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FAQs:
Please read this whole page of impossibly small print.What is Crowdrise (1)
How does Crowdrise work (1)
Donation Questions (5)
What does Crowdrise Cost (4)
Security Questions (2)
How Do Charities Get Their Money (1)
Finding a Friend's Fundraiser (1)
Finding a Charity (1)
Finding and Adding Friends (3)
Photo Questions (3)
Video Questions (1)
Sharing my Project Page (1)
Project Team Questions (6)
Comments Questions (2)
Points Questions (2)
Prize Questions (2)
Promotion Questions (1)
Deleting My Account or a Project (1)
Charity FAQs (10)
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WHAT IS CROWDRISE
What is Crowdrise?
Crowdrise is about volunteering, raising money for Charity and having the most fun in the world while doing it. Read More.
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HOW DOES CROWDRISE WORK
How Does Crowdrise Work?
STEP 1: CREATE YOUR PROFILE PAGE Sign Up to create your own Profile. Your Profile Page is meant to show everything you're doing to give back. It's basically a summary of your Charitable Life. You can upload photos, videos and stories to make your page super compelling. From your Profile Page, you can start or join as many Fundraising or Volunteering Projects as you want. View Some Examples.
STEP 2: START A PROJECT Whether you're running a marathon, volunteering or have causes that you care deeply about, create your own Projects on Crowdrise or join someone else's Project Team and help them out. We encourage you to choose a Charity when you set up your Project so you can raise lots of money for your favorite causes. View Some Examples.
STEP 3: SHARE YOUR PROJECT Share your Projects with all your friends by sending them a link to your Project Page via email, Facebook and Twitter. Ask everyone you know to donate to the Charity you picked and be sure to tell them about our Best Promos Ever so they see the cool stuff they can win if they donate to your cause. If your friends don't help you, we'd recommend not getting 'em a birthday present this year.
STEP 4: CHARITIES GET THEIR MONEY Donors will make donations to the Charities of their choice by using the Amazon Payments™ secure credit card processing service. Every 30 days, Charities will receive their payments less the Transaction Fee. Payments will be sent to the Charities on or about the 21st day of the month for donations made in the prior calendar month. These payment schedules are subject to change at any time at the sole discretion of Crowdrise.The money is sent to the address that the Charity has on file with GuideStar. Charities will be responsible for taxes based on their net income or gross receipts. Payments to charities are sent from a separate dedicated bank account. Crowdrise only holds these payments in this account for the minimum amount of necessary time to process the transactions; any interest accrued on these amounts is donated by Crowdrise to a Charity of its choice.
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DONATION QUESTIONS
Is my donation tax-deductible?
All donations made through Crowdrise are to US-based 501(c)3 nonprofits. When you make a donation, be sure to save and/or print the confirmation email you receive from Crowdrise for your records. If you have any questions about whether your donations are tax-deductible, please consult a tax professional or the nonprofit you donated to.Is my donation secure?
This will sound really official because we know how important it is. Crowdrise uses Amazon Payments™ to process all donations safely and securely. Amazon Payments, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides a safe means to process transactions online. Amazon Payments™ is not affiliated with Crowdrise. Amazon Payments™ will not share your financial information (such as credit card information) with Crowdrise without your consent. Crowdrise does not collect or store your credit card information. All information associated with your use of Amazon Payments™ will be handled in accordance with the terms of the Amazon Payments Privacy Notice. When you sign in to use Amazon Payments™, you agree to the Amazon Payments User Agreement.Do I need an account to make a donation?
You definitely do not need a Crowdrise account to make a donation. We've timed it and you can make a donation on Crowdrise in less than 30 seconds. All donations are processed through Amazon Payments™ so if you already have an Amazon account, you can probably do it in 11 seconds.How do I make an anonymous donation?
When you're ready to make a donation, click the “Give” button on your selected charity and then select the “I want to give ANONYMOUSLY” field.How do I donate to my own Project?
We highly recommend you make a donation to your Project. The reason is that when your friends see that you're not only investing your time but also your money in helping to raise money for Charity, they'll be encouraged to donate too. To donate to your own project, simply go to your own Project page, and click the link in the middle of the page that says “Donate to my own Project.”Back to Top
WHAT DOES CROWDRISE COST
Is Crowdrise Free?
