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At Chuffed.org, we want to see our awesome environmental protection and conservation campaigners - people like you - run the most successful crowdfunding campaigns that they can.
So we’ve put together this guide that will step you through creating a strong campaign page to strengthen the foundations of your campaign.
A crowdfunding campaign page is the page on Chuffed.org where you’ll direct supporters, donors, friends and family. It will include the details of who you are, what you are trying to achieve and how you plan to do so, and, it is the place supporters actually donate to your campaign.
Choosing the right options and including information in an easily digestible way is important and can be the difference between a good campaign and a great one.
A campaign page looks a bit like this example from Environment Tasmania. The title is at the top, followed by the name of your organisation. To the left of the screen under the title is the campaign banner or video; on the right is the campaign target and counter. Under this is a box containing your campaign's 'pitch' and buttons supporters use to initiate their donations.
Beneath these is the main body text outlining your campaign's story - the campaign description. The tabs can be switched to show comments from supporters, and names of supporters. On the right next to the main story are where perks are listed should you choose to have them.
Click here to see Environment Tasmania's full campaign page.
All the components of a crowdfunding campaign page are stepped out below alongside examples from successful environmental protection campaigns we’ve hosted on Chuffed.org.
We’ve also created this handy Google Doc template that you can use to collaborate with your team. It contains some more examples from great campaigns.
To start setting up your crowdfunding campaign page, head to chuffed.org/start.
This is what your campaign is called. The title shows at the top of your campaign page and is shared with potential supporters when you share the campaign out via Facebook and Twitter - so the title (along with the banner image - more about that below) is the first thing people will see.
Good titles are less than 5 words long and are like the title of a book: memorable or catchy. You might include alliteration, a question, a play on words or unique spelling.
Some real examples from successful campaigns:
All campaigns on Chuffed.org need to set a campaign funding target. You’ll receive your funds even if you don't hit your target, but it's important to set your target at an achievable level to build credibility with your supporters.
You should set your target based on three factors:
As a rough rule of thumb, we find that the following is a reasonable way to set your target:
Email contacts are the most valuable, followed by Facebook friends and then Twitter or LinkedIn contacts.
On Chuffed.org, you can choose to either run your campaign for a fixed length of time (90 days or less) or ongoing with no end date in what we call Infinity Mode.
If it's your first campaign, we generally find that you'll raise the most when you run a 30-40 day campaign. The reason for this is that the time pressure forces your team to act, which drives momentum, which brings more people to your campaign. Campaigns that stretch on for a long period of time struggle to gain interest because supporters get distracted by other things in their lives.
This is where you tell your supporters about your project: why your cause is important and what you are doing to make a difference.
The pitch is short blurb to describe what you’re doing in 200 characters. It sits in a box just under you campaign target on the campaign page.
It is what potential supporters are likely to read first and helps them understand quickly what your project is about. Remember: they're busy, and they'll be skim reading, so the pitch is your chance to grab their attention and tell them why they should read your full campaign description. Be as succinct, specific and engaging as you can.
Here are some examples of good pitches used by real environmental protection campaigns on Chuffed.org:
Help us to share the Climate Choir message! Over 600 singers from community choirs across the country will join to urge action on climate change in the lead up to the UN Climate Conference in Bonn.
Every day the small team at Wildlife Queensland puts its heart and soul into correcting biodiversity loss in Queensland. YOU CAN give us the tools to keep up the good work for our wildlife in 2018!!!
We're going out on a limb here - literally! Help us engineer an epic STEAM education opportunity for kids by using plastic waste to 3D print ROBOTIC PROSTHETICS for Australians in need. Let's move!
And some not so great pitches:
We are a volunteer driven not-for-profit organisation that aims to empower communities across the region to address our climate challenges together. Help us support in this work.
An elephant is poached every 15 minutes for their ivory leaving behind many orphans. Help support us to save them and re-integrate them into the wild.
The idea is to start a recycling workshop and involve local and international artists to create art by reducing plastic waste.
This is the larger block of text on your campaign page and it's where you can go into detail about what you're doing. The best campaigns use about 300-500 words, combined with pictures, to tell a story about the change they want to make and how they plan to do it. You can even embed images or videos that you might have (in addition to the main campaign banner or video - described below).
As your campaign progresses, you can keep editing your campaign description. It's a great place to put in progress updates- like Edgar's Mission did in this award winning campaign - so that supporters who are checking your page regularly have fresh content to enjoy.
Below is a simple structure you can use for your campaign description. The example we've used is a summarised version of the excellent Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife campaign to save a colony of Little Penguins. We recommend you read the full campaign description.
Section: Background
In this section:
Example
The penguin colony: Amongst the hustle and bustle of Australia's biggest city, a group of charming and unusual locals have set up home in the popular suburb of Manly.The Manly colony of Little Penguins in Sydney Harbour is the only mainland breeding colony left in New South Wales. This special and unique colony was listed as an endangered population in the 1990s.
But there's a problem... During June, a fox discovered this colony and devastated the population of Little Penguins at Manly. In just over two weeks, 27 helpless Little Penguins were killed by the fox.
