This article is part of our Guide to Fundraising on Mobilize with EveryAction
Guide contents |
Fundraising event campaigns empower your supporters to fundraise on your behalf by letting them host their own virtual or in-person fundraising events.
With our intuitive hosting and sharing tools, supporters can quickly create a fundraising event from your template, share the details with their friends and families, collect contributions directly on the page, and use our automated and one-to-one messaging tools to connect with attendees before and after the event.
Mobilize's distributed/peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities are powered by EveryAction, so contributions collected by your fundraisers appear instantly in EveryAction!
👉 Before you get started, you (or an Admin in your organization) need to first create an Online Contribution form in EveryAction and link your EveryAction Contribution forms to Mobilize.
ℹ️ THIS IS A NEW FEATURE CURRENTLY IN BETA |
1. Create a new fundraising event campaign
From your dashboard, navigate to "Event campaigns" and click or tap the button for "New event campaign"
Then, select a type of fundraising event campaign to create:
Fundraising events – Supporters host in-person or virtual events and can collect donations during signup.
Peer-to-peer fundraising – Supporters create personal fundraising pages where their connections can make a donation at any time.
2. Configure your host-an-event form details (Overview)
Add a title and description for your fundraising event campaign form that will motivate your prospective fundraisers and give them information about the campaign's goals.
The slug you choose will be used in the URL for your host form and the campaign's landing page. This can't be changed once the campaign is created.
3. Access: Choose who can create fundraising events and pages, and who can approve them
Discovery options (who can discover the campaign on your hosting page and submit events) include:
Anyone from the public – the campaign will be visible to any supporters looking for event hosting opportunities on your Mobilize feed (for example, via the "Host" link).
Anyone with the link – the campaign won't be visible to supporters looking for event hosting opportunities on your Mobilize feed, but you can still send supporters the link directly (e.g. via email or SMS).
Nobody – This option deactivates your event campaign link so that supporters can no longer submit a new fundraising event or page.
Approval options (who can approve and manage supporters' fundraising events and pages) include:
Admins only – All fundraising events and pages submitted by supporters must be approved by one of your organization's admin users before they can appear publicly.
Admins and moderators – All fundraising events and pages must be approved by either an admin user or one of your chosen moderators (including volunteers) before they can appear publicly.
No approval needed – Choose this option if you don't want to approve new fundraising events and pages. Events and pages will be public and shareable as soon as supporters validate their email address or log in with a social account.
4. Add instructions for your fundraisers and a support contact
Specify a support email your fundraisers can contact if they have questions before or after creating their fundraising event or page. This can be your email, another team member's, or a shared inbox.
Additionally, we recommend you provide fundraising instructions which Mobilize will include in the email your fundraisers receive when their fundraising page goes live. (If you have approval enabled, the email is sent after approval.)
The instructions field is a great place to include any tips for fundraising for your organization, links to fundraising guides, or other guidance specific to your fundraising campaign.
5. Configure defaults for your supporter-led fundraising events and pages
Choose event defaults to help standardize your supporters' fundraising pages, and make creating a fundraiser even easier for your supporters. These defaults will be pre-populated in the form supporters use to create their fundraising events and pages.
Default event types – Choose one or more event types. For example, you may want all your fundraising events and pages to have the "Fundraiser" event type, or you can select multiple types and fundraisers will be able to choose between them.
Default title – Pre-populates a title for your supporters' fundraising events and pages. Can be edited by hosts/fundraisers.
💡 Pro tip: Use text in brackets, e.g.,
Fundraiser for Equality in [Your City], to indicate to your fundraisers that they should customize the title.
Default description – Pre-populates a description for the fundraising event or page that will appear publicly to potential donors on the contribution page. Can be edited by hosts/fundraisers.
💡 Pro tip: Use language that will motivate potential donors to donate and sign up: What is the importance of their contribution? What will the funds be used for? What is the nature of the event?
