What is the Best CMS For Your Next Crowdfunding Campaign?

Do you need to raise a lot of money in a short amount of time? Crowdfunding is consistently a top strategy for both professional and casual fundraisers.

There are plenty of crowdfunding platforms that can help you quickly launch a campaign page and meet your fundraising goals, such as GoFundMe or Classy. However, if your organization is an established nonprofit, educational institution, or healthcare organization, your donors are more likely to trust a fully-branded crowdfunding campaign that you host through your own content management system (CMS) and website.

To help you determine which tools can best support this initiative, we’ve compiled a review of top nonprofit CMS platforms and ways they can boost your crowdfunding campaign. We’ll cover:

• How Your CMS Can Support Crowdfunding
• Top CMS Platforms for Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Choosing the Right Platform for Your Campaign

Let’s start by exploring exactly how a CMS can support your next crowdfunding campaign.

How Your CMS Can Support Crowdfunding

Because crowdfunding takes place entirely online, your nonprofit’s CMS is a natural tool for creating and promoting your campaign. Here’s how you can use your CMS to support every step of the crowdfunding process:

1. Create a crowdfunding campaign page. According to NXUnite by Nexus Marketing’s crowdfunding overview, you should look for a page-creation tool that offers a simple page setup and customization options. This will allow you to easily create a crowdfunding campaign page to start promoting your fundraising needs.
2. Share your fundraiser. Your CMS should offer social media and email-sharing options to promote your crowdfunding page to a wider audience. You can also use your website’s blog to share longer campaign updates and information about why you’re hosting the initiative.
3. Accept online payments securely. When your CMS integrates with a secure payment processor like Stripe or Square, you can quickly and safely process donors’ payments through your website.
4. Track campaign progress. Tracking tools like Google Analytics can help you understand who is visiting your crowdfunding page, how long they spend on the page, and how often they choose to donate. You can also use your blog and graphics like a fundraising thermometer to measure campaign progress and let supporters know how much you must raise until you reach your goal.
5. Thank supporters for their donations. Integrate your CMS with your nonprofit’s donor database to store donor information such as names, contact information, and donation amounts. Use this data to automatically send thank you emails and receipts to crowdfunding campaign donors.

By using your CMS to manage your crowdfunding campaign, you can track all online fundraising initiatives from a central platform. Plus, with the help of integrations, you can easily share any data gathered through your CMS with other fundraising tools like your donor CRM or email marketing system. This will help you create a fully integrated fundraising approach that leverages valuable data insights to drive further audience engagement.

Top CMS Platforms for Crowdfunding Campaigns

When it comes to overall functionality, security, and user-friendliness, WordPress and Drupal stand out as the top CMS platforms for nonprofits. 60% of nonprofits turn to WordPress for their content management needs, benefiting from the platform’s user-friendly interface and simple editing capabilities. In addition, Drupal is used by hundreds of nonprofits and NGOs looking for a scalable, flexible, and secure platform to handle their fundraising needs.

Let’s explore the specific features of these CMS platforms that can support your nonprofit’s crowdfunding needs.

WordPress Crowdfunding Features

According to Kanopi’s WordPress for nonprofits guide, WordPress is an effective platform for conducting nonprofit fundraising because it enables organizations to offer streamlined online donation pages and secure payment processing. Plus, WordPress enjoys vast popularity due to the system’s inherent flexibility and scalability with its vast number of plugins and website themes.

Consider these specific WordPress crowdfunding plugins and themes that you can use to create an aesthetically pleasing and fully functional campaign page:

• Plugins like WP Crowdfunding and IgnitionDeck are popular tools that allow you to set funding goals, create customized donation forms, incorporate social sharing features, and even connect with other extensions.
• Themes like Backer and Unity are optimized to portray crowdfunding pages intuitively. Some of them even come with custom widgets that you can add to the page to display your campaign’s current revenue status and more.

Customization options like these allow your website to grow alongside your fundraising needs and the size of your audience.

Drupal Crowdfunding Features

One of Drupal’s top qualities is that it is highly secure. Because of this, government sites and other official entities often leverage Drupal as their CMS. It is also extremely flexible, offering its users access to its long list of modules and themes, as well as its customizable content modeling and layout capabilities. Let’s take a look at how Drupal’s themes and modules can support your crowdfunding efforts:

• Themes: Just like WordPress, Drupal also offers themes specifically for nonprofit and crowdfunding needs, including options like Pachu and Krowd/a>.
• Modules: There’s an entire suite of Drupal modules dedicated to users who want a robust crowdfunding platform. It’s developed on top of Drupal Commerce and provides automatic integrations with payment providers and other systems.

With these tools, you can create multiple crowdfunding projects with a defined goal, start date, and end date. And, you can quickly edit and customize your campaigns as needed, making Drupal site maintenance for your crowdfunding efforts a breeze.

Choosing the Right Platform for Your Campaign

The truth is that both WordPress and Drupal are effective CMS platforms for nonprofit fundraising needs, but that can also make it challenging to choose the right platform for your organization. Use these strategies to help you make the right decision:

• Determine your nonprofit’s fundraising goals and needs. What features and fundraising prerequisites does your nonprofit need to successfully launch its crowdfunding campaigns? Consider elements such as the style of the crowdfunding page you want to design, the payment methods you want to accept, and the type of integrations you need. You can likely accomplish your goals with either Drupal or WordPress, but one platform may offer more built-in features that align with your needs.
• Consider your team’s technical background. Does your team have experience with one or both platforms? WordPress tends to be more user-friendly out-of-the-box than Drupal, so keep that in mind if your team members don’t have experience with either CMS.
• Work with a nonprofit web design consultant. A nonprofit website design firm can assess your nonprofit’s current online presence and fundraising goals to help you choose the right CMS. After selecting a platform, they can help migrate your existing website to the new system or build you a new website customized to your needs.

Kanopi’s Drupal vs. WordPress guide says it best—“Realistically, there is no best overall CMS, but it is worth it to explore the differences to consider which solution is right for your unique situation and needs.” Consult with your fundraising team to understand their needs and choose the platform that best aligns with your team’s capabilities and fundraising necessities.

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While you can easily create a crowdfunding campaign using one of the general platforms, that doesn’t have to be your default. Creating a campaign on your organization’s own website can be more beneficial because you can fully customize the campaign with your nonprofit’s brand and embed it into your existing website pages. With either WordPress or Drupal, you’ll have access to robust capabilities that turn your crowdfunding dreams into a reality.

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