Going Live & Soft Launch
What is a Soft Launch?
Why Do a Soft Launch?
You have an amazing fundraising campaign coming up that has taken months of preparation. You have matching funds secured, volunteers in place, and have made a significant time-investment to make this campaign a success.
The first HOUR of the campaign will largely define the entire trajectory of the campaign as a whole. Your campaign must start with a bang of momentum. When you go live and share the campaign with tens of thousands of people, it is critical that visitors arrive to a page that has momentum toward what looks like an achievable goal.
Research shows that if you are at least 30% of the way toward reaching your fundraising goal, people are at least 30% more likely to donate.
The recent donors panel is THE most popular part of the campaign page. People are fascinated by other people. Those lead donors will be the foundation of social influence for all future donors.
Once you launch publicly, visitors will arrive to the page, see that people are making generous donations and be inspired to also make a generous donation. In turn, those subsequent donors will be inspired by all the additional generous gifts they see in the recent donors panel. This creates an upward cycle of generosity.
You can be like Nachson ben Amidav and inspire the whole community to step forward! Your lead gift will create momentum to our fundraising campaign. Rather than arriving to a page with a huge fundraising goal and almost no money donated, people will arrive to a page that has tens of generous supporters. They’ll see that people are donating, donating generously, and that we are on the way toward an achievable goal! In turn, they will be motivated and inspired to step-up and make a generous gift themselves!“Advanced Theory: Soft Launch for Bonus Round
You do not need to add 100% of the pledges that you secured in advance of the campaign’s public launch to your campaign right away.
- Drop them into the campaign during slow periods in order to keep the momentum going. (The middle of the campaign is often the slowest).
- Strategize for your bonus round: Since you will have a decent amount of advance donations that you are holding in reserve, know that you are closer to reaching your goal than your campaign page indicates. This affords you the time/space to start approaching prospective matching donors for a bonus round earlier.
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