Yes, Crowdrise is entirely free to use. You can set up as many Volunteer and Fundraising Projects as you want and there is no charge. When you or anyone else donates to a Project or Charity through Crowdrise, we take a Transaction Fee on the donation.What is the Transaction Fee?
Crowdrise is designed to help Volunteers and Fundraisers answer the call to service, raise money for Charity, and have the most fun in the world while doing it. To make sure we don't go out of business trying to help everyone raise lots of money for Charity, Crowdrise deducts 5% on donations made through our site and a $1 transaction fee for donations under $25 or a $2.50 transaction fee for donations $25 and over.For example, with a $100 donation:
$100 Donation
-$5.00 (5%) Crowdrise's not wanting to go out of business fee
-$2.50 Transaction Fee
$92.50 goes to Charity
Why does Crowdrise charge a Transaction Fee?
Our goal is to make fundraising and volunteering easy, viral, fun and impactful. We charge a Transaction Fee on the donations made through our website to cover Crowdrise's costs associated with developing, maintaining and hosting the website, giving the best customer service in the world, providing secure payment solutions through Amazon Payments™, vetting nonprofits through GuideStar's third party web service, ensuring the quick and safe transfer of money to the charities, and then all the other business expenses like lawyers and insurance and staple removers. We don't actually have any staple removers. We could have staple removers but if we do I don't know about it. Most importantly, Charities usually spend between 20%-30% of every dollar they raise to get people to donate, leaving less for them to use to do all the amazing things they do around the world. Crowdrise charges a fraction of that amount so we're a really good deal for charities and it's all free for you to use.Back to Top
SECURITY QUESTIONS:
Is my donation secure?
This will sound really official because we know how important it is. Crowdrise uses Amazon Payments™ to process all donations safely and securely. Amazon Payments, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides a safe means to process transactions online. Amazon Payments™ is not affiliated with Crowdrise. Amazon Payments™ will not share your financial information (such as credit card information) with Crowdrise without your consent. Crowdrise does not collect or store your credit card information. All information associated with your use of Amazon Payments™ will be handled in accordance with the terms of the Amazon Payments Privacy Notice. When you sign in to use Amazon Payments™, you agree to the Amazon Payments User Agreement.Is my personal information safe?
Crowdrise is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. Crowdrise has developed this Privacy Policy to ensure your personal information is protected. Crowdrise does not collect or store any of your financial information. We use Amazon Payments to process all donations safely and securely.Back to Top
HOW DO CHARITIES GET THEIR MONEY
When does the Charity get the money from Crowdrise?
Donors will make donations to the Charities of their choice by using the Amazon Payments™ secure credit card processing service. Every 30 days, Charities will receive their payments less the Transaction Fee. Payments will be sent to the Charities on or about the 21st day of the month for donations made in the prior calendar month. These payment schedules are subject to change at any time at the sole discretion of Crowdrise.The money is sent to the address that the Charity has on file with GuideStar. Charities will be responsible for taxes based on their net income or gross receipts.Payments to charities are sent from a separate dedicated bank account. Crowdrise only holds these payments in this account for the minimum amount of necessary time to process the transactions; any interest accrued on these amounts is donated by Crowdrise to a Charity of its choice.
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FINDING A FRIEND'S FUNDRAISER
How do I find a Friend's Fundraiser on Crowdrise?
To find a Friend's Fundraiser, hover over the GIVE button at the top of the site and one of the options in the dropdown will be “Find a Friend's Fundraiser.” From there you can easily search for your Friend's Fundraiser. If you need any help, please Contact Us.Back to Top
FINDING A CHARITY
Why can't I find the Charity I'm looking for on Crowdrise?
The charities on Crowdrise are US-based, 501(c)3s provided to use by a third party service called GuideStar that collects their information from the IRS and the charities themselves. If you're trying to start a project benefiting a charity or want to donate to a charity and you can't find them, the best thing to do is figure out the exact name of the charity or even better, find out their Tax ID number. If you need any help, please Contact Us.Back to Top
FINDING AND ADDING FRIENDS
How do I Find Friends?
In the upper right of your Profile page, there is “Invite/Find Friends” button. Click the button and then use the right side of the page to import your address book. We'll then be able to tell you who of your friends are on Crowdrise and you can press one button to ask them to be friends. We won't store your password or email your friends.How do I Add Friends?
Go to the Profile page of the person you want to be friends with and click the "Add to Friends" link in the upper right part of the page. This will send a Friend Request to that person and assuming they don't despise you, they'll accept you as a Friend and everything will be great.How do I invite my friends to Join Crowdrise?