Section: What we're doing
This is where you should:
Example
In response to these gruesome discoveries, a special team of field officers, National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers, experts and volunteers are keeping watch on the nesting penguins day and night, to protect them from further attacks. At the same time an operation to trap the cunning creature continues.
Foxes are a huge threat to our native fauna and it is highly likely that other foxes in the future will attempt a similar attack. This is why we need your assistance, to help the volunteers and NPWS monitor and protect Manly's Little Penguins from any future attacks and to help rebuild their endangered colony.
Section: What we'll do with the funds
In this part you should:
Example
In order to outfox the fox, more specialised equipment is needed as well as additional nest boxes. Here are some of the items FNPW are fundraising for:
Section: Who we are
People give to people. They want to supporter a person, not a faceless project. So:
Example
The Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife has a long history of supporting the endangered colony of penguins in Manly. Since 1999 the Foundation has been helping fund equipment for volunteer wardens, nest boxes, signage to warn people about the presence of these vulnerable birds, and much more.
FNPW working in partnership with the local NPWS rangers, Taronga Zoo, Manly Council, Manly Environment Centre and the Office of Environment & Heritage has helped keep the Little Penguins in Manly safe up until now.
Additional sections
You may also want to include sections in this main body text about:
Another great example comes from Farmwall, who raised over their $30,000 target to build aquaponic farming systems in Melbourne restaurants that will start to address the environmental impact of the way cities eat by reducing the distance between where food is grown and eaten. See their campaign page here. They take a different approach to the structure laid out above - presenting first their vision for the future, followed by how they intend to make it happen.
The banner image is the main visual element of your campaign. It's the first thing potential supporters see and it gets shared on Facebook and Twitter alongside the campaign’s title.
This one comes from 350.org Australia's campaign to raise funds to oppose the Adani coal mine. View their campaign here.
You want your image to:
For clarity, Chuffed.org is a guilt-free site. We reject campaigns that use guilt-imagery like dehumanizing photos of starving children to get donations, or graphic, disturbing images of animals.
The best crowdfunding campaigns include a campaign video. This is a specific 2-5 minute video created for the campaign. Don't use a generic promotion video designed for something else.
Campaign videos don't need to be expensive or have high production value. It's far more important that the video tells a compelling story than looks pretty.
Here are some tips:
All videos on Chuffed.org need to be uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo first. You then enter the URL from either service into the relevant field in the campaign editor.
Examples: For some inspiration, take a look at these two campaign videos made by the Conservation Council of Western Australia (Video 1; Video 2) and this one from Environment Tasmania.
Perks are things that you offer supporters who donate above a specific amount.
We get asked a lot about perks, especially about how important they are for crowdfunding success? Do I really need to offer perks? Won't it stop people being philanthropic?
Our answer? Perks help. A LOT.
The reason for this is that perks give people a way of participating in your campaign. They tap into selfish motivations as well as benevolent motivations. And they let you access your supporters' spending purse, not just their philanthropic purse -- you can guess which of these is bigger.
So what perks should you offer?
Perks tend to fall into three categories:
So, how do you come up with perks?
This might sound obvious, but the easiest way to come up with perks is to co-design them with potential donors. Edgar's Mission ran a workshop with some of its key volunteers prior to its campaign to come up with their perks. Spacecubed - a co-working space in Perth - did the same with their members. It's best to have a hypothesis on your perks as a starting point, as well as the levels you need perks at (normally $25, $50, $100, $250, $1000, $2500, $5000).
Some other considerations:
When you're setting up your campaign, you'll have to choose what payment options you give to your donors. Your two options are:
Tip: Donors find the credit/debit card payment system much easier to use than PayPal. The donation process happens entirely on the Chuffed.org site - they just enter their card details and it works. PayPal unfortunately is confusing for a lot of donors and regularly rejects valid cards and accounts. They may also unexpectedly restrict your PayPal account if your campaign is very successful. We recommend only using PayPal as a secondary option with the credit/debit card system.
The way that you receive the funds from the two systems depends on which country you choose for your campaign - this should be a country where you have a bank account:
(1) During the campaign creation process, you will need to create an account with our payment processing provider, Stripe.com. This is a very simple, one form process, which will take less than 5 minutes.
(2) To accept PayPal payments, you will need to create a Premier or Business PayPal account at www.paypal.com, prior to launching your campaign. The campaign will need to be confirmed and connected to a bank account. This can take up to 3 months.
On Chuffed.org, there are a number of optional customisations for your campaign page, including:
All campaigns on Chuffed.org have to be submitted to us for approval before they can go live. We check that they satisfy our eligibility requirements and that they have a decent chance of reaching their target.
The approval process usually takes less than 24 hours. You will get an email from us that either approves your campaign for launch, asks you to modify your campaign and resubmit, or rejects your campaign outright.
About 60% of campaigns are approved on first submission. Once you've had one successfully funded campaign on Chuffed.org, we auto-approve all future campaigns.
If you'd like to read more about how to crowdfund, view our full guide here.
Or if you're ready to draft your campaign, just head here.
To learn more about getting the most out of your campaign, subscribe to the Chuffed Academy newsletter below.