Force4Good or GroupRaise: Which fundraising platform is right for your restaurant?

White-labeling:

Force4Good: We’ve put a lot of effort into our white-label offerings to keep the focus on your brand. With custom branding that matches your own website’s look and feel, the average visitor may not even realize they aren’t on your business’ website. To keep a seamless experience, emails from the Force4Good platform between organizers and your restaurants come from your own domain. Lastly, only restaurants of the same brand are included on your own branded website, avoiding competition.

GroupRaise: At this time, white-labeling options are limited on the GroupRaise platform. The platform does provide a fundraiser web page for events, but with GroupRaise’s look and feel. Emails between fundraising partners and restaurants also come from GroupRaise instead of your own domain. When it comes to search, your restaurant will be listed amongst others in your geographic area, meaning you’ll compete with other local restaurants to find partners.

Marketing:

GroupRaise: The GroupRaise platform provides organizations a GroupRaise-branded fundraiser web page that features fundraiser information for the non-profit’s specific event. Fundraiser supporters can sign up to receive a reminder email, but only if they RSVP on the event page. The service also requires that fundraiser organizers have 20 guests RSVP before they can confirm their event, which introduces an extra hurdle for partners to overcome. 

Force4Good: Force4Good provides a white-labeled fundraiser web page with your branding, pre-filled social media sharing links, and fundraiser flyers in English and Spanish that your supporters can download directly and share. The web page also includes pre-filled driving directions to the restaurant to make sure no supporters have issues finding your location.

To help make your fundraisers even more successful, Force4Good also sends five email reminders that include crucial information on how to promote the fundraiser effectively, use the event flyers, and includes save-the-dates. We even provide a template for sending email blasts to supporters! There’s a reason why restaurants that make the switch to Force4Good typically see an increase of up to 35% in fundraiser turnout and an overall increase of up to 73% in fundraiser ROI! See our case studies to learn more.

Tax Support:

Force4Good: When it comes to validating tax information before a fundraiser, you definitely want to be sure your bases are covered. All organizations applying for fundraisers through Force4Good are tax-verified by the platform. Force4Good also collects IRS donor letters from all partners before issuing a check, equipping your restaurant with the resources to host fundraisers properly. 

GroupRaise: While GroupRaise does have a place for organizations to upload their tax documents, stores using GroupRaise don’t receive tax validation support from the platform and must determine for themselves the federal tax-exemption status of organizations that apply. This introduces a liability if due diligence isn’t followed to a T, as participating restaurants may be penalized by the IRS if information isn’t collected properly.

Automation:

GroupRaise: Automation options are limited with GroupRaise. Stores may load GroupRaise fundraiser promo codes into their own POS systems, but stores must still manually tally fundraiser sales and enter them into the platform themselves. Like tax information, businesses are also responsible for creating and delivering donation checks on their own, adding a considerable amount of effort. 

Force4Good: Automation is another strong suit for Force4Good. The platform is designed to configure with your store’s POS and existing online system and features a reusable promo code to capture fundraiser sales. And no need to manually add up sales – we use APIs to set up sales automation so fundraiser sales automatically flow to Force4Good. Just approve the sales amount and Force4Good takes care of the rest.

Couple these sales features with automated tax support, marketing assets, and admin portal to appreciate the full power of what Force4Good can do for your business. Our data shows that Force4Good may reduce your fundraiser administration time by a whopping 97%. 

Earlier this year, Force4Good also launched the Force4Giving charity, helping businesses make donations to charity easier than ever. Force4Giving takes on the admin work of making donations and handling customer support for issues like lost checks, bounced mail, and undeposited checks. Learn more.

Conclusion:

In this article we’ve discussed the main features and benefits of GroupRaise and Force4Good. While GroupRaise is a great platform to get started with, you may quickly find yourself looking for extra features to grow your fundraising program, handle complicated tax issues, and automate extra administrative work.

It’s also important to mention that any platform you decide to partner with to host fundraisers and make the world a better place is a great option. At Force4Good, we want more businesses to invest in giving back to those who need it.

Click here to learn about all of Force4Good’s features and how we can help build your fundraiser program – your business can give back and gain new customers at the same time. We’d also love to meet your team and walk you through a no-pressure demo. Happy fundraising!