Building the Ultimate DIY Fundraising Tech Stack: From Chaos to Control
If you are managing DIY supporters who create their own fundraising pages, doing their own thing, on their own timeline, a consolidated solution can take your entire process — from registration to page creation to activation — and make it manageable.
Right now, most DIY processes involve multiple disconnected tools: registration forms here, fundraising pages there, and email platforms somewhere else. No data flowing between all of those places, automatically. GivePanel DIY is built specifically for community fundraising teams who want to provide a high-quality experience for DIY supporters — without the manual workload that usually comes with it. Across five core areas, it brings those elements together.
1. Frictionless Onboarding with Custom, Embedded Forms
To stop losing supporters halfway through the sign-up process, you need to reduce friction by providing registration forms directly on your website.
- Embed directly for brand trust: Generate simple iFrame code to embed responsive forms directly on your own site. This keeps supporters in a consistent experience on your website, increasing trust and maintaining brand consistency.
- High-converting custom fields: Fully customise your registration forms for a DIY campaign, including fields for Event Type, Event Dates, Fundraising Target, and whether supporters are fundraising Solo or as a Group.
- Built-in efficiencies: Forms feature address lookup and validation, mobile and desktop optimised design, and trigger automated confirmation emails on completion.
2. Multi-Platform One-Step Registration
Your supporters can register and have their fundraising page created — on the platform that works best for them — in a single step.
- Let supporters choose: Offer multiple fundraiser options, allowing supporters to activate pages on JustGiving, Facebook, or GoFundMe simultaneously with their registration.
- Best-in-class integration: The system is optimised for JustGiving with a best-in-class integration, but supports multiple platforms side-by-side.
- Data-driven decisions: Offering choice allows you to test which platform performs best for your unique audience.
3. Smart Match for “Invisible” Organic Fundraisers
One of the biggest leaks in DIY fundraising is when supporters go directly to a platform like JustGiving without registering on your site first.
- Capture everyone: Smart Match automatically identifies and captures JustGiving DIY supporters who bypassed your registration form, so they can be stewarded properly.
- Close the data gap: This ensures complete programme visibility — no missing fundraisers and accurate reporting.
- Spot the VIPs: It also gives you the ability to identify and nurture all high-value supporters.
4. Automated, Trigger-Based Email Journeys
Once a supporter is registered, you need to communicate the right way about the right thing to inspire them to raise more — without doing it manually.
- Segment your audience: Send the right message to the right people by filtering audiences based on Event Type and/or in-memory status.
- Time-based triggers: Schedule time-based triggers, such as sending a message exactly one day before an event start date.
- Milestone triggers: Set up amount or percentage-based triggers for targets, celebrating with supporters the moment they hit £25 after a certain number of days.
5. All Your Data in One Central Dashboard
You can’t optimise what you can’t see. View all fundraising data for your campaigns in one place.
- Track what matters: Keep an eye on key metrics and conversion rates in a single dashboard — easily track your Activation Rate (e.g., 96.7%) or your Marketing Opt-in percentage (e.g., 84%).
- Visualise the funnel: Use graph and funnel views to compare performance across multiple platforms like Facebook, GoFundMe, and JustGiving.
- Share easily: Need to report to your board or team? Simply export your dashboard views to PDF.
By bringing these elements into a single connected programme, your supporters get a consistent experience that keeps them on your charity’s website — and your team gets the visibility to act on the data. Most importantly, it’s designed to free you up for what really matters: nurturing your high-value fundraisers and growing your programmes.
Next Steps
Every charity is at a different stage with their DIY fundraising. Some organisations might have larger budgets and more resources, while others are at the very beginning of their journey. You might have some parts of your programme working well while other parts are struggling, or perhaps you’re reading this and recognising the roadblocks we’ve described as ones your team encounters every day.
Whatever your situation, the first step is to simply reflect. Take stock of your current processes and systems to identify exactly where you can improve.
If you’re ready to move away from disconnected platforms and build a more connected DIY programme, book a free demo of GivePanel DIY at givepanel.com/diy-demo — whether you want to see how it fits your specific charity or just want some advice on improving your current programme.