Declaration of donating, sharing, and commenting to boost inspires others to do the same
Gamify the situation by challenging someone to do the same as you if you comment, share, or donate
Encourage people to participate in the crowdfunding by thanking people for donating, sharing, and commenting
Withhold your donation, if at all larger than most, to get others to collectively match you first
Pledge to do something after a predetermined amount has been donated
Incentivize people to donate in order to partake in an activity, such as a crowdfunding game night live stream
Periodically re-engaging with the crowdfunding content to update people can get them to donate for the first time or donate a second time if they have the means
Earlier this week I talked about 10 things you can do to help during an online crowdfunding campaign. Today I’m going to highlight how positive peer pressure can be leveraged to have an impact during crowdfunding, while elaborating a little bit more on what I said in the last piece.
One of the simplest things that you can do during an online crowdfunding campaign is declare when you have done something. Simply by commenting that you have donated, another person can become inspired to not only comment to boost the content but also donate.
Even if you don’t have the means to donate, declaring that you have shared the content can inspire someone else to do the same. As long as the platform allows it, I’d suggest sharing with several dozen people. Commenting that you shared with x amount of people can inspire others to share with at least a few people, especially if you encourage it.
Take it a step further in the comment section and reply to everyone in the comments. I find that a “thank you” comment inspires people to be involved in the crowdfunding campaign and the engagement of users in the comment section is helpful to the algorithm and pushes the content out to more people. You can use your comments to challenge people as an effective positive peer pressure tactic as well.
Challenging people to be like you is the epitome of positive peer pressure during an online crowdfunding campaign. I’m always so grateful when people take the time to tell me in the comments that they have sent money during the campaign because it inspires others. When someone takes it a step further and challenges others to do the same, it is particularly exciting because I know that this will likely get additional donations to come in a lot faster.
People are likely to be competitive by nature and will admit they want to be the best in a group. For this reason, when someone sees a comment like “I just gave $5, who can match me?” people’s empathy and competitiveness work together to drive them to donate $5 as well.
Challenging others to donate is not the only challenge that improves an online crowdfunding campaign.
Comments that challenge people to become involved in the crowdfunding campaign are just as helpful as the ones challenging others to donate. In the screenshot above, I purposely declared the number of people I shared the TikTok with so that others felt an obligation to share with at least a few people.
It should be noted that sharing too quickly on TikTok will result in your messages being seen as spam and the app will not send them. When I shared the same content with over 100 people, it was done over the period of an hour.
While it is less common to see, I also find the declaration of making a video about the content followed up with a challenge for others to do the same to be extremely helpful. Involvement like this leads to others looking for more content and becoming invested in the results of the crowdfunding campaign.
Engagement is truly how these campaigns become successful. Without people engaging in the content we can’t get enough people who have the means to donate to see the content.
Another way that you can get people to become invested in the campaign is to pledge to do something after certain criteria have been met. I’ve seen people pledge to donate a certain amount once a collective of people has collaboratively donated that amount. People leveraging a slightly large microdonation to get others who only have the means to donate a fraction of that amount is absolutely one of my favorite tactics used in online crowdfunding campaigns.
Not only do you get to see the donated amount instantly double, but also you get to see people who wouldn’t normally view what they had to offer as particularly valuable become part of a collective effort to pull in an overall large donation. That’s a great experience for everyone involved.
People have previously brought concerns to me that you shouldn’t withhold a donation just because others didn’t donate, but because the person pledging to match the collective of people was always going to give that amount eventually, nothing is truly withheld. A significant donation doesn’t always have to mean a lot either. I’ve seen pledges to give $10, $25, $50, and even $100 which ultimately raise collectively $20, $50, $100, and $200, respectively.
I stand by the observation that it's not about a few of us giving a lot, it’s about a lot of us giving very little, however, it’s a very exciting thing to witness when one person gives a lot in order to inspire others to realize that their “little amount” has a big impact. Some people who aren’t in a position to leverage a higher donation amount leverage something else entirely to inspire people.
People have pledged to do things after a certain amount of money has been raised in order to pressure people into donating. Again, this gets people invested in the online crowdfunding campaign and gets people invested in a goal being met. I’ve seen people pledge to do everything from shaving off facial hair to eating a hot pepper to wearing a rainbow unicorn onesie.
These types of things can add a bit of fun to the crowdfunding process but I fully discourage designing an online crowdfunding campaign to require someone to be degraded or even uncomfortable, but fully endorse having a lighthearted activity that must be done once a goal is reached if the person volunteering to do the lighthearted activity is happily on board with the idea.
Using creativity to make things more fun is a great way to keep online crowdfunding campaigns from becoming stale and will ultimately generate donations that may not have been given otherwise.
You can gently pressure your peers into donating by incentivizing them in some way. I’ve seen people do this with raffles and other activities that allow people who have donated to partake in an online game or poll. Hosting a game night while crowdfunding is not only helpful to push your content out to a broader audience, but it can make the process of crowdfunding a little more fun for everyone involved.
I personally really enjoyed hosting crowdfunding lives while playing Wordle Unlimited with those who donated and did in fact reach new people who wouldn’t have found my regular content on anti-poverty measures. I’ve participated in Cards Against Humanity and Would You Rather among other game nights to crowdfund for people and they are definitely successful at incentivizing peers to donate to an online crowdfunding campaign so they could partake in the games.
I like to think that as time goes on new ways to have a positive peer pressure effect on someone will develop while crowdfunding for basic income. In the meantime, I can’t stress enough that it’s a lot of us coming together to donate a small amount each with the occasional person offering to match others' donations, inspiring a collective jump in the progress of the crowdfunding goal.
Periodically re-engaging with the crowdfunding content to update people can get them to donate for the first time or donate a second time if they have the means, especially when the goal is getting close.
To recap, the number of people who become involved in a crowdfunding campaign increases by declaring your involvement in a crowdfunding campaign, thanking others for theirs, and challenging others to do the same as you in a comment section.
If you have the means to donate a significant amount, hold on to it until others can collectively match you to encourage a bunch of microdonations to come in at once.
Pledging to do something once a donation threshold has been made will get people invested in the crowdfunding campaign and helps get any individual goals within the campaign met faster.
Making things fun is good for everyone involved in the process. You can incentivize people to donate when you gamify the process.
Keep engaging with the content to keep people updated and invested in seeing the online crowdfunding campaign all the way through.
As always, I leave you with it’s not about a few of us giving a lot, it’s about a lot of us giving very little. With empathy in numbers, we can do anything including reach an online crowdfunding goal.
Sources: Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns – ScienceDirect https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268198000894
This, so much this! ❤️