Paying 3-5% platform fees on every donation processed through a third-party fundraising tool, on top of payment processing costs, when a custom platform would eliminate that ongoing overhead within two years?
Year-end campaign generating significant online traffic but a donor experience that isn't converting well because you can't control the page design, the suggested amounts, or the post-donation journey?
Online Fundraising Platform for Nonprofits
Custom online fundraising software for established nonprofits who need campaign pages, peer-to-peer fundraising, and recurring giving management under their own brand -- not a third-party platform that takes a fee from every donation and puts another organisation's logo on the thank-you page.
Generic fundraising platforms like Classy, Funraise, or GoFundMe Charity solve the basic problem. When your campaign complexity, event management needs, or recurring giving programme requires more control over the donor experience than those platforms allow, custom is the right approach.
Branded campaign donation pages with configurable suggested amounts, fund designation, and tribute giving
Peer-to-peer fundraising with supporter pages, team fundraising, and automated progress communications
Recurring giving management with flexible frequency, payment method updating, and lapsed giving re-engagement
Event fundraising with registration, ticket management, auction, and table sales for gala events
RaftLabs builds custom online fundraising platforms for nonprofits and NGOs. The platform covers branded campaign donation pages, peer-to-peer fundraising with supporter pages and team fundraising, recurring donation management, employer matching gift integration, event registration and gala management, and real-time campaign analytics. Most fundraising platform projects deliver in 12 to 16 weeks at a fixed cost.
100+Products shipped
·24+Industries served
·FixedCost delivery
·12-16Week delivery cycles
When the platform fee and the lack of brand control are costing more than building your own
Third-party fundraising platforms solve a real problem for organisations that need to raise money online quickly without a technology investment. The cost model becomes harder to justify as donation volume grows -- a 3-5% platform fee on $2 million in annual online giving is $60,000 to $100,000 per year that doesn't reach the mission. Beyond the cost, the experience problem is significant for larger organisations: your donors are giving on a page that carries another brand, with a user experience you can't fully control, redirected to a thank-you page that may prompt them to give to another organisation before they've finished with yours.
We build the fundraising platform that your organisation controls entirely -- the design, the donor journey, the recurring giving mechanics, and the data. We have built commerce and payment platforms with complex product types, recurring billing, and conversion-optimised checkout flows. The nonprofit fundraising context has its own requirements -- tribute giving, matching gifts, fund designation, tax receipts -- and we build for all of them.
What we build
Campaign donation pages
Campaign donation pages with full brand control -- your design system, your colours, your photography, and your copy -- rather than a third-party platform template that makes every organisation look similar. Suggested donation amounts configurable per campaign with impact statements explaining what each amount achieves. Fund designation for campaigns where donors can direct their gift to a specific programme, project, or region. Tribute giving with in-memory and in-honour options, notification to the tribute recipient or family, and tribute acknowledgement communications managed within the platform. Gift aid declaration capture for UK organisations with automatic eligibility check and declaration storage for HMRC compliance. Mobile-optimised checkout with minimal friction -- saved payment methods for returning donors, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and a three-step checkout that doesn't ask for information you don't need.
Peer-to-peer fundraising
Peer-to-peer fundraising platform where supporters create their own fundraising pages connected to your campaign, with your branding applied to every supporter page rather than the generic template of a third-party platform. Supporter onboarding with page creation in under two minutes, pre-populated text and images that supporters can personalise, and a share tool that distributes the page across their social networks at the point of creation. Team fundraising for challenge events, workplace giving campaigns, and school fundraisers where groups of supporters fundraise collectively under a team total. Fundraiser dashboard for supporters showing their progress against their goal, their donor list, and easy sharing tools to re-engage their network when momentum slows. Automated supporter communications -- milestone reached, first donation received, final push reminder -- triggered by fundraising activity rather than sent manually by your team. Leaderboard and challenge mechanics for campaigns where friendly competition between fundraisers or teams is part of the engagement model.
Recurring giving management
Recurring donation programme with flexible frequency options -- weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually -- and the donor's choice of payment method: card, direct debit, or digital wallet. Failed payment handling with automatic retry logic, notification to the donor with a payment update link, and escalation workflow for donors who don't update their payment method within the configured window. Recurring donor portal where donors can log in to view their giving history, update payment details, change their gift amount, or manage their giving frequency without contacting the development office. Lapsed recurring donor re-engagement: automated communications to donors whose recurring gift has lapsed with a personalised message and a one-click reactivation link. Recurring giving upgrade prompts at renewal anniversaries -- a pre-configured ask to increase the monthly amount by a suggested increment, sent at the anniversary of the donor's first recurring gift. Revenue forecasting from the recurring giving portfolio for finance and board reporting.
Matching gift management
Employer matching gift integration with the major matching gift databases -- Double the Donation, HEPdata -- to identify donors whose employers match charitable giving at the point of donation or in post-donation acknowledgement. Matching gift submission workflow for donors: the platform identifies the matching opportunity, provides the employer's submission link and instructions, and records when the employer match has been submitted and received. Unclaimed matching gift recovery programme for organisations with large annual fund volumes where a significant proportion of eligible matches are never submitted -- automated identification and outreach to eligible donors whose matches remain unclaimed. Corporate match tracking with employer, match ratio, submitted date, payment received date, and credit to the originating donor record for retention and relationship management purposes.
Event fundraising and auction management
Event fundraising with online registration, ticket sales, and table booking for galas, dinners, and fundraising events where table management and seating is part of the event coordination. Auction management for live and silent auctions -- item listing with description and starting bid, online bidding for virtual or hybrid events, bid tracking with automatic outbid notifications, and winner payment processing through the platform. Paddle raise and fund-a-need management for live gala events where attendees pledge gifts at the event, with the pledge recorded and payment collected through the platform rather than manually recorded on paper. Peer-to-peer integration for challenge events -- marathon, cycle, and swim fundraising -- where participants set personal targets and fundraise in advance of the event day. Post-event thank-you communications and tax receipt generation for all event-related transactions.
Analytics and donor journey optimisation
Campaign dashboard with real-time donation totals, donor count, average gift, conversion rate from page visit to completed donation, and traffic source attribution for digital campaigns. Abandonment tracking and recovery -- donors who start but don't complete a donation are identified and a recovery email with a pre-filled donation form is sent within the configured timeframe. A/B testing for campaign pages -- suggested amounts, hero images, impact statements, and CTA copy -- with statistical significance tracking so optimisation decisions are based on data rather than opinion. Donor journey mapping from first online visit through donation completion, acknowledgement, and next contact, with drop-off points identified for each campaign. Year-over-year campaign comparison with the metrics that matter for development staff reporting to board: total revenue, new donor acquisition, average gift, and recurring gift conversion rate.
Frequently asked questions
Third-party platforms charge a percentage of donations processed -- typically 2-5% of gross donation volume -- plus payment processing fees. At $500,000 in annual online giving, the platform fee alone is $10,000 to $25,000 per year, every year, regardless of any technology investment you make in the platform. A custom fundraising platform is a one-time development cost, typically $45,000 to $90,000, plus hosting and payment processing. The break-even point for most organisations with meaningful online giving volume is 2 to 4 years -- after which every year's worth of platform fees is saved. The additional benefits -- full brand control, direct ownership of donor data, no competitor prompts in your post-donation experience -- don't appear in the ROI calculation but are real and consistent.
Yes. Integration with the donor CRM is a core requirement for any fundraising platform, and we design the integration during discovery before a line of code is written. Every donation completed on the fundraising platform creates or updates the donor record in the CRM, posts the gift to the giving history, and triggers the acknowledgement workflow. Recurring gifts, matching gift receipts, and event registrations flow to the CRM through the same integration. The technical approach depends on your CRM's API capability -- we integrate with Salesforce, Raiser's Edge, Blackbaud, Bloomerang, and most mid-market nonprofit CRMs via their developer APIs. For CRMs without a direct API, we build a file-based integration or a custom connector.
Yes. Virtual and hybrid challenge events have specific requirements that differ from standard peer-to-peer fundraising -- activity tracking integration (connecting Strava, Fitbit, or Garmin data to the fundraising page to show progress toward a distance or activity target), live leaderboards that update as participants log activity, and team mechanics that aggregate individual activity data under a team total. We build the activity integration alongside the fundraising platform so the supporter's fundraising page shows both their fundraising progress and their activity progress in one view. For hybrid events where some participants are in-person and others are virtual, the platform manages both participation types under the same campaign framework.
A core fundraising platform covering branded campaign donation pages, recurring giving management, acknowledgement and tax receipt workflows, and CRM integration typically runs $45,000 to $80,000. Adding peer-to-peer fundraising with team mechanics and automated supporter communications typically adds $20,000 to $35,000. A full platform including peer-to-peer, event management, auction, and matching gift integration typically runs $90,000 to $150,000. We price every project at a fixed cost agreed before development starts. Payment processing fees -- typically 1.5-2.9% of each transaction -- are charged by the payment processor (Stripe, Braintree, or your existing processor) rather than by us.
