CrowdRise

This is one of the biggest nightmare sites. It doesn't get worse than this site. It took 3 days and 5 emails to get the donation site working. I think customer support has one person working 9-5. Good luck. There is no way to change change or edit photos or texts. Even pull up your site is difficult. Yuk, why did I not read reviews first.

Hello,
I am leaving this review here in case there is a Christmas angel in this corporation which would help me. CrowdRise purchased gofundme which means any issue occurring with gofundme is essentially a CrowdRise problem. I am helping my friend raise money for her son's emergency dental surgery. He has congenital rickets which leaves him in extreme pain and they have finally found a surgeon who can operate on his teeth. I have been raising money since the fall and now right before we were about to cash out the campaign the platform is missing. The funds are unable to be retrieved and her son has surgery next week. This feels criminal. It feels like negligence and abuse. I have written to GoFundMe 10 times in 2 days and there is NO response. I have escalated in to the BBB and their legal team but it is time for the company who purchased GoFundMe to get involved and help get our fundraiser back online so this poor kid can have his surgery next week,
Sincerely
Kimberly Johnston
Tofino, BC
Fundraiser which was deleted by GoFundMe:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/Dental-Emergency-Care-for-Sunny

Attached is a screen shot from someone named "Mac" at the company who assures our funds are still there but they are not. The whole page is gone including how to retrieve the funds.

The customer service rep on here is just repeating the same babble on every comment about the fees - rhetoric meant to make it seem like an 'option' to pay these fees - however guess what? Their story is, either you pay them or the charity, so see you have options! /s. Do yourself a favor and send the charity a check, venmo, paypal, or zelle so that they are REALLY getting 100% of your donation.

I'm trying to do a fundraiser for Stand Up For Cancer, and I tried to contact Crowdrise support about an issue regarding the fact that their software doesn't work with smartphones, and their response was that it does.
Unfreakingreal.
Even Stevie Wonder can see that Crowdrise doesn't work.
Stay far away from Crowdrise!

I committed some money to a very good cause (a child's dangerous heath condition) via this bad service, and paid a most obnoxious fee ($13.00) to make the donation. I had to commit as a matter of honor and duty to my family, but I find this sort of venture reprehensible. I am also struck by the irony, the only amusing aspect of this experience, of Ed Norton and his liberal sorts making a fortune off the group efforts, need, and pain of others with this incredibly capitalistic enterprise.

My organisation used this service and have yet to receive check. Its been two months, they route you through several different companies, such as Network for Good that sound great but don't deliver. I am now on hold waiting for 10+ minutes trying to speak with someone.

They refused to keep my organization on their profile just because I didn't send the 990 document when they have already had check the IRS which is the legal and appropriate way to check any tax status on anyone

Selling the dream. Dont buy the BS
In reality, the get started link leads to 2 options: start a fundraiser for a charity or individual. Neither link works right out the gate!
Then check out the privacy policy and actually read it. See if you can spot the redundant paragraphs that conveniently avoid disclosing their practices and policies. Quacks like a sham duck to us. Move on. Youll thank us later that you did.

When I found out they charged almost 9% to give to the charity of my choice, I decided to send a check. I can understand a $2 to $5 processing fee, but this is disgusting especially since they are supposed to serve non-profits.

You can donate to most non profits through PayPal for a lot less money.

I'm very unsure about how this works. I saw a story in our local paper about a new non-profit group trying to raise funds. Under this group's logo there are several other groups and individuals (several were from the same family!) I could not get a straight answer as to who was raising money for what, so I gave up. Is it accurate to say any individual (with or without the 501 c3 tax exempt status) could post a request and start asking for money? After these groups raise their individual sums of money, are they required to give it to the main group listed somewhere near the top? The fees being charged would seem to mean the family members would do better sticking together for one cause, right? I hope this makes sense enough to help me get some answers- but mostly, I hope it makes each and every donor read the fine print before giving to the charity of their choice. I worked for a non-profit agency and we did our own private fund-raising. The crowdwise type models would not have worked for us.

I wanted to send a donation to a charity, and crowdrise asked if I wanted to cover the fee so the donation receives 100% of the amount. The problem is they were asking 10%, while the charity told me their fee on crowdrise is 3%.

So where does the 7% goes? My guess crowdrise keeps it, which is probably legally fraud. I asked crowdrise to clarify and they just sent me an email saying their total fee with credit cards donations is about 10%.

They charged me $45 to make a $500 donation to a Children's Hospital. Absolutely disgusting. They should be investigated and have their tax standing pulled. Absolutely disgusting.

I was shocked to see not only a 6% but also a 2.9% and a per transaction fee for all GivingTuesday donations.

Save your charity some money and give to them directly! This is WAY TOO HIGH!

The fee structure that they advertise on their site is completely misleading. Everything that Richard has described below is still the case as of today, these fees have not changed as the Quintas representative below suggests and Sara is clearly a plant.

