How to Collect Money Online
Collecting money for an office party or a leaving gift can often be hard work. People rarely carry cash these days and the shift to working from home all or part of the time has made office collections much harder. Fortunately, there is a way to manage this remotely, as you can collect money online.
Whether you’re organising a collection for charity, a leaving gift, or doing something completely different, virtual fundraisers offer a simple way to raise money so your co-workers can contribute to your collection at the click of a button.
What you need to know about online collections
An online collection, also known as a money pool or money pot, is a great way to collect multiple individuals’ money in one place. It has a few benefits over other types of collections:
- Online fundraising means that no matter where people are geographically, they can easily contribute. This makes it easy to collect money even if contributors are based in different states, territories, or countries.
- It takes away the inconvenience of having to ask for money in person. A share of the link acts as a good prompt and removes any awkwardness.
- There’s no secretive envelope being passed from desk to desk. A simple round-robin email of the fundraising link means everyone knows exactly where the collection is.
- It’s more discreet and easier to keep a secret from the person you’re raising money for.
- Contributors don’t need to carry cash and can donate whenever is convenient to them.
You can visit our how it works page for more tips on how to set up a fundraiser to collect money online.
How to collect money for a group gift
If you’re raising funds for a leaving collection or a group gift, there are a number of things to keep in mind, such as how much you want to raise, what the funds are going towards, and so on. The following tips will help you navigate this process and teach you how to collect money online for a gift.
How do I get started?
Using a crowdfunding platform is the easiest way to launch your virtual collections. It takes less than five minutes to set up and less than 60 seconds to donate, which means it’s quick, straightforward and easy – no having to rush to the ATM to get your donation in at the last minute.
Personalise your campaign
Once you’ve signed up, you can personalise your fundraiser by adding a picture and a description about your collection, explaining who or what it’s for. This gives you a good opportunity to make it fun. If it’s a collection for someone’s leaving or retirement gift you can include a photo of them during their time working for your company. Anyone who donates can also leave a message of support, which is useful if you’re wishing happy birthday, a good retirement, sending wishes for maternity leave, or saying farewell.
Set a goal
Setting a collection goal is a good way of giving people something to aim for. If you already know what gift you want to give someone, set the goal as the price of the gift. If you haven’t decided yet, set a rough goal, as you can always adjust it later. On GoFundMe, you can change your goal at any time and once you’ve reached it you can still fundraise. You’ll also be able to withdraw the donated funds even if you don’t meet your goal.
Make it private
If your collection is to raise funds for a surprise gift, you can make it private so that only the people you share it with can see it.
Sharing is caring
Once you’re happy with your fundraiser, the next step is to share it on social media – read our blog post on the best ways to share it. You can do this through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Whatsapp and email. Remember that if it’s a surprise, sharing the fundraiser on social media will increase the chance of the beneficiary finding out about it, so it’s a good idea to create a private group or page to invite potential donors to.
Make sure the money goes to the right place
You can easily invite someone else to become a beneficiary by clicking ‘someone else’ when asked ‘Who will withdraw the funds?’ in your dashboard. You can also withdraw the funds yourself. This means you can either distribute them personally (keeping the surprise going) or use them to buy a gift and present it. If you do decide to go down this route, make sure you are transparent in your fundraising story about how you plan to do this and update your donors using our update button once it’s done.
The video below explains how to set up transfers.
Update your campaign
You can update your fundraiser to inform donors what your plans are for the money. You can add photos and videos to your update, so you can even add an image showing how the gift was received. Updates are automatically emailed out to anyone who has donated.
Say thank you
It’s always nice to get a thanks, no matter what it’s for. If you’re running the collection, make sure to say thank you to those that donate. There’s a useful tool to do this on GoFundMe, but also make sure to say thanks to donors in person, on social media, or even in an email to everyone who contributed.
Charity collections
If you’re raising money for a charity, you can select your chosen charity from a drop down menu when you set up your campaign. Once you’ve selected a charity, all the money raised will automatically be sent to that charity.
It’s a good idea to say in your description why you have chosen to raise funds for your chosen charity and what it means to you, either as an individual or a company. It will help engage people with your campaign and make it clear what cause the money will go towards.
It can also be good to explain the impact of donations. For example, if you’re fundraising for a food bank, explain that every $50 donated can feed a family in need for a week. Or if you’re fundraising for a cancer charity, describe how a $10 donation could contribute to cancer research.
Work collections
If the collection is for work, don’t forget to share it on any work intranet and/or email it around to the team (except the person it’s for!) – you could even add calendar invites on or after payday reminding colleagues to donate.
Now that working from home has become more commonplace, having an online collection like this makes it easier for everyone to contribute. The link is there and accessible at all hours of the day and allows people to donate at their convenience, whether that’s in a spare minute between meetings or at the end of the working day.
Wedding and honeymoon funds
It’s traditional to give gifts to celebrate the wedding of a loved one. But maybe you have everything you need already and would prefer to take any generous donations and put them towards something more important to you, like a honeymoon.
A virtual collection could be perfect for that as well. Once again, it’s easy to circulate the link and people can donate in their own time, before or after the wedding, and as much as they like. Or, if you’ve got a special cause in mind, you could raise money for charity and have people donate to that in honour of your wedding instead.
Start your money pool today
So what are you waiting for? Why not start your online collection on GoFundMe today.
It couldn’t be easier to set up a fundraiser, and start racking up donations from supporters. It’s easy to donate via PayPal too.
Our experts are on hand to offer help seven days and week, and you can use our mobile app to check in on your fundraising progress on the move.