When charity begins online

What do you do when your child has a medical emergency and you can’t afford the treatment? Or your beloved pet runs up vet bills that you can’t pay? Or you want to raise funds to help care for threatened species?

- Susan Hely

One path is to appeal to people for money through an online fundraiser. Digital appeals have become increasingly popular, replacing doorknocking and charity sports events.

One of the biggest fundraising platforms is GoFundMe. Launched in 2010, it operates in 19 countries and has raised over $10 billion. For example, it supports more than 250,000 medical appeals, worth around $650 million, every year.

Another is Chuffed.org, which has been around for 10 years. It says the average amount raised is around $7000, but the biggest campaign collected $345,000.

How they work
Online fundraisers help you set up your cause with tips on selecting a target, a timeframe, how to write up the campaign, using images and payment options. They have advice for promotional strategies to get the message into the community and to friends, neighbours and family.

GoFundMe offers categories such as medical, emergency, memorial and education. It doesn’t charge a fee to set up a fundraiser but takes 2.2%, plus a 30c transaction fee, from each donation.

If you received $500 from five donors, you would get $487.50 in your bank account, after $12.50 has been deducted.

Chuffed.org is a platform for a social, environmental, political, community or First Nations causes. It has been around as Chuffed.org for 10 years, starting off as Chip In. You need a bank account and identification in one of its eligible countries to receive donations. It charges a fee of 2% and 20c on each donation.

There are other crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, JustGiving, Razoo, FundRazr and Pozible. Check the fees and whether there are platform fees.