How to Fundraise for Your New Website: 5 Helpful Tips

Although you can create a website for free on, your site may require some financial investment. For instance, you might need to invest in a content team for an online magazine or in product development for an eCommerce store.

Those costs can add up when your site is still pre-revenue, so you may eventually need to fundraise for your new website. Here are five tips for raising the money you need.

1. Use a dedicated fundraising platform

For convenience and visibility, a good starting point is a dedicated fundraising platform. These platforms help you track goals, process payments, and generally manage all aspects of your fundraising efforts.

There are many options for both for-profit and nonprofit websites. Here are some of the best:

When you choose a crowdfunding platform for your website, you’ll want to pay attention to any associated fees and/or restrictions.

For example, Crowdfunder has a plan that costs $499 per month, but that plan also grants access to Crowdfunder’s network of accredited investors.

2. Add a donation button to your site

As an addition (or alternative) to a dedicated fundraising platform, you can also use a donation plugin to add fundraising functionality to your website.

By using the Simple Payments feature, you can add a payment button to any page on your site and collect information about your donors, like their email addresses.

3. Offer something of value to donors

To entice people to donate to your fundraising campaign, you can turn to a tried-and-true tactic used by sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo: offering “prizes” or other valuable items to donors.

For example, you could offer free merch or access to an exclusive newsletter. You can even set up a tiered reward system to encourage people to contribute larger amounts.

4. Leverage your existing networks

Whether you’re using your own website, a dedicated crowdfunding site, or both, you still need to get eyeballs on your fundraising page to generate donations.

If you’re using a dedicated crowdfunding website, you’ll naturally gain some visibility through that platform’s search functionality. However, you’ll also want to drive your own traffic, which is where your network comes in.

You can respectfully reach out to friends and family to let them know you’re trying to fundraise. You can also share your story on your social media accounts (and ask friends to share, as well).

5. Consider paid promotion

Paying money to promote your fundraising efforts might seem counterintuitive, but it’s actually a common strategy for crowdfunding campaigns.

By running targeted ads on Facebook or Google, you can spend a little bit of money to generate a larger amount in donations.

Start funding your website today

If you need to invest money in your website for a successful launch, fundraising is a great way to get the money you need.

Remember: to solicit donations, you can use a dedicated crowdfunding platform, a donation plugin, or both. From there, you can offer prizes or other goodies to entice people to donate, reach out to your existing networks, or use paid promotion channels to draw attention to your project — and launch your website in no time.

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