platforms like Crowdera that are helping organizations make use of technology to make the complex process of fundraising feel simple.

Previously, people used to advertise via conventional methods like pamphlets and posters, and raise funds for good causes. In the last few years, we have seen a boom in technology and everything is going digital. Crowdfunding is not untouched by this stride and it's using several ways to expedite the process of crowdfunding as well as expanding the gamut through social media so that the process is more impactful.

In today’s competitive industry landscape, how are you enhancing its comprehensive capabilities and accelerating security for its users?

Let me first share why Crowdera exists. Crowdera is a fee-free online fundraising and crowdfunding platform aimed at helping nonprofits and individuals driving social impact to build meaningful engagement, spread their messages, and expand their donor base to increase their overall funding and impact. Crowdera is designed to complement an organization’s existing fundraising and volunteering activities and our product team ensure a robust architecture, comprehensive proprietary features complementing multi-channel fundraising, donation compliance, donor communication, and more within the fundraising framework.

Our platform is 100 per cent mobile-optimized. Crowdera offers team fundraising that kicks in the network effect by allowing the seamless creation of multiple individual fundraisers supporting nonprofit beneficiary by its donors and volunteers. Crowdera can be used to raise funds from multiple countries and in multiple currencies. This means that several Indian NGOs are already raising funds from abroad without paying hefty fees.

While, Crowdera is easy, effective and free, but it is extremely strict and stringent when it comes to vetting a nonprofit organization or NGO. Only well-intended organizations get approved for fundraising on Crowdera.

With growing financial crime rate, how you are supporting your clients to fight against threats?

Our world already ahead with lot many technological geniuses embedded into many of current day systems and applications like payment processing etc we use. Our primary goal is to comply with the security protocols established by our partners where personal financial data is used. We made a decision that no matter what volume of funds transact through us, we will never see the money directly. We are PCI compliant by virtue of our secured payment partners, the donor funds are directly sent to the fundraisers account from the payment processor.

Could you please elaborate a few use cases, where crowdera has helped its customers and what was the core benefits?

From building emergency shelters for victims of sex trafficking, to providing education and safety to girls affected by the Haiti earthquake, to sending over 200 kids from financially disadvantaged families in India to school, Crowdera is the fundraising platform of choice for numerous charitable organizations and individuals who have successfully transformed their noble causes into a reality.

We have hosted over 3500 fundraisers initiated by nonprofits, filmmakers, and individuals supporting their causes emergencies and dreams impacting over 50,000 lives. Our platform is live in over 200 countries and the donation span is spread over 35 countries. Our success rate can be measured by the fact that award winning Bollywood celebrities have raised funds as well as donated on Crowdera.

Use Cases:

• Two Cents of Hope raised more than $58,000 to send over 170 underprivileged Indian rural kids to school. Crowdera helped the American nonprofit onboard over 100 fundraisers across 3 fundraising events supporting the nonprofit, raising over 100% of their goal each time.
• Seth Boyden Outdoor Learning Center raised $20,940 for an outdoor learning center for children to experience learning in nature.
• Family of Mehta’s from Pune India raised over $30,000 in just 48 hours for treatment and recovery of their 3 year daughter battling with brain cancer.
• Harmony Education & Life Partners raised 120% of their goal for a student community garden.
• Manjim Sharma, Singaporean resident raised over US$25,000 in less than a week to save his prematurely born daughter.
• Silicon Valley’s 23rd Festival Of Globe raised $84,000 to support the Festival of Awards, Music, Culture, Food, Celebs. FOG hosted global celebrities in 2015.

Past Successful Campaigns:

• Pathshala Education Empowerment Initiative: Contributors from all over India together raised Rs 52,325 to help kids from underprivileged sections in Madhya Pradesh get access to better education than what can be availed at government schools. The funds, collected by Pratyaya EduResearch Lab, enabled kids from rural India to learn science in a more fun, easy way.
• Prajwala: One of the most successful campaigns hosted by Crowdera was run by Prajwala, an organization working to rehabilitate the lives of girls and women rescued from flesh trade in Hyderabad. Donors from around 27 countries came forward to help. Together, they contributed a sum of $260,100 to build a shelter to home the rescued women that will be home to more than 50 inmates at a time and a rehabilitation unit.
• Kohka Foundation: Through their network spread across multiple states in the country, Kohka Foundation from Madhya Pradesh collected more than Rs 5 lakh to buy computers for the tribal student. Raised by former banker Sanjay Nagar who has shifted to a tiny village called Kohka, the funds provided for 10 computers that would help more than 400 students from 20 villages that are served by the Turria High School become computer literate and become a part of the digital revolution being experienced in India.
• Good Samaritans India: This organization rescues, provides for and rehabilitates destitutes found on the streets and hospitals of Hyderabad. They have run multiple successful campaigns on Crowdera. In one of them, they collected almost 50% of the amount within the first four days of the campaign going live. The funds raised sponsored the brain surgery of a 23-year-old daily wage labourer who had been hit on the head with an axe. One of their very successful projects included raising funds to buy three body freezer boxes, for which a sum of Rs 77,474. For their campaign that asked for sponsoring the monthly expenses of one of the 30 inmates at their shelter home raised Rs 34,700.

Our commitment to the world is giving them a truly fee free fundraising platform for nonprofits & social innovators. As promised our platform is and will always remain free to fundraise, we provide value-added paid services and our goal as a business is to build a scalable services platform for our fundraisers to increase their fundraising efficiency and amplify their impact.

Its mission is to build a giving economy fueled by social capital helping nonprofits and social innovators raise money absolutely free (without paying any commission or fee). Hence, unlike existing online fundraising platforms, Crowdera is the first truly free option available for nonprofits. Our focus is to empower global nonprofits aligning with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.