In the upper right of your Profile page, there is “Invite/Find Friends” button. Click this to invite friends to Crowdrise or find friends that are already on Crowdrise. You can write your own personal email or use our version. You can easily email a bunch of people at once by importing your address book. We won't store your password or email your friends. You can also use the Share button to post your page to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.Back to Top
PHOTO QUESTIONS
Why can't I upload a photo?
Please make sure that your photo is under 3 MB and a minimum of 375x375 pixels. Please also ensure the file is in any of the following formats: jpg, jpeg, gif or png. The bigger your photo, the longer it will take to upload but it should only take between 3 seconds and 1 minute to upload.Why does my photo look stretched out?
Just make sure that any photo you upload is at least 375x375 pixels (that just means you don't want to use really small photos or they won't look as good). Also, your photo may have been originally cropped by you and then uploaded to the site. Please ensure that you upload the original photo (uncropped) and you may have the ability to crop it through the Crowdrise picture upload system.Why is my photo facing the wrong direction?
Be sure to make sure your photo is facing the right direction before you upload it. Mac computers will automatically turn your photo to the right direction on your computer but it isn't really saved that way so even if it looks right on your computer, just open any photo software you have and double check that it's facing the right direction and make sure you save it that way. Then upload it to Crowdrise and all will be perfect.Back to Top
VIDEO QUESTIONS:
How do I add a video to my Charity Page?
It's super easy to add a video to your page if you know how to use YouTube. If you don't know how to use YouTube, ask a friend, any high school student or ask us. Anyway, to get your video on Crowdrise, first upload your video to YouTube. Then all you need to do is go to your page on Crowdrise, click on the EDIT VIDEO link and copy and paste the YouTube URL (web address) into the box. Then hit Save and your video will magically appear.Back to Top
SHARING MY PROJECT PAGE
How do I invite my friends to look at my Project Page?
At the top right of your Project page, there is a “Ask for Donations” button. Click this to email your friends a link to your Project. You can write your own personal email or use our version. You can easily email a bunch of people at once by importing your address book. We won't store your password or email your friends. You can also use the Share button to post your page to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.Back to Top
PROJECT TEAM QUESTIONS
What is a Crowdrise Project Team?
There's no better way to make a Project viral than by creating or joining a Project Team. A Project Team is a group of Fundraisers or Volunteers, all working together for a common cause. It's like communism but more fun. Start or Join a Project Team if you want to go beyond donating money and get more involved by spreading the word about the Project to your friends, family, co-workers, etc. Everyone on the Team gets their own Project Page with the click of a button so we make it quick and easy to join the Team and even easier to tell your friends about it. Donating cash to a Project is amazing and much appreciated but imagine the impact you can have if you go a step further by creating your own page and ask everyone you know to donate too. And then a couple of them join the Team and spread the word to all their friends. We've seen this work successfully over and over.How do I invite my friends to Join My Team to help Fundraise or Volunteer?
In the upper right of your Project page, there is a “Create Team” button. Click this to email an invitation to anyone you want to join your Team. You can write your own personal email or use our version. You can easily email a bunch of people at once by importing your address book.
How do I join someone's Team to help Fundraise?
On every Project Page, you can join someone's team by clicking the “Become a Fundraiser” button on the right side of the page.How do I join someone's Team to help Volunteer?
On every Project Page, you can join someone's team by clicking the Become a Fundraiser button on the right side of the page.What do I do now that I've joined someone's Team as a Fundraiser?
As soon as you Join a Team, you'll have your own Project Page that you can personalize by editing the information that copies over with your own photos, stories and video. Once your Project Page looks compelling, ask everyone you know to donate and help spread the word about the Project. Hopefully you'll not only help raise money for the Project but you'll get some of your friends to help fundraise too. This is viral fundraising and it's the easiest, best way for you to have a huge impact on the causes you care most about.What do I do now that I've joined someone's Team as a Volunteer?
As soon as you Join a Team, you'll have your own Project Page that you can personalize with your own photos, stories and video. Send a Message to the Project Organizer to see how you can Volunteer and make it the most impactful project ever.Back to Top
COMMENTS QUESTIONS
Can anyone comment on my profile?
By default, any Crowdrise member can comment on your Profile or Project. You can edit this under My Account > Settings.How can I tell if someone commented on my profile?