Crowdrise claims that they "guarantee" a 3% or better fee for the use of their platform. However, this is NOT what they ACTUALLY charge. They charge a fee of almost 9% on every single donation transaction. The way they make their claim is that donors can choose to pay for that 9% fee themselves or place it back on the organizer. Of course, many people that are kind enough to donate are willing to pay a little extra so ON AVERAGE the organizer is only left with 3% or less in fees. Someone is still paying the exorbitant 9%.

The worst part for me is that they pretend to be a philanthropic organization. I will forever avoid this website on principle alone for their false advertising and bait and switch approach. I suggest others do the same.

This company suspended a fundraising account for one of our family members with no prior notification. Based upon a complaint from a disgruntled person. It wasnt until we contacted crowdrise customer support twice, that our friends & family wasn't able to make a donation through their site for them to respond. The person who complained admittedly posted on their *******@Citxusa that they were able to get the donations page suspended. Crowdrise definitely has poor business practices & poor customer service..

The fees associated with this organization made me not want to contribute. I did this one time but will not do it again. Shameful!

I was about to donate through them to a CNN Hero 2016 until I saw their fee was 8 1/2 % of the total. They should be ashamed. I'll donate directly instead.

From the start I had nothing but grief trying to set up my fundraiser for a personal/individual reason. I only did one for myself as faced with needing legal help after domestic abuse and a liar/cheater/ fraud has financially crippled me and my sons. I turned to Crowdrise to help, but they actually made matters worse. My fundraiser had a raffle with it of something worth a lot of money. An Ali signed glove, so that if I raised the$5000 I was needing, I would raffle it to anyone who paid in increments of $20 getting more of their name in the raffle. I felt better that way in asking for money from my friends and family. It was hard enough to need this fundraiser and publicly do it on my Facebook post it anyway. They approved my Fundraiser and it seemed to get off after having trouble setting up
My bank account, which worried me that several times my personal info was submitted, and needed to be at least 3 times. Before it went through! Then once started, and I had thanked several donors/ friends... it all disappeared as showing no money donated, yet there should have bed. $250. Then a rep tells me. Ohhhh well "we pay" doesn't allow a raffle! Whaaaattt? You approved my fundraiser seeing I was having a raffle... Had to tell all my friends that their donations then did not go through as Crowdrise had said they did, why I sent them thank you's in the first place...

Crowdrise is totally incompatent! They have screwed up. My Husband and I are participating in the first T@T Climb at the freedom Tower. They have taken My Husband off the team and put all his donations to me>>WTH. I have spent day trying to fix with their online support FLACO! Still not right. The donors are pissed off. Making us look like fools NEVER AGAIN!

A $250 donation to a non-profit with a $25 fee to CrowdRise? I thought $3 to the ATM to get my cash was bad. Hope this isn't just going to increased CEO pay.

Crowdrise is absolutely, 100% the antithesis of transparent. The site obfuscates its FAQs and its guarantee.
I had to actually go to a donation page and make a donation to see how it really worked because the descriptions are not transparent.
If a donor wants to donate $100, the final donation page boosts it to $109.10. The recipient can edit that amount back down to $100. But apparently, the donor usually ends up donating the $109.10. So the recipient gets $100, and Crowdrise gets $9.10. But the donor actually gave $109.10. That means the fee is 8.34% ($9.10 out of $109.10).
But Crowdrise doesn't count that extra $9.10 in its calculations. So it claims this:
-------------------
CROWDRISE'S MISLEADING CLAIM
CrowdRise fees are super simple and lower than any other crowdfunding website around. $97 out of every $100 goes directly to your cause. Guaranteed. And, most fundraisers are getting up to $99 out of every $100. Pretty amazing.

If you're raising money for a cause, CrowdRise will guarantee 3% pricing (includes credit card fees). That means you keep at least $97 of every $100 you raise. For real. Nearly every other fundraising site will charge you at least 8%. Plus, there are no fundraising goal or deadline requirements so you keep what you raise.
--------------------

It is blatantly misleading to say the recipient gets 100% of the donations even if everyone increases their donations to cover their costs because the extra they give is part of their donation; you can't exclude the $9.10 as part of the donation in order to claim that 100% goes to the recipient.
This is my first time raising funds for someone. I would never use Crowdrise. I would never recommend it to anyone, and I would tell anyone who is using it to stop immediately.
If this type of marketing is not illegal in the United States, I would encourage people in other countries to sue Crowdrise.

I'm trying to donate $100 to a friend running in the Chicago marathon and Crowdrise are charging me over 10% in fees. Surely there are regulations around how much they get to take away from a charity? I really want to donate but I don't want to support these kind of unethical business practices.

Why do they discriminate in allowing some people to set up donation funds and don't allow others?