Default "how to prepare" instructions – Pre-populates the message that will be included in the confirmation email that donors will receive after they donate or sign up to the fundraising event. Can be edited by hosts/fundraisers.
💡 Pro tip: Include language that thanks donors for their contribution, provides information on what to bring to the event (if applicable), or make a follow-up ask.
Default tags – Automatically applies the selected tags (up to three) to supporters' fundraising pages or events, to help supporters find the page or event on Mobilize and on your feed. Learn more
Default photos – Upload up to six compelling photos (we recommend 1200x630px, or 1.91:1 aspect ratio) to help supporters' fundraising events and pages stand out on social media and in Mobilize feeds (for public events).
Note: Images will be assigned to new fundraising events and pages at random and cannot be edited by the host/fundraiser.
6. Select an EveryAction contribution form to use for fundraising events and pages in this campaign
Choose the EveryAction contribution form that should be used to collect contributions for supporters' fundraising events and pages. Learn more about configuring EveryAction contribution forms and linking them to your Mobilize account.
For fundraising event campaigns, you also have the option to make donations required for all fundraising events created in the campaign. If this setting is toggled "off", Mobilize will add a 'Continue without donating' link on your supporters' fundraising event signup pages, to allow supporters to sign up to the fundraising event without donating.
7. Configure how progress and goals are displayed
Mobilize can show the total amount raised on Mobilize and a progress bar that automatically increases as more supporters donate and sign up for a fundraising event or page, to help motivate donors to contribute to your cause:
You can specify a default donation goal that will be pre-populated when a fundraiser is creating their event or fundraising page. Fundraisers can edit the goal, and it will be displayed on their fundraising event or page along with the amount collected towards that goal on Mobilize:
Leave the default donation goal unset to allow a fundraiser to specify their own goal.
If you'd prefer that Mobilize doesn't display the fundraising goal or amounts raised on supporters' fundraising events and pages, you can choose to hide the goal amount and donation totals by toggling these options to "off".
8. Specify when fundraising events can be held (only for fundraising event-type campaigns)
If your fundraising campaign is for fundraising events, you can specify whether fundraisers can create events:
At any date and time – good for ongoing or "evergreen" fundraising campaigns
With a specific date and/or time – great for a Day of Action or Watch Party fundraising
Within a date range – good for fundraising within a given month or before a specific deadline.
If you want to encourage your fundraisers to create recurring events (for example, a recurring trivia night fundraiser), you can enable the "multiple times" option and fundraisers will be able to add multiple times to their fundraising event pages.
9. Re-engage your fundraisers by specifying a "next event campaign"
If you specify a "next campaign", Mobilize will re-engage fundraisers after their event or fundraiser ends by asking them to create another fundraiser or event in the specified campaign. Learn more about volunteer host re-engagement
10. Provide details for social sharing & promotion on Mobilize
Add a social sharing title, social teaser/description and a social sharing image to help your fundraising event campaign stand out when it is shared on social media, or when it appears on your "Host an event" landing page (if enabled).
11. Save your campaign, and get ready to see your supporters become your best fundraisers!
Click or tap 'Save' to publish your fundraising event campaign!
You'll receive notifications when supporters submit events and fundraising pages to the campaign, and can monitor progress from your "event campaigns" tab.
Recruiting fundraisers
If you created a public event campaign, the campaign will appear on your host-an-event landing page shortly, and the "Host an event form" (that fundraisers use to create events and fundraising pages) can be distributed via your email or SMS program, or on social channels.
If you've asked Mobilize to help you recruit potential hosts, your new campaign will also be accessible through the "Host" link at the top of your Mobilize feed and event pages, and in automated communications.
Additionally, you will have the option after your event campaign is created to send a notification about the new campaign to any supporters who have previously committed to host an event, or who have hosted an event or fundraiser for your organization in the past:
➡️ Next up:
Learn more about managing supporter-led events
Check out what's new on Mobilize
💬 This is a new Mobilize feature, and as always we're looking for your ideas and feedback. Let us know what you think