You can allow your supporters to fundraise for your cause by going to Fundraising >> Individual Fundraisers and enabling Individual Fundraisers.
There are 4+ sections that organize existing settings and make setting up fundraising simple:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- General Settings
- Fundraising Minimums
- Customizations and Display Settings
- Fundraiser Rewards
- Advanced Settings
This blog will walk through the settings in each of the above sections. If you have not already enabled Donations, you will be prompted to do so:
Once donations are turned on, you can enable fundraising.
General Settings
Disable Individual Fundraising for these Events
By default, participants registering for any event can create a fundraiser. If you would only like to allow fundraisers for certain events in the registration path, select the events that you would like to disable. In this example, 10K participants can become fundraisers when they sign up but VIP 10k participants will not be show the option to fundraise during registration:
Default Individual Fundraising Message
Please Note: If you are using the Facebook Fundraiser Integration, Facebook requires that fundraisers have an individual fundraising message. You must add a default individual fundraising message if you are using the integration.
You can add a default message that automatically shows when someone creates a fundraising page. This saves your fundraisers time when they become a fundraiser while still allowing them the flexibility to edit or create their own fundraising page content. Below is sample fundraising page default messaging:
Default Individual Fundraising Goal
Please Note: If you are using the Facebook Fundraiser Integration, Facebook requires that fundraisers have a fundraising goal. You must have a default individual goal OR fundraising minimums if you are using the integration.
The default fundraising goal automatically populates an individual’s fundraising page with a fundraising goal that you determine. Fundraisers can edit the default goal to greater than or less than the suggested amount. This lets your race set expectations for how much fundraisers should raise, but still allows your fundraisers the flexibility to adjust their goals.
Fundraising Rules
This is where you can define rules for fundraising. Click the checkbox next to a setting if you would like to enable:
- Do NOT allow new fundraisers without a registration
By default, anyone can become a fundraiser outside of registration when they sign up. When the Do NOT allow new fundraisers without a registration setting is enabled, the Become a Fundraiser option will be hidden, only allowing participants to become fundraisers when they sign up for the run/walk/ride. - If a registrant selected an event that requires a fundraiser, hide the setup form and automatically create their individual fundraiser
When this setting is enabled, a fundraising page is automatically created for every participant who signs up. This is a very good tool for fundraising run/walk/ride events where everyone is encouraged to fundraise because it makes registration quick and simple. However, participants do not get the chance to customize their page when they register. If you decide to use this setting for your event, it’s recommended that you set up automated registration follow-up emails to remind your participants to share and update their fundraising pages. - Force fundraisers to select a charity (if charities are set up)
If you have multiple charity partners, you can use this setting to require your fundraisers to select the charity partner for which they want to fundraise.
Fundraising Minimums
Nonprofits that set fundraising minimums for an event can automatically charge fundraisers the difference when minimums are not met by a certain deadline.
When the Fundraising Minimums feature is enabled, fundraisers’ credit card information is securely saved and nonprofits can automatically charge the difference between the minimum and what the fundraiser has raised on or after the deadline. RunSignup’s Fundraising Minimums feature enhances RunSignup’s current functionality that allows nonprofits to send email reminders and invoices to fundraisers who have not met their fundraising minimums.
To enable the save credit card feature for Fundraising Minimums, navigate to Fundraising >> Individual Fundraisers >> General Settings on your Race Dashboard. Select the setting below the fundraiser minimum set up to automatically save credit card information for fundraisers. Then click Save at the top of the page to save your settings.
You can set fundraising minimums for some or all of the events; additionally, you can set different minimums per event. Please note that in order for the setting to work you must have one of the following set ups:
- Require Fundraiser and Fundraising Minimum (Fee not waived): All event participants must become a fundraiser to participate. The registration fee must be paid up front and the registrant agrees to the fundraising minimum.
- Require Fundraiser and Fundraising Minimum (Fee waived): All event participants must become a fundraiser to participate. The registration fee is waived and fundraisers agree to pay the fundraising minimum by the specified deadline.
- Fundraising Minimum (Fee waived): Fundraising is optional. When a participant opts to become a fundraiser, they can choose to waive their registration fee and agree to pay the fundraising minimum by the specified deadline. However, a fundraiser can also choose to pay the registration fee; in this case, they would not be auto-charged if they do not meet the fundraising minimum.
Please note that if you have both the setting to hide fundraising page setup and the save credit card feature enabled, the hide fundraising page setup setting will be ignored. This is because fundraisers must see the minimum that they agree to raise and check the setting to agree to raise the minimum.
Customizations and Display Settings
Replace the Term “Fundraiser”
You can replace the term fundraiser with a different word or phrase, such as “charity runner”. Be sure to review the phrases where this will appear to make sure you are happy with how it will appear in various places on your race website and confirmations.
Custom “Fundraiser” Heading
By default, the fundraiser heading in the registration path displays “Fundraisers”. If you would like to show a different heading, you can add a Custom “Fundraiser” Heading:
It will show here during registration:
Display and Menu Options
You can choose how your fundraiser lists and menu items display on your race website using these settings:
Fundraiser Social Sharing Options
Enabling this setting will update the social sharing settings on the confirmation page to share the fundraiser’s image and page instead of the race’s information and website. This applies to any participant who is a fundraiser. Please note that this is not the same as the Facebook Fundraiser Integration; it will simply share a link to RunSignup/GiveSignup to donate.
Email Customization
There are a number of donation and fundraising related email notifications. You can customize each of the notifications relevant to your fundraising set-up. For example, you can add fundraising tips to the “Fundraiser Creation” email, or a special congratulations message to the “Fundraiser Goal Reached” email.
Click any of the hyperlinked notifications to edit that specific notification: 
Fundraiser Rewards
Fundraiser rewards are the best way to incentivize your fundraisers to raise more.
Fundraiser Milestones
You can create different different fundraising milestones that show on fundraisers’ pages when they reach certain fundraising thresholds. You can also select stars that will show on the page with the thresholds.
Fundraiser Milestone Badges
Elevate your fundraiser milestones with custom badges that appear on fundraiser pages when they reach fundraising thresholds. You can easily create unique and themed badges on free platforms like Canva, like this creative example from May the Course Be With You 5K.
Fundraiser Refunds
You can offer a refund for registrants once they reach a certain fundraising threshold. This is set up per-event. As a reminder, the participant will never be refunded more than what they paid to sign up.
When they sign up, registrants who set up a fundraiser will need to select a checkbox indicating that they want the refund if they reach the goal.
Advanced Settings
Donation Pledging Settings
You can allow your fundraisers to accept pledges. Please note that this does not 100% guarantee that your fundraisers or nonprofits will receive the pledged money; pledges are conditional and the pledgee is responsible for collecting the pledges (the pledger does not enter their credit card when they make a pledge).
If you are interested in using pledges for your event, you can view the full guide here: https://help.runsignup.com/support/solutions/articles/17000063211–set-up-pledges
Disable Individual Fundraisers
When this setting is checked and saved, you will prevent people from becoming fundraisers AND remove all individual and team fundraising capabilities from your existing fundraisers.