NationBuilder’s personal fundraising feature allows supporters to start their very own personal fundraising campaign to crowdsource online donations from their friends and family. In our experience, it’s one of NationBuilder’s most underused features, but it has a lot of potential.

When working with Preemptive Love to reimagine their NationBuilder-powered website, fundraising was one of their primary goals. We took the opportunity to push the envelope with NationBuilder’s personal fundraising feature and make it a key piece of their digital engagement strategy. We designed their website to target supporters with key messaging asking them to start their own personal fundraising campaigns, set up a custom signup process that walks supporters through setting up their campaign, and designed an engaging user profile page aimed at capitalizing on donations.

The results paid off. Summer Downs, one of Preemptive Love’s supporters, took it upon herself to raise more than $5,800 to help women who have been kidnapped and exploited by ISIS, using the digital tools we helped craft. After flying past her goal of $5,000, she made good on her promise to shave her head with the help of her friends and supporters.

Since reaching her original personal fundraising goal, she has gone on to raise over $10,000 for Preemptive Love.

This only scratches the surface in terms of what’s possible with NationBuilder’s personal fundraising tools, and we’re continuing to push the envelope in terms of what’s achievable with this feature. You can watch Summer's celebratory head-shaving video below, and read more about our work with Preemptive Love here.