An email alert will be sent to the email address associated with your account. You can opt out of these alerts under My Account > Settings.Back to Top
CROWDRISE POINTS QUESTIONS
How do I earn points?
The Crowdrise Community can earn points in the following ways:- Get Votes: Get 500 Crowdrise Points every time someone from the Crowdrise Community votes for you. The more you Volunteer and Fundraise, the more pictures you post and stories you tell about all the great things you're doing to change the world, the more likely you are to get votes. You can Vote for as many people as you want. You are limited to one vote per person per month which means you can keep coming back and voting for people you want to reward.
- Raise Money: Get 10 Crowdrise Points for every $1 you raise for Charity from your supporters. Get 20 points for every $1 you raise for a Project that supports a Featured Charity.
- Give to Charity: Get 10 Crowdrise points for every $1 you donate to a Project or Charity. Get 20 points for every $1 you donate to a project that supports a Featured Charity or directly to a Featured Charity.
- The Crowdrise brand is all about answering the call to service and having the most fun in the world while you do it. Send us a picture of you making a difference in the world while wearing a piece of Crowdrise Apparel or holding a Crowdrise Flag and we'll give you 1,000 Crowdrise Points.
- Answer trivia questions
- Enter our Contests. Or don't.
What do I get with my Points?
Top Point Earners can win amazing prizes donated by our generous business partners. Some prizes only go to the top 10 Point earners, some go to the top 100 or 200. View the Prizes.In addition to winning amazing prizes, Crowdrise recognizes the extraordinary service of the best Volunteers and Fundraisers by making you Crowdrise Royalty. If you earn enough points to reach royalty status, you'll get the very prestigious title of Doctor, Tsar and if you're really, really good, as Sir or Dame. Needless to say, this is very important stuff.
Doctors (100,000+ Points) Earn 100,000 points and you can put Dr. in front of your name and legitimately wear those doctor pajamas in the coffee shop.
Tsars (200,000+ Points) Earn 200,000 points and you can join the long lineage of benevolent Tsars. I have no idea what that means but Tsars get to wear a cape year round.
Sirs and Dames (300,000+ Points) Earn 300,000 points and we will anoint you Sir or Dame. This is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon you. What I wouldn't give to date a Crowdrise Dame.
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PRIZE QUESTIONS
How do I win prizes?
You can Win Prizes by earning lots of Crowdrise Points or by checking out the Best Promos Ever. Our mean lawyer said to remind you to read the riveting rules.How do I get a Crowdrise flag?
Crowdrise is all about answering the call to service and having the most fun in the world while you do it. Take your super cool Crowdrise Flag with you while you're out there changing the world and send us a photo so we can post it on the site and give you 1,000 Crowdrise Points. To get your free Crowdrise Flag, contact us at quintas@crowdrise.com with your address and what kind of Volunteering or Fundraising Project you've got going and we'll get a free Crowdrise Flag out to you right away.Back to Top
PROMOTIONS QUESTIONS
What are the Crowdrise promotions and how do I use them for my projects?
Use our Best Promos Ever to get everyone you know to donate more money, more often. Here's a really good example of how you can use our Best Promos Ever to make your fundraising project more successful. Let's say Crowdrise currently has the following promotion on the Best Promos Ever page: “Donate $39 for a chance to win an Amazon Kindle.” Simply copy and paste this text and post it on your Project page so it will give an extra incentive for your friends, family, and strangers to donate to your cause. Crowdrise will send out the prizes, deal with the official rules and send out a prize receipt to the winners so all you need to do is spread the word about your Project and get everyone you know to donate.Back to Top
DELETING MY ACCOUNT OR A PROJECT
How do I remove my Account or Project Page?
To remove your account or delete a Project, please Contact Us. We'll make it self-service real soon.Back to Top
CHARITY FAQs
Why should my Charity use Crowdrise?
Crowdrise is meant to compliment your Charity's website and existing fundraising and volunteering activities. Our goal is to (1) give you an extremely easy platform to create compelling, viral fundraising campaigns that raise new money for your Charity, (2) give you a way to turn your donors, supporters, and volunteers into Fundraisers by asking them to create their own free fundraising pages on Crowdrise, (3) let you use our Promotions to incent your donors and fundraisers to raise more money with a greater sense of urgency, (4) make volunteering and fundraising fun.Are there start-up costs?
