November 13 is World Day for Good. On this day, we would like to share with you our observations on the development of crowdfunding in Russia. We also had our own experience in this topic: A year ago, a service for charity was launched. Welcome Mail.Ru is a convenient platform for those who want to help.

Today, crowdfunding is a working way to raise money for a new business, which is used by many, and not only start-ups, but also well-established enterprises and persons. Barack Obama financed his election campaign that way. In Russia, the most notable projects - from the field of music, film and literature. For example, on one of the popular Russian crowdfunding platforms, Planeta.ru, most successful projects are musical. Among the latest examples is Picnic , whose fans donated 740 thousand rubles to the record, or the teleplay "Petrushka", which drew 5,865,800 rubles with it.
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The start of the project Welcome Mail.Ru took place on August 14, 2013. The service immediately after the launch attracted the attention of users, and already in the first month we collected almost 2 million rubles for good deeds. Over the past year, our users have helped dozens of projects. Among them were successful, quickly collect the necessary amount. There were others that were important and necessary, but they helped them much less willingly. All this time we analyzed and searched for patterns, changed the design of the site, tried new approaches in the design of projects. Today we are ready to share our experience. So, below are our recommendations to those who are thinking about raising funds for their project using crowdfunding.

Be clear on your goal and tell the story.

We all know how important it is to set goals clearly. And if we need help in achieving this goal, it should be formulated as clearly as possible: for those who are not involved in your project, it should be clear that you know where you are going, and you will definitely be able to cope with the tasks on the way - if you this will support. And yes, to create an estimate and estimate all the costs of the project will be superfluous.

It is also important to talk about the goal. Let it be a really exciting story. It is necessary to attract the attention of the audience, tell about why your project is so special and for whom it is important, as well as clearly define the final result. People want to be involved in uncommon things, and they are more willing to follow those who capture their imagination. We in Dobre also try to tell stories. Very often, charitable foundations send us stingy and dry information: a detailed description of the medical history of a child suffering from cerebral palsy, a chronology of wandering around the doctors and the amount needed for treatment. But our users do not help diagnoses, they help people. And it is important for them to get to know the person, even through a brief description of the project, and to get into it with sympathy and participation. We talk about what this boy is interested in, what he loves, with whom he is friends, what he dreams about. In doing so, we try not to use photographs of a person during the most difficult period of the illness. A shocking photo that immediately kicks out tears and money - this is a characteristic technique of scammers.

It is important to tell your story clearly and intelligibly. In order for the user to want to take part in the project, it is necessary that he understands well what is at stake. We try to translate from the language of the charity to the human and talk about the problems of which most of us have a very vague idea. Let me give an example: the Oxygen Foundation raised money for Dobro for a month of work for a special ambulance that goes to a house for patients with cystic fibrosis. This is a serious illness, and, among other things, it strongly affects the lungs. The Foundation is engaged in a very important matter, and ambulance with special equipment makes the unbearable life of patients really easier. But you can present it in different ways. The most obvious idea that comes to mind first is to tell about ambulance in the project description. However, this approach is unlikely to be effective: such a description will not touch, will not attract attention, few will understand and delve into.

We tried to talk about the problem as clearly as possible. They gave the project the name “Let's help people who have difficulty breathing,” accompanied by a photo of a girl who has cystic fibrosis (trust fund). Users, first, could immediately understand the essence of the project, and second, they saw that they were helping real people. This approach allowed us to quickly raise money for several months of ambulance work.

Talk about what's important to your audience.

If you see that people are reluctant to connect to the project, you can try to tell the story in a new way. A few months after the launch of Kindness, we saw that our users were least willing to help adults. The most successful projects are connected with the help of children. It is enough to show a photo of a blond girl in a pink blouse, and people will begin to actively help.

Here it is important to mention one particular feature of Mail.Ru Good, which distinguishes the project from other crowd sites: we are actively developing the charitable imagination of users, trying to draw their attention to problems that usually do not cause a hot response. So, thanks to a study on charity in runet, conducted by the project together with VTsIOM, we learned that no one wants to help adults. It is much more difficult for a person over the age of 18 to find support - after all, there are only a few charitable foundations in Russia that help adults.



