FundRazr is a free
crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...
and online
fundraising
Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...
platform released in 2009. FundRazr operates internationally in 35+ counties with the largest markets being United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. It allows users to run a wide-range of crowdfunding campaigns by creating fundraising pages and sharing it via social media, messaging apps, email and more
to raise money for over 100 types of causes such as nonprofit, medical care, education, community help, poverty alleviation, arts, memorials, and animal rescue causes. FundRazr also works with more than 4000 nonprofits, charities and social enterprises with an advanced fundraising toolset for free. The digital fundraising platform provides 8 different campaign types. They include microproject fundraising,
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
campaigns, wishlist campaigns, recurring donations, branded sponsorship campaigns, DIY projects, sweepstake campaigns, and storefront campaigns.
History
FundRazr was founded in 2008 by Daryl Hatton. The head office is located in
Vancouver, British Columbia
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, Canada. The platform was initially a Facebook app that allowed users to
crowdfund
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...
money over Facebook. It has since developed into a full online fundraising tool set. FundRazr was the first crowdfunding platform to provide a collaborative community payment model, wherein funds are deposited directly to a company or cause—an example of which is their partnership with Heritage Education Funds to allow families to crowdfund directly to a Registered Educations Savings Plan (RESP).
In November 2015, FundRazr partnered with Place2Give to enable users to crowdfund directly for any registered charity in North America capable of issuing tax receipts directly from FundRazr using the GIVE_api. In 2018, FundRazr was modified into an enterprise crowdfunding platform and launched the Distribution Partnership Program.
Business model
FundRazr uses the donation/perks crowdfunding model available for organizations, charities and personal causes with two pricing options: free (0% platform fee), standard (5% for advanced functionality) and pro (fee recovery models). A fee is not charged if no fund is raised. FundRazr allows users to create a campaign page for their cause. The page can then be shared through
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
, email or embedded onto a third-party website to solicit donations from supporters. Supporters contribute to a cause through comments, shares, likes, and donations, which are all visible on Facebook. FundRazr is in partnership with
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
which allow users to deposit and withdraw funding.
The fundraising platform provides two campaign options for users to raise money: Keep It All or All Or Nothing. Keep It All means all of the funds the campaign raised will be deposited into the user's account, giving the person immediate access to the capital. All Or Nothing means if the campaign does not meet the goal by the deadline, no money will be charged to the donors or given to the user.
In other words, if the campaign does not raise enough to get the project off the ground, the user has the option to back out.
On 20 August 2013, FundRazr introduced "Crowdfunding as a Service" technology, which allows web publishers and companies to run crowdfunding service on their site. FundRazr subsequently announced its first official PoweredBy partner,
HealthLine
Healthline Media, Inc. is an American website and provider of health information headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1999, relaunched in 2006, and established as a standalone entity in January 2016.
Accuracy
There ar ...
on 17 December 2013.
As of 2013, illness, medical and health-related causes represent 58% of money raised. Memorials/tributes represents another 12%. On 28 February 2013, Fundrazr announced that it had raised $20 million for its users.
, FundRazr had raised over $116 million from over 140,000 campaigns.
In November 2020, FundRazr crossed $200 million total funds raised.
As of April 2021, FundRazr officially launched
fiscal sponsorship
Fiscal sponsorship refers to the practice of non-profit organizations offering their legal and tax-exempt status to groups—typically projects—engaged in activities related to the sponsoring organization's mission. It typically involves a fee-b ...
crowdfunding where all fiscally sponsored projects can raise unrestricted funds using the fiscal sponsor's
501c3 number.
Awards
*2013
BCTIA Technology Impact Award – Most Promising Start-up
*2013 Vancouver Social Media Award – Best Social Media Campaign (non-profit)
Reception
FundRazr is listed as the best overall alternative to
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
in 2022.
Along with competitors like
Indiegogo and
GoFundMe
GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the b ...
, FundRazr is also listed as one of the top major players in the crowdfunding market.
Notable projects
References
External links
*
{{Crowdfunding platforms
Crowdfunding platforms of Canada
Companies based in Vancouver