Your charity pays nothing to get started on Crowdrise. You can build a super compelling page for your Charity on Crowdrise in about 2 minutes and you don't need any programmers, IT staff or graphic designers. We make it so easy you won't even believe it. During the sign up process, you'll have the option of signing up for a free Basic Account or a $299/year Featured Account. To make sure we don't go out of business trying to help you raise money in new ways, Crowdrise deducts 5% on donations made through our site and a $1 transaction fee for donations under $25 or a $2.50 transaction fee for donations $25 and over.What are the Transaction Fees?
Crowdrise is designed to help Volunteers and Fundraisers answer the call to service, raise money for Charity, and have the most fun in the world while doing it. To make sure we don't go out of business trying to help everyone raise lots of money for Charity, Crowdrise deducts 5% on donations made through our site and a $1 transaction fee for donations under $25 or a $2.50 transaction fee for donations $25 and over. Not sure if you noticed but I copied these past couple sentences from the previous section. I feel better about myself now that I've opened up about it.For example, with a $100 donation:
$100 Donation
-$5.00 (5%) Crowdrise's not wanting to go out of business fee
-$2.50 Transaction Fee
$92.50 goes to Charity
These Transaction Fees cover Crowdrise's costs associated with developing, maintaining and hosting the website, giving the best customer service in the world, providing secure payment processing through Amazon Payments™, vetting nonprofits through GuideStar's third party web service, ensuring the quick and safe transfer of money to the charities, and then all the other business expenses like lawyers and insurance. Our goal is to give you an interactive, social, and fun platform for you to raise money and attract supporters in new, unique, viral ways. Compared to other ways of fundraising like putting on events and sending mailers, both of which we encourage you to keep doing, Crowdrise is a inexpensive and efficient way to raise money for charity.
How does my organization get its money?
Donors will make donations to the Charities of their choice by using the Amazon Payments™ secure credit card processing service. Every 30 days, Charities will receive their payments less the Transaction Fee. Payments will be sent to the Charities on or about the 21st day of the month for donations made in the prior calendar month. These payment schedules are subject to change at any time at the sole discretion of Crowdrise.The money is sent to the address that the Charity has on file with GuideStar. Charities will be responsible for taxes based on their net income or gross receipts.Payments to charities are sent from a separate dedicated bank account. Crowdrise only holds these payments in this account for the minimum amount of necessary time to process the transactions; any interest accrued on these amounts is donated by Crowdrise to a Charity of its choice.
What information does Crowdrise provide to my nonprofit?
As a charity on Crowdrise, you will have access to the following information when someone donates to your charity through Crowdrise: name, email, amount of donation, the date/time the donation occurred and the Crowdrise Project that generated the donation should the donation have comes through a Crowdrise Project. You have the ability to sort these items in your “Account Manager” tab along with the ability to download them into Excel reports for importing into your donor database.Are Donations Secure for our Donors?
Crowdrise uses Amazon Payments™ to process all donations safely and securely. Amazon Payments, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides a safe means to process transactions online. Amazon Payments™ is not affiliated with Crowdrise. Amazon Payments™ will not share your donors' financial information (such as credit card information) with Crowdrise without their consent. Crowdrise does not collect or store your donors' credit card information. All information associated with your donors' use of Amazon Payments™ will be handled in accordance with the terms of the Amazon Payments Privacy Notice. When your donors' sign in to use Amazon Payments™, they agree to the Amazon Payments User Agreement.How do I set up my Charity on Crowdrise?
Select “Sign Up” on the upper right of the homepage and then change “Account Type” to “Charity” and search for your Charity by name, keywords or Tax ID. Find your non-profit, click “Select” and fill out the specified fields. On the next page, it will ask you to determine whether you want a Basic Account or Featured Account. Please select one of those options. In order to protect your Charity's privacy and security, we'll contact you through the phone number listed with GuideStar or on your Charity's website and give you a super secret Pin Number which you'll use to complete the Charity Sign Up process. All of this can be done in about 2 minutes and then your charity can start turning your grassroots supporters into grassroots fundraisers. Contact Us with all questions.What's the difference between a Featured Charity Account and a Basic Charity Account?
As a featured account, your charity will be featured through the “Featured Charities” link on the homepage and your donators will receive double Crowdrise points for every dollar they donate. So, if a donor were to raise $100, for example, to any of the Featured Charities, they would receive 2,000 Crowdrise Points. That way your supporters will be more likely to want to donate to your charity so that they can also receive more points.
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