Give Smart, Episode 4
For fundraising platforms, the customer experience can feel simple even when there is a lot happening behind the scenes.
In this episode of Give Smart, Kathleen Neuheardt, CFO at Bonfire, joins Change to talk about what it takes to support nonprofit fundraising at scale, from managing payouts and financial operations to keeping the experience easy for organizations using the platform.
Bonfire helps individuals and organizations raise money through custom merchandise campaigns.
For nonprofits, that creates another way to engage supporters and generate funding without managing every part of the transaction themselves.
Kathleen talks about the operational side of making that experience work, including the systems needed to support a large number of organizations, campaigns, and payments at once.
As a fundraising platform grows, so does the complexity behind each campaign.
Bonfire has to keep track of nonprofit partners, transactions, refunds, fees, and payouts while making sure organizations receive the right amount at the right time.
That makes finance an important part of the customer experience. A campaign may be successful from a fundraiser’s perspective, but the job is not finished until the money has been reconciled and delivered correctly.
One of the challenges for platforms like Bonfire is creating processes that work across thousands of different organizations without making every nonprofit go through an unnecessarily complicated experience.
Standardized onboarding, reliable nonprofit information, and clear payout processes can help platforms scale while keeping the front-end experience straightforward.
Change supports Bonfire with infrastructure for nonprofit verification, payouts, and compliance so its team can spend less time on repetitive operational work.
You can read more about the partnership in the Bonfire and Change announcement.
One of the biggest takeaways from Kathleen’s conversation is that the infrastructure behind a fundraising platform matters just as much as the campaign experience users see.
When verification, financial operations, and payouts work smoothly, nonprofits can focus more of their time on fundraising and less on the administrative work behind it.
Watch the full episode above to hear Kathleen discuss Bonfire’s approach to nonprofit fundraising, financial operations, and scaling the platform.
Explore more conversations with leaders building new approaches to giving in the Give Smart video series.
