As the fastest growing platform for cause-based crowdfunding, CrowdRise is home to countless fundraisers that use urgency and tangible results to create massive change. We're insanely passionate about innovating and helping the nonprofits and individuals on the platform, so we decided to embark on an experiment. We wanted to create a model to enable people to identify a distinct, tangible need and effectively engage their network to raise enough money to solve that need… all in 24 hours.
Here were our goals:
CrowdRise 24-Hour Impact Projects are flash fundraisers that highlight real-time impact by identifying a need, raising the funds necessary to make tangible change in 24-hours, and use those funds to implement solutions the very next day. The team films all activity in real time and posts video updates so donors can see the immediate result of their contributions.
CrowdRise ambassadors select a cause and identify stories where they can make a real impact. They then work with experts to find a solution and tap into their networks to raise funds and immediately use the money to create results.
Since launching the project last year, CrowdRise has produced 9 inspirational flash fundraisers for causes across four continents. Our ambassadors have…
Each project exposes a population with needs ranging from basic sanitation and medical services to housing and job training. The project highlights these needs through stories of individuals, communities and families whose struggles resonate with donors who give in $10 dollar increments to create lasting change on a micro and macro scale. With every story captured in beautiful videos that are filmed, edited, and produced on the ground, donors are connected instantly to the projects they fund.
Without a rigorous share strategy, these stories would go unnoticed. In fact, any peer to peer fundraising campaign dies on the vine if no one sees it. Social media and direct communication are at the heart of every campaign's success.
A 24-Hour Impact Project lives across every social platform and relies on personal engagement via video, email, Facebook, Instagram and more to remind donors they are critical to the campaign -- that they are the campaign. One ambassador, a photographer, took over our Instagram during her campaign to showcase her amazing pictures. Another ambassador introduced local kids to Snapchat -- and its filters -- while sharing real time updates with the world. We also integrate with meerkat so the ambassador can live stream throughout. Stories are shared with media and blogged about on The Huffington Post and Medium. We even use this really antiquated thing called email, which in the world of personalized crowdfunding is massively effective.
Our ambassadors build their own mini armies who work to fundraise and share like crazy. The excitement, urgency and passion these campaigns ignite is contagious and ripples across fundraisers and donors alike as they bring others into the fold.
The program has been wildly successful. For each fundraiser, the financial goal has been met, with most fundraisers hitting stretch goals, and in every case, all of the solutions have been implemented within 24 hours.
These impact projects have raised over $160,000 from over 3,200 donors for charitable initiatives. The funds have been utilized to provide eye care for over 1,400 students, fund life changing surgeries for three children, reunite a homeless veteran with his family, feed hundreds of homeless and so much more.
It has gotten over 500 million media impressions and has been covered by a variety of outlets including The Today Show, The Huffington Post (here, here, and here), The Daily Dot, Inside Edition, Take Part, The New York Times, Now This (here and here), The Detroit Free Press, Refinery29, Bustle, among others.
