Curious About Crowdfunding? Here’s What You Need to Know

March 22, 2025

With a lot of creators asking fans to donate money to them, fans can wonder “What do I get in return” or other creators may ask “How do I get fans to donate”?

The idea behind this article is to tackle those questions along with explaining what crowdfunding is.

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is the act of raising money for a purpose. The purpose isn’t exclusive to donations either.

They can involve investing as well but for the sake of this article, I’ll only focus on donation type crowdfunding.

When can you start crowdfunding on YouTube?

You can start with 0 subscribers! This will involve using third party platforms in order to start a campaign though.

If you are looking to use YouTube directly for donations, you have to be monetized with the platform.

There are multiple ways to start a crowndfunding campaign: One – time donations and memberships.

Crowdfunding sites with One time Donations

Popular Sites: PayPal, Gofundme

Donation crowdfunding is a type of campaign where there is no financial return to contributors. Individuals give donations to fund a specific idea or cause.

Common donation-based crowdfunding initiatives include raising money for charities, nonprofits, or disaster relief efforts.

As a content creator just starting to get into crowdfunding, you may feel starting a membership style crowdfunding may be too much to handle at first and want to take one time donations.

If you’re not monetized on YouTube yet, you can try gateway sites like PayPal, Cashapp and the like to take donations.

The main thing you need to from your choosen site is a link that you can add to your videos (or wherever you decide) that will redirect your audience to select how much they are willing to donate to you.

You can take a look at this Paypal donation link as a example.

Fees

The fees from third party sites are lower than what YouTube would take depending on how much the donation is.

Staying with PayPal, their fees are 1.5% – 2.89% + fixed fee. YouTube’s fee is 30% of the donation.

If someone donated a dollar, YouTube would take $0.30 while Paypal would take closer to $0.52. If someone donated two dollars, YouTube would take $0.60 while Paypal would take closer to $0.55.

These are easy to setup and have on your channel but the downsize is that you could be missing out on even more money from loyal fans.

Another problem you may have is that these gateway sites requiring your audience to sign up to thier platform in order to send money.

Crowdfunding sites with Membership or Subscription

Popular Sites: Patreon, Ko-fi

Membership crowdfunding involves individuals contributing to your business in exchange for a type of reward or incentive.

Usually, the reward consists of something relating to the product or service your business offers.

Patreon creators for example, offer all kinds of exclusive perks based on different payment tiers, such as exclusive content, merch, shoutouts, and more.

As you can see in the picture above, each progressing tier will offer everything from lower tiers plus new perk(s) for the supporter.

This works best when you have consistent followers of your content.

Fees

Fees can be between 5% and 12% of your monthly income. I will have a list of crowdfunding sites that you can check out soon.

You can always set up your own website and recieve donations there. While it will take longer to set up, you could save more money in the long run.

Tips for receiving donations

Spread the word

Let your fans know your receiving donations in your videos and posts.

However, you don’t want to spam your audience with this. It will have the opposite effect and fans will get annoyed.

Make sure you are spreading the word using all social media platforms that you are on.

Let supporters know what you’re using the money for

This is a good time to be as transparent as possible. Providing people with specific information is a strong way to grab their attention.

Give potential donors clear-cut reasons why they should donate to your cause.

Break down these three things: your current situation, the reason why you’re fundraising, and your goals.

Make it easy to donate

While this is obvious, it can be easy to forget: Make it easy for people to make a donation. Include the link to your donation page in your ask.

Last, point out exactly where the donation button is located on your channel.