We understood that we are simply obliged to change this situation. We are actively engaged in the topic of myths in charity. For example, together with The Runet, we made a whole joint special project :





We began to look for ways to draw users' attention to adult assistance projects - and found. We did not call for: "Help Ivan Ivanich." Instead, we wrote “We will give little Vita a healthy and strong dad” and placed a photo, in the foreground there is a little son, and in the background is a dad who always supported the whole family, but the stroke changed his life completely. As a result, money for rehabilitation was collected. It worked!

Assign real terms and amounts

Do not inflate the budget of your project, correlate your needs and capabilities of the audience. On some sites, if you collect less than half of the stated amount, you will not receive a penny - the money will be returned to shareholders. In addition, people may simply not believe that you will be able to attract two million in two months, and will not want to subscribe to a knowingly losing business. In Good, projects with a small budget of 30 to 100 thousand rubles collect money best. Another factor is working here - the donor wants to provide significant assistance. And against the backdrop of two million of it, one thousand or twenty five rubles seems like a drop in the ocean.

A similar approach should be taken when choosing a time frame. It is best to assign short, visible time intervals - no more than a few months. People want to quickly rejoice at the results of their assistance, and the short-term action will help more willingly. If there is a long-term project ahead - a long treatment or construction of an animal shelter, we try to divide it into stages. It will be the purchase of a medicine, an operation and a course of treatment, or the preparation of a project, the erection of a building and the conduct of communications.

Take any help

Do not raise too high the bottom bar of contributions - anyone who wants to help should get the opportunity to participate. The user can return to you again and make a larger contribution or bring friends.

During the launch of Good, we set the lower bar for assistance at the level of 25 rubles. We tried to show that even if you are not on the Forbes list (for the time being), you can still help and your support will be invaluable. 25 rubles is also money, you can buy a loaf of bread for them or pay for the fare in public transport. This is especially important for people from small cities far from the capital, and today at Dobre there are projects from 14 regions of Russia. This approach allowed many to try for the first time to take part in charity: we did not require much from them. Dobre has a large share of payments in the amount of 100 rubles and below.



Today, there is a window on Dobre, where you can drive at least three rubles. And we all thank you for your help, regardless of its size.

Give the opportunity to help the cause

Crowdfunding is a tool that even global giants such as Google, Facebook or Lego use. Perhaps people will be able to participate in your business not in money, but in deed - give them the opportunity to offer their own design options, slogan or share professional knowledge. On Dobre, you can also find projects that require the help of volunteers - to spend a holiday for children in an orphanage, to care for animals in a shelter, and so on.

We have an interesting experience with volunteering. Immediately after the launch, we experienced a real boom - people joined the volunteers a hundred a day. But then we noticed that the users didn’t pay attention to the city in which they needed help, where the foundation project was working. As a result, a Muscovite, for example, could ask a nanny in a hospital for a child in Novosibirsk. The foundations wrote to their unexpected assistants, tried to communicate, but many did not even get in touch. At some point, we realized that people use writing to volunteers as a way to express their attitude towards the project, that is, for them it became another action from the category “like” and “share”. In part, this happened because the procedure for registering with volunteers was then very simple - it was enough to press one button.

Later we complicated this process so that the person had time to approach the decision making more consciously. Now everyone is asked to ask again in which particular city they want to become volunteers. Also changed the inscription on the button. At first it was simply written “Send”, and many people clicked on it automatically. Now the user sees in front of him the phrase "Submit my application to the fund."



This sobering and reduces the likelihood of spontaneous action. There are fewer applications, but they have become better. In total, more than 5 thousand volunteers are now registered at Dobre.

Reward for helping

Crowdfunding projects necessarily provide rewards for shareholders. You need to come up with at least five to six types of rewards with an increasing degree of value (depending on the size of the contribution). If we are talking about a mobile service or a computer game, then a fair reward, of course, will be free use with an extended list of options, if about creativity, then a book or CD with an autograph. For large investors, personal encounters with stars become a strong motivation.

We are guided by the fact that there is no better reward for benefactors than to see the fruits of our efforts. We thank and praise the donors, regularly inform them of the news of the projects in which they participate, and at the end of the project we will certainly send the fund's report on its results, and if we were talking about fundraising, this will be a financial document. It is very inspiring and motivating users of Good. They can also keep an eye on the development of their “own” projects through personal accounts.

