Give Joy This Holiday Season: How To Make the Most of GivePulse

The holidays are upon us! This is a season to celebrate the year gone by — a time to enjoy meaningful experiences with your friends and family and a time to give back. If you are wondering how your organization or group can make a difference this year, GivePulse has many opportunities and resources for you. 

Whether you currently use GivePulse as your donor and volunteer management platform or you’ve just heard about GivePulse as the largest growing social impact platform, this article can serve as a guide for all your giving and volunteer needs during this holiday season.

Where to begin? We’ve sectioned this blog based on whether you:

- Currently use GivePulse for volunteer management but not donor management and fundraising,

- Use GivePulse for both volunteer management and donor management/fundraising, but want to increase the impact of your efforts; or

- You are brand new to GivePulse and want to test out its functionalities.

GivePulse began as a way to connect institutions of higher education (IHEs) and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to serve as a digital platform for scaling social impact. With the original mission of turning everyone into engaged citizens, we continue to serve a large purpose that can sometimes be difficult to realize. 

This blog was created to help all of our platform users: IHEs, NPOs, cities, K-12 school districts, religious organizations, and businesses focused on their corporate social responsibility. If you have any questions - you can always reach out to the GivePulse support team, available at support@givepulse.com.

Using GivePulse’s Donor Management and Fundraising Capabilities

Note: Only organizations that are officially affiliated with tax-exempt organizations and community causes can use GivePulse to fundraise for their group/cause. Learn more about GivePulse’s fundraising policies.

In order to receive donations directly, your organization needs to be recognized as a verified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which includes your organization’s EIN. Your submission will then be reviewed and approved by the GivePulse team, typically within 48 hours. 

To enable a “donate” button on your group’s home page, enable payments and peer-to-peer fundraising, there are a few steps: 

Here’s a quick video about activating your donate button. Also, check out our support blog, Create a Fundraising Campaign.

Want to Increase the Impact of your Fundraising, Volunteer and Donor Management Efforts?

Build out your workflows to streamline your impact by using one platform for all your volunteer, fundraising and donor management needs. When you have your community of donors, volunteers and supporters tuned into a central platform, it allows you to communicate easily and quickly with your network. 

Check out our Support Articles, including “Manage Users,” which explains the abilities to manage, search, sort and filter user records based on engagement, name or date they joined.

The GivePulse Donor CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system helps track all data about your donors, including documents, images, forms and surveys they may have filled out for you, including their donations. 

In addition, you can add notes, tags, labels and additional information for easy retrieval and communication. The more you leverage the system, the better the reporting and exporting capabilities. 

All account administrators are able to view a holistic view of the data and engagement of any donor as a user record in the Donor CRM.

Donations of any kind are extremely valuable to your organization and further your mission. When setting up a fundraiser, under the “Checkout” tab, you can customize the thank you message that will appear after someone has donated to your campaign and create custom questions to collect donor information at checkout. 

Consider sending a custom message to each donor to let them know you appreciate them supporting your organization. You can also recruit volunteers to help send custom messages and handwritten notes. Other ideas include creating a video to send out thanking donors or hosting a live, virtual event to celebrate the generosity of your donors. 

There is no power like your voice. By simply asking your volunteer network to give to your organization, not to mention - fundraise on your behalf, you can expand your donor network exponentially. 

Check out our webinar on crowdfunding with crowdfunding specialist RNA, from Litte Herds in Austin, TX. From goal setting and storytelling to communication schedules and outreach strategies, Skyla and RNA will take you through all the steps you need to take to make your next crowdfunding campaign a wild success. 

I am brand new to GivePulse - how do I get started?

GivePulse has a number of resources for nonprofits just getting started on the platform. To access training materials, you can join The Beat (for nonprofits), The Pulse (for institutions of higher education), and GivePulse Community Resource groups. Under the “resources” tab, you can find training resources such as recorded webinars, how-to videos and more.

Office hours are an incredible resource for those who want to leverage our tools and may need additional support.

GivePulse offers office hours for nonprofit organizations every Tuesday from 10:30am - 11:00am CT and Wednesdays 2:00pm - 2:30pm CT, where you can ask questions about using the platform. Register for nonprofit office hours with The Beat.

Office hours for institutions of higher education are held on Thursdays, from 4 - 5 PM Eastern Time. Register for higher education office hours with The Pulse.

When you “affiliate” with groups and universities on the GivePulse platform, your events will be promoted on their group page. Gain added exposure by requesting to affiliate with all of your partners. Learn more about affiliation.

Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve never used Stripe before; how do I know my organization’s banking information is secure?

Connecting your bank account to a third-party platform can be nerve-wracking if you have never done it before. We are partnered with Stripe, a secure economic infrastructure platform that provides organizations and businesses of all sizes with the software and services they need to receive payments and donations online. 

Learn more here: Connect Bank Account

We’ve started receiving donations - when will the donations reach our account?

All donations are automatically deposited directly to your bank account within 3 business days. 

What are the transaction fees for hosting a fundraiser on GivePulse?

For every donation that is processed through GivePulse, there is a credit card processing fee managed by Stripe and a small platform fee for GivePulse services. GivePulse proudly offers the lowest fees in the industry to ensure you keep as many of your funds raised as possible. 

Donors are always prompted to cover donation fees at checkout, which 85% of them usually do. Because of this, organizations keep an average of $99.00 for every $100 they raise. 

Credit Card Processing Fee (2.9% + 30¢) Stripe charges a simple 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction and includes credit card processing. We accept AmericanExpress, Discover, MasterCard and VISA credit cards.

GivePulse Service Fee (1%) The GivePulse service fee is 1% for every donation;  e.g., if your group receives a donation of $100 from GivePulse, the GivePulse service fee will be one dollar.

Index of Fundraising Support Articles:

About GivePulse

GivePulse's mission is to enable everyone in the world to participate and engage in lifting their community to new heights. We do so by providing a platform to list, find, organize and measure the impact of service-learning, community engagement, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and volunteerism.

Founded in 2012 in Austin, Texas, GivePulse works with 650,000+ groups, including colleges and universities, nonprofits, businesses, K-12/school districts and cities and municipalities. Together, we connect millions of people in an effort to create positive social change.

Start making a difference today by visiting www.givepulse.com.