Show where the money went

In addition to motivation, news and reports play another important role - you show people where their money goes. Transparency helps to gain trust in your project, and in our case - in the work of the funds. A joint study of Good and VTsIOM showed that most people are confident that it is impossible to track where the money went to the fund. In their view, this is an incomprehensible opaque structure that lets money through, and, of course, can easily pick up a good piece of cake for itself. But when they see that the funds are accountable for every penny and talk about how donations change people's lives, they are more willing to help. At Good Mail.Ru you can see reports on each completed project. That is why it is possible to raise user confidence in the funds.

Keep in touch with the audience

As a rule, crowdfunding platforms give the authors of the project the opportunity to send letters to their shareholders. Using the newsletter, you can keep in touch with them during the project, and then, perhaps, it is these people who will become your most dedicated audience, your evangelists. As in any business, it is important to keep a balance here - not to let you forget about yourself, but also not to overdo it so that the recipients maintain interest in the mailing list. Dobra has a very small percentage of unsubscribe - only about 2%. Newsletter users receive the service twice a month, and this is our golden mean. The fact is that half of the research participants said that they would like to receive letters of charity once a month, and a third once a week.

First of all, the newsletter reports news and interesting facts: it tells about the fate of projects that have been successfully completed thanks to the participation of users, debunks the myths about charity, contains polls, an interesting infographic. Of course, one new charitable project with reference to the site is necessarily presented in it. Previously, we could insert into one message a link to two new projects, but by experience, we realized that one works better. In addition, we changed the time of distribution, after which the number of transitions to shares increased markedly. Previously, it was Friday, and now, as a rule, Monday-Tuesday. As it turned out, the beginning of the week is the best time for good deeds.

Act as an expert

It is not enough just to launch a share on one of the crowdfunding sites to raise money. It is important to attract the attention of as many people and media as possible. To communicate with the media, of course, you will need interesting news stories and your expertise. The team of Good, communicating with the funds, gains invaluable knowledge about charity. We share the expert opinions of foundations that touch on really important and sensitive issues, and we do this in an interesting and accessible form. For example, in November of last year, the infographics " Do not bring gifts to the orphanage " was created. It became a revelation for many and just blew up the social network. It has not lost its relevance today: if any of your friends got infected with a virus of gifts in orphanages, talk to him and show our infographics.

Encourage those who want to share their investment experience in your project.

Figure out how to encourage your shareholders to talk about what they have invested in your business. Let it be, for example, your personal nominal gratitude on the page of the contributor in the social network, which he will share with friends. Mail.Ru Group employees, who make donations on our site, automatically receive badges "I Help the Good." Badges are visible in personal profiles on the intranet. Even if the employee helped, having registered in the service from personal mail, he can write about this to the support service of Good, and he will also be given a badge. Such responsive people in the company have already accumulated a large list of several pages.

Why was this badge story started? One of the myths we have discovered is that people consider it improper to spread about their charitable activities. It is believed that the good modestly should keep his mouth shut. In the meantime, many need an inspiring example. According to the study of Good and VTsIOM, one out of every four would help if he knew that his acquaintances and friends were doing it.

Test the project on friends

Before launching, be sure to show your project to as many friends and acquaintances as possible. This will help to understand whether you have not missed the most important thing and whether you have not gone too far into unnecessary details. You can appreciate how interesting your project is, fascinating text, vivid video and photo materials. Look at the reaction of people and ask questions: “Would you invest in such a project?”, “Is everything clear from the project description?”, “Like the picture?” And so on.

The Good team constantly conducts usability testing. This allowed us to make the service more convenient, to add useful functionality, to correct the shortcomings made at startup. And we always rejoice when our users share their impressions of communicating with the service or colleagues talk about how to make the work with Good even more convenient. If you know exactly what to improve on Dobre, write to a.babkina@corp.mail.ru . With this let me finish, and good luck with your crowdfunding endeavors. Celebrate World Goodness Day with a specific action!

PS: By the way, the discussion above was about helping with business. Perhaps someone from Habravchan wants to offer assistance to charitable foundations. For example, the charity fund “Volunteers to help orphans” wants to create a mobile game application that tells about the work of the foundation and how to make the children stay in the family and not go to orphanages. They need the help of a mobile developer. Perhaps such a person is among you! At Dobre, you can register and indicate in your personal profile that you are ready to provide professional assistance in creating a website, developing a design, and so on. Funds this information is available, and they will be able to contact you directly.

Alexandra Babkina, Project Manager Welcome